Registrar helps UW–Madison Libraries expand student services
This summer the Office of the Registrar and UW–Madison Libraries worked closely together to implement a way to identify undergraduate students who are in fully-online programs to ensure they receive the appropriate, remotely-delivered, resources from the university library. UW–Madison Libraries currently offer remote delivery to all faculty, graduate students, and staff, but this will now include undergraduates in online programs, once students are validated and appropriate communications have been sent. Until then, undergrads are ineligible.
Being able to offer remote delivery of the resources for undergraduates hinged on being able to identify them in online-only programs, that’s where the Office of the Registrar stepped in. Previously, UW–Madison was not indicating online learners as part of the data fed to the central data reporting (CDR) feed. This was different from other UW System libraries who are already providing indicated information of online learners to the CDR. Heather Hollister in the RO worked with DoIT and Library campus partners to implement a query to identify fully-online students and indicate them in the System CDR feed, subsequently this information is then used to inform the UW-Libraries which students need virtual services.
There was back-and-forth discussion between UW–Madison Libraries and the RO to define an “online learner.” It was decided that the online student indicator would demarcate a student in a fully-online degree major as indicated in SIS. Using major classification, instead of course section modality, accounts for the fact that online learners might be enrolled in directed study/independent research courses which might appear meeting as in-person in SIS.
Once the indication was defined, it identified 1,394 undergraduate students that are eligible to receive services from UW–Madison Libraries. Library instruction and support varies depending on the course, but there are multiple services that can be enhanced by identifying online students. One example is the Library Dashboard in Canvas. This service appears automatically in all courses and is customized by reading SIS data. With the new indicator for students in online programs, the university is able to customize the content shown to best fit their needs.