I Heart CMS's

You know what would make me a more pro-active, effective librarian? If I had access to the syllabi, assignments and reading lists of the classes in the Communication Studies department. You know what would be even cooler? If I had the ability to e-mail all the students in a class to let them know I was available to help. If I could put a link to a course-specific subject guide specially made for them into their Blackboard/WebCT/CTools site.

Wouldn't it be great if I had all that access? If I had that kind of access, I wouldn't need to rely on faculty to pass along messages from me or add links to library resources...

Oh wait. I do have the access!

This semester, CTools (an implementation of Sakai) unveiled the 'Librarian' role. If a faculty member adds me to their CTools site in this role, I have the permissions to edit the class site I need to connect students with the help and resources they need for their classes.

Every COMM class has a CTools site - each of those sites has at minimum the syllabus, and most have all of the assignments and readings students are required to do right there. Here's what I can do:

• I can read the syllabus to get an idea of what each class covers.
• I can see all the assignments my students are going to be graded on.

How does this help?

• I can create course-specific subject guides (example, example, example) that identify the best resources for a class's focus, scope and subject matter.
• I can plan librarian with a latte sessions that fall in the days before assignment deadlines.

I also have access to edit the CTools site. How does this help?

• I can put a link to the aforementioned subject guides in the CTools site (see screenshot).
• I can put in a link to our library's chat reference service.
• I can e-mail students when a librarian with a latte session happens.

If your institution lets you do this kind of thing, do it! I'm wondering what my new institution's course management system is, and if I'll be able to do the same things...