FYI France: Digital Convergence, in Education?

[Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>]

FYI France: Digital Convergence, in Education?

"Education Convergence"... for teaching physical geology, or
anything else, to anyone, all over the globe... 3 ingredients:

1) Online Reference Service

For an interesting new example of online reference service:

	* Guichet du Savoir -- Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon
	http://www.guichetdusavoir.org/GdS/

	"You have a question? We have the answer!

	"What questions? All, on any subject!
	"Who replies? Library professionals!
	"How soon? Maximum 72 hours!
	"How much? It's free, and open to all!"
	"And Online Chat: 1-6pm -- Wednesdays and Saturdays!"

-- a leading library in France -- its new online digital
reference service...


Online Digital Reference service itself is not a new idea. Since
the early 1990s, librarians on econferences such as BIBLIO-FR and
PACS-L have described projects to offer reference service via
email. With the general development of Digital Libraries, these
projects have turned into sophisticated and successful document
delivery and research efforts, at many institutions.

Descriptions of this online digital reference service history
abound, on the Nets. Bernie Sloan's is the leading compilation:

	* Bernie Sloan's Digital Reference Pages
	http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~b-sloan/bernie.htm

	* Digital Reference Services Bibliography
	http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~b-sloan/digiref.html

Along the way, several fundamental operational problems have been
dealt with by different institutions in different ways: for example --

	1) *Too many "computer" questions.* Early online
reference service efforts were inundated with technical questions
regarding how to logon, how to navigate the Web, computer
operation, passwords, glitches. The librarians _thought_ they
were going to receive substantive research inquiries, but instead
they became "computer plumbers": sort of the digital analog, some
commented, to the many "where are the toilets?" questions
received historically at the reference desk... The problem has
abated, somewhat, as the users have become more sophisticated
about "computers", and as the systems themselves have become more
user-friendly; but, still, these form a large percentage of the
questions received.

	2) *Too many "commercial" questions.* Commercial firms
and professional inquiries, too, can inundate an online reference
service. Also from the beginning, the librarians had vast lists
submitted to them from firms in need of data for their work,
firms very able to pay for a service being offered for free to
the general community. Gradually solutions have been developed:
fee-for-service for document delivery, limits to inquiry sizes,
accounting systems. But abuse of the free service, by lawyers and
accountants and commercial firms, continues to be an online
reference service problem: "I need the names and addresses and
gross receipts of all of the electrical firms in the city..." --
not the sort of "reference question" contemplated originally.

	3) *Too many questions, period.* Managing the followup,
and the backlog, arising from sheer call-volume becomes a
challenge for any sort of "customer service" operation, whether
commercial or government or public service. If the users are not
handled efficiently, they will go elsewhere or stop calling. And
too many users degrade efficiency quickly. The system design
necessities, for such an operation, nearly always are under -
estimated: in practice, "call tickets" get lost, calendars get
confusing, followup gets delayed or forgotten, someone always
thinks someone else was supposed to do it... And then the
"backlog" begins to build... The service must be designed, from
the beginning, to treat each caller very specially, because that
is how the caller sees herself: it being true in service, as in
business, that "the customer is king".

	4) *Confidentiality.* And since its beginnings threats
posed by online reference to library service confidentiality,
real or imagined, have been major concerns. The ease with which
supposedly "secure" library user records may be penetrated makes
headlines daily, now: both by implication, with the constant
stream of "hacker" and "virus" and "worm" headlines offered by
the news media, and also directly, as governments and politicians
become increasingly concerned with "terrorism". What formerly was
considered sacrosanct and beyond reach, in confidentiality, is
not so any longer. This increasing worry applies to all records,
digital or otherwise, but online digital reference service must
consider it at least no less than any other.

To these "fundamental four" many other problems posed by online
digital reference service might be added. Complete lists might
best be compiled by mining through Bernie Sloan's entries,
mentioned above. Online reference service efforts nevertheless
are increasing: as so they should, as they offer answers to many
of the fundamental questions now being asked about both library
service generally and about the future of digital information.

Digital information has grown, as predicted, to the point where
"information overload" has become a problem for all of us: and
even well past that point, for many of us -- as "The Police" put
it in their song, now a long time ago,

	Too much information running through my brain
	Too much information driving me insane

And as the users increasingly need help, so do the librarians.
The quest for a role in the new digital information world has
been answered in the generality by the Digital Library concept.
But so far this is just a concept: in execution, the digital
library idea has taken such a variety of approaches as still to
be undefinable -- some things that are "digital" have become
"libraries", and some things that are "libraries" have become
"digital", but beyond that there is not much common ground, yet.

Whatever form or forms the future Digital Library will take,
however, it seems that there will be room of some sort in it for
Online Reference Service: that is what "librarians" will be
doing, in large part, in the coming years -- not all librarians,
but hopefully a lot of them, and at any rate more than are now.


At the BM Lyon, for example, their Online Reference Service model
is a sophisticated one:

	* "What questions?"

	"You may pose any question of a documentary nature or
	relative to a request for information or an item of
	information. We will deliver precise replies to you or
	offer you avenues of research which really will work.

	"Of course, we cannot do your schoolwork or research for
	you, much less offer medical or legal consultations to
	you. And we can't help you out on a quiz-show contest!
	But in all cases the best avenues for your own research
	at least will be suggested.

	"Questions about the library or about your own library
	records should be addressed to the library's public
	service desk... The more precise your question can be,
	the more satisfying to you will be our reply. And please
	let us know the context of your question." [all tr. JK]

[The BM Lyon appears to have anticipated the general online
digital reference pitfalls outlined above. Their considerable
experience in reference must have taught them, above all, to
"get the users to hone down the question".]

	* "Who replies? Library professionals!"

	"Only the professional librarians themselves, of the
	Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, will be responding to
	you..."

[France has the same problem which the US and other places do,
now, in the de-professionalization of many positions: there, too,
student aides and part-timers and other non-professionals
increasingly perform many library functions, including "answering
the fones..." So this is a "quality assurance": that in fact this
Online Digital Reference service is going to be taken seriously,
by the BMLyon, and that real professionals will be putting their
minds and training and experience to work on a user's question.]

	* "How soon?"

	"As soon as you send your question, the library professionals
	will embark on replying to you within three days maximum.
	You will be sent the reply to your question via email."

[The nub of the operational challenge, for the service: how to
manage the workflow smoothly, internally -- so that followup
in fact takes place, and so that backlogs do not build...]

	* "How much? It's free, and open to all!"

	"It is not necessary to be a cardholder of the
	Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, nor to live in any
	particular geographic locality..."

[This is at once the greatest challenge and the greatest promise,
perhaps, of this new service... The BMLyon has a unique mandate,
among libraries, in that there are few equivalents to a French
"bibliothèque municipale" to be found elsewhere in the world: a
"city library" with enormous, and rich, and very ancient
collections -- but one also offering public lending, and
children's services, and branch libraries and other outreach.

Other nations have national libraries, similar in intent to the
Bibliothèque Nationale in France, and others have magnificent
"rare book" collections and "public library" institutions as
well. But few have many libraries which combine all of these
functions, and few are so well-endowed as is the BMLyon.

This said, every place has its limits: the Internet can put
people in Tasmania in touch, now, with the BMLyon librarians --
who protest that they can handle inquiries in languages other
than their own -- assuming that the BMLyon can do this, then,
this effort could be the beginning of a major initiative in
purveying the riches of "la francophonie" to the world... and it
is to some extent a grand experiment in the multi-cultural and
even the trans-national (see more below)...]

	* "And Online Chat: 1-6pm -- Wednesdays and Saturdays!"

	"Open from April 7, to gather in your questions and give
	you information, a supplement to the general service...
	And, since April 3 and the Fête de l'Internet, the BM
	Lyon has opened an Information Mega-Chat, from 10am to
	6-pm, so now you can talk direct to all of the library
	professionals."

[I happen to be active on The WELL / the Whole Earth 'Lectronic
Link: that was one of the first Internet "forum" structures
(1985), and it still is operating very efficiently. Now in our US
Presidential election year, this year, all of the candidates'
campaigns are trying out "forum" and "blog" and "chat" and other
forms of digital groupings and communication structures.

And I am a fan, of the "forum" format, as this usually is
organized around topics of common interest: to discipline the
terrible "topic drift" which distracts and ultimately destroys
"blog" and "chat" and other less-focussed digital techniques.
People are busy: they do not all have time to "blog" and "chat".

A fan of Listserv econferences too, for this same reason: I still
am on PACS-L and Exlibris and of course BIBLIO-FR, and a few
others. The discipline exerted by their "topic" orientation, and
by a good "moderator", can be absolute necessities.

Interesting as well the combination of the two: this way the BM
Lyon will reach _both_ the users who have "random minds" -- who
generate their best ideas through "chatting", digitally or
otherwise -- _and_ the users who have "specific questions", the
savants out there.

This is, sort of, the "browsing" versus "known item" distinction
in information science...]


So the BMLyon has the right idea here, I believe: online digital
reference service, structured but apparently flexible enough, so
far, to embrace alternative communications approaches as varied
as the web and email and chat and structured "forum"
econferencing. Resources for users / outreach for librarians.


2) Online Texts

Now for a fascinating new example of online text presentation, see:

	"Dynamic Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology"
	Brian J. Skinner, Yale University
	Stephen C. Porter, University of Washington
	Jeffrey Park, Yale University
	ISBN 0-471-15228-5; Fifth Edition, (Wiley, ©2004)

-- particularly its,

	Instructor Companion Site
  	Student Companion Site

	http://he-cda.wiley.com/WileyCDA/HigherEdMultiTitle.rdr?name=skinner

-- this is the latest edition of one of the leading texts in
earth science / earth systems science / physical geology, in use
all over the US -- and a Website, hosted by the book's publisher,
offering extensive online digital materials supplementing,
reinforcing, and extending the message of the printed text.

Professor Skinner and his team offer online now, to student
readers of the famous "physical geology" text -- in fact now to
any readers, anywhere... --

	* "Flash Cards" -- key terms definitions to flip through.

	* "Drag and Drop Activities" -- graphical question/answer
	   exercises.

	* "Animations" -- videoclip illustrations of concepts.

	* "Virtual Field Trips" -- links to fun scripted geology
	   site visits which will inspire generations of real
	   trips, and plenty of reference questions...

	* "Essay Questions" -- acres of self-testing...

	* "Readings" -- links to voluminous online sources
	   offering far more detail and background than any
	   geology student, or geologist, ever could absorb.

	* "Careers in GeoScience" -- career-counseling online --
	   when I think of how often career-counseling gets
	   entirely omitted, in academic instruction generally
	   and certainly in an individual class...

	* "Learning and Studying Tools" -- links to "basics" --
	  such as "Effective reading", "Essay writing", "The best
	  way to take notes", "The day of the exam: how to be
	  ready" -- again, all so often taken for granted...

	* "Chapter Summaries" -- detailed yet manageable.

	* "Web Quizzes" -- _more_ acres of self-testing...

	* "Web Links" -- the major online sites in the subject.

	* "Lecture Notes" -- detailed & illustrated reinforcement.

	* "Photo Galleries" -- some really stunning photos.

-- and instructors even may obtain online, in addition, from
their own password-protected "instructors' site" so that they
actually may use these in class --

	* PowerPoint Slides
	* Image Library
	* Computerized Test Bank
	* Essay Questions

	http://he-cda.wiley.com/WileyCDA/HigherEdMultiTitle.rdr?name=skinner


** And both of these -- the new site offering online reference
service, which happens to be in France, and the new site offering
this online text, which happens to be in the US -- now can be
reached from anywhere...

** So now, for a moment, consider the impact upon education of a
_combination_ of the two...


3) Online Instruction

And, in further addition, interesting new examples of online
instruction: there is a rapidly-expanding global market in online
distance education emerging now, as well -- for instance, from a
consortium of Oxford & Stanford & Yale --

	* ALL / Alliance for Lifelong Learning
	http://www.alllearn.org/

	"AllLearn offers over fifty online courses from Oxford,
	Stanford, and Yale Universities. Courses are available to
	anyone -- anywhere and at any time. Expert online instructors
	help you to explore fully the readings and lectures and
	share in lively discussions with your classmates..."

and from MIT --

	* OpenCourseWare: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

	"Welcome to MIT's OpenCourseWare: a free and open
	educational resource for faculty, students, and self -
	learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to
	advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in
	the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence,
	innovation, and leadership. With the publication of 700
	courses, MIT OCW offers educational materials from 33
	academic disciplines and all five of MIT's schools..."

and from newer institutions --

	* The University of Phoenix
	http://www.phoenix.edu/

	"At University of Phoenix, you can earn your bachelor's,
	master's or doctoral degree any way you want to -- on
	campus, online, or in certain areas using a combination
	of both... University of Phoenix has grown to be the
	nation's largest private university, specializing in the
	education of working adults by offering degree programs
	that are highly relevant, accessible, and efficient. With
	over 100 campuses and learning centers in the United
	States, Puerto Rico, Canada and via the Internet, you can
	complete your degree no matter where you live, what hours
	you work, or how often you travel or relocate..."

and older "distance education" / "lifelong learning" pioneers --

	* The Open University
	http://www.open.ac.uk/

	"The Open University admitted its first students in 1971.
	It is the UK's largest university, with over 200,000
	students and customers. Courses are available throughout
	Europe and, usually by means of partnership agreements
	with other institutions, in many other parts of the
	world. About 26,000 learners are studying OU courses
	outside the UK..."


4) Combinations... and a role for librarians(?)...

The Distance Education boat is leaving port, I believe, and my
only question is whether any librarians will be on it...

As the world "globalizes", and as its industrial structure
fundamentally changes, one clearly-emerging common thread is the
growing need for "continuing education" and "lifelong learning".

-- all of this very much to be conducted "at a distance" -- at,
more generally, the convenience of the paying student rather than
of the instructor or institution... just as "universities" were
designed originally, back in the European middle ages... the
"customer" perhaps once again is to be "king", in education...

There is less and less room, any longer, for the rigidities of
19th and 20th century static and tiered education, a process
which "begins" at one point and very firmly "ends" at another.

In a high-turnover and very insecure new jobseeking world, then
-- one in which positions terminate every two years, and entire
fields and personal careers may "flip" several times during an
individual's lifetime -- "continuing education" has become one of
our postmodern workforce necessities. And if our populations all
are "ageing", then until our societies decide to provide better
for those "aged", that education had better be "lifelong", too...

In this new paradigm there ought to be room for librarians. The
vast online and other information resources -- of online global
classrooms such as those offered now by the Alliance for Lifelong
Learning, or of digital texts such as that of Professor Skinner's
in physical geology, both of which now can be reached from
anywhere via a simple mouseclick -- are certainly no less
confusing to users than were the printed book information systems
for which the older librarianship was designed. The digital world
needs information mediators and moderators and navigators, too.

Let these be services such as the BM Lyon's new "Guichet de
Savoir", then: online digital reference service, like this, needs
to be propagated widely, and expanded greatly -- integrated, with
the online texts and online classes offered in the new distance
learning trends.

I would anticipate, for example, increasing coordination and even
full integration of the three emerging worlds: of the BM Lyon's
"Guichet de Savoir", and Professor Skinner's "physical geology",
and the Alliance for Lifelong Learning's course offerings --
Online Reference Service, and Online Texts, and Online
Instruction -- as these three digital worlds continue to evolve,
and become more aware of one another.

The student, in Hobart Tasmania or Akademgorodok Russia or
wherever, needs access: to her teachers, to her texts, to her
librarians.


Jack Kessler, kessler@well.com

ps. Interestingly this activity is trans-national:

	"Transnational relations and world politics." Edited by
	Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (Cambridge,
	Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 1972.)

-- independent, somewhat already and definitely increasingly, of
the "nation-states" which make so many of the negative headlines
which most of us read nowadays. In a "click 'n educate" world,
the nationality of students and instructors and resources need
not have the ties, perhaps, to traditional nation-states and
politics from which traditional education so often suffers.

In terms of digital access, at least, online distance education
can reach, and be reached by, any student wherever located.
Intellectual and financial access may pose difficulties, as might
the quality and even nature of course content. The provision of
the education as a transnational service might, as well: although
one would hope that nowadays the education of anyone, anywhere,
would be in the collective interests of all of us on the planet.

But these are questions deserving current research. The current
providers are experimenting with them. At least students -- any,
anywhere -- now have resources online from which they can learn,
about such questions as well as others. And now they always can
ask their online reference librarians...


				--oOo--


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