The NCC's Electronic-Resource Training Workshops: Meeting the Demand for Hands-On User-Training in Japanese Electronic Materials for Teaching and Research


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Overview of the Project

The North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC) requests the Japan Foundation's support for a series of workshops we are calling the NCC's E-Resource Training Workshops. The long-term objective of this project is to make comprehensive hands-on training in Japanese digital materials available to faculty and students in all parts of the country for use in teaching and research in Japanese studies. By working with regional groups which will co-sponsor workshops and provide considerable in-kind support, this project will effectively leverage the funding received to the benefit of the field of Japanese studies as a whole.

This effort began during FY 2004-05 when the Japan Foundation generously provided the lead funding for the first year, the Training the Trainers (T-3) Workshops. Year-One progressed according to plan. First we educated 33 librarian-instructors in the best practices for offering hands-on training to faculty and students; and second we began to develop a Regional Training Network (RTN) to extend training from librarians to end-users. By the end of this fiscal year the NCC will be poised to launch the E-Resource Training Workshops offered in locations around North America.

The NCC has three principal goals for fiscal year 2005-06:

  1. to offer up to ten E-Resource Training Workshops employing the 33 librarian-instructors trained in the T-3 Workshops;
  2. to develop (on the NCC web site) a web-based archive of lesson plans for training faculty and students created by the instructors, augmented by a series of online tutorials and user guides offering instruction about a broad range of systems and formats for digital information; and
  3. to establish an internet-based discussion group led by T-3-trained instructors, to assist other librarians and faculty who are developing instructional resources, and to answer questions from users and to offer further help on electronic resources in Japanese studies. In this effort we will be building on our experience with AskEASL (As an East Asian Studies Librarian) in which the NCC has collaborated since 2000.

Background and Necessity

Digital resources are transforming the kinds of Japanese information now available for teaching and research. These materials offer access to an enormous body of Japanese scholarship available to users via their personal computers. With training, Japanese studies faculty and students without access to major Japanese Studies collections can now tap this wealth of resources. Reaching such "isolated" scholars - as well as those affiliated with major graduate programs - is one of the NCC's central missions. However, gaining access, learning to navigate the vast range of sites, and becoming a proficient users of these resources requires specialized and personalized instruction.

Japanese and East Asian studies librarians are the gateways to this ever expanding frontier of digital information. Over the past decade, the work of Japanese studies librarians has expanded far beyond traditional roles of providing reference assistance on print and micro-form resources and developing comprehensive collections. Japanese studies librarians today must also become experts on the rapidly expanding number and range of electronic resources and must perfect their hands-on instructional skills in order to teach their faculty and students how to make use of this new wealth of information.

The hands-on training needed to learn to use these new resources proficiently requires a minimum of several hours of small group or individualized training by expert instructors. Now, with the availability of 33 T-3-trained instructional librarians who specialize in Japanese and East Asian studies, the NCC is poised to launch E-Resource Training Workshops on a national basis.

Project Objectives

As stated in paragraph one, the long-term objective of this project is to make comprehensive training in Japanese digital materials available to faculty and students in all parts of the country for use in their teaching and research. .

During 2005-06 the NCC will organize up to ten E-Resource Training Workshops taught by two-person teams drawn from the pool of 33 T-3-trained librarians. The NCC will act as the clearinghouse for requests from potential hosting organizations. Working with the Regional Training Network (RTN) Steering Committee, we will identify institutions with appropriate facilities and technology for offering workshops and faculty and administrators who will act as regional coordinators at locations where E-Resource Training Workshops can be offered.

E-Resource Training Workshops will be offered at regional AAS Meetings, Regional Japan Seminars, meetings of the Japan and East Asian sections of larger scholarly associations such as the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, the American Anthropological Association, the Modern Language Association, or the American Sociological Association. The NCC will also work with the Asian studies programs of individual universities, with the Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ), and with regional graduate student conferences to develop appropriate formats for E-Resource Training Workshops for their groups.

Once the grant is received the NCC will begin an electronic campaign to announce the availability of E-Resource Training Workshops and promote the need for such training among the many faculty who have yet to become fully aware of the potential for use of electronic materials in the classroom. The promotional effort will raise awareness among faculty of the ease with which digital materials can be incorporated into their teaching and can greatly expand their research capabilities without leaving their home campus. The E-Resource Training Workshops will offer a range of options geared to trainee familiarity with electronic materials, and the content of individual workshops can be tailored to the disciplinary and subject interests of the members of given groups.

Expected Result

The E-Resource Training Workshops will improve the access of faculty and student to hands-on training in the use and expert navigation of electronic resources for teaching and research. The NCC's E-Resource Training project will offer instruction following the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education created by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL, a division of the American Library Association, the ALA). The project will provide ongoing support to both users and librarian-instructors through the web-based materials being developed. These include a series of new and highly integrated online resources linking lesson plans just being developed with existing tutorials such as the EASL Guides series and online help options like AskEASL (the Ask an East Asian Studies Librarian online reference service). Such previously existing materials will be updated and fully adapted to the ACRL standards. In addition the electronic discussion group based on the NCC website will answer questions, introduce resources, offer navigational tips, and help plan future workshops.

Ultimately this project will lead to greater use of digital resources by Japanese studies faculty and students at all levels of higher education and in all areas of study. Because this project makes use of both a flexible regional approach to offering workshops and the creation of internet-based interest groups focused on these materials, this project will be especially valuable to those working in smaller and more isolated institutions throughout the US, which will greatly expand the impact of the Japan Foundation's investment in this project.

Evaluation

The e-resources that are the focus of this training are constantly changing. Therefore the process of evaluation must be ongoing and fluid. Future evaluations will build upon the evaluation instruments developed for the T-3 Workshop and will be revised as the body of resources taught changes and as the focus or format of the workshops is adapted to different user-groups, disciplinary methodologies, and venues of instruction.

During Year One of this project the NCC created several instruments for evaluation:

  1. Trainees in the T-3 Workshops were asked to provide written evaluations of each workshop and to provide detailed feedback to the instructors. That information has been used to more tightly focus the second T-3 Workshop which will be held at Duke University in January 2005;
  2. Each of the T-3 Workshops trainees received individual critiques from the two T-3 instructors of the lesson plans and presentations each trainee made at the workshop;
  3. A series of evaluation forms is being created for those who will take part in future E-Resource Training Workshops; and
  4. Forms are being created for completion by workshop coordinators to advise the NCC on ways to improve the presentations, the facilities, and the access to technology, to constantly improve E-Resource Training Workshops over time.

Now the NCC is developing evaluation instruments that focus on the logistics of workshop coordination and presentation and on the intellectual content of workshops themselves.

  1. A series of preparatory checklists will help site coordinator plan for events, and each site coordinator will be asked for post-workshop evaluations to help the NCC further improve workshop logistics.
  2. E-Resource Training Workshops participants will be asked to complete evaluations of each workshop, and instructors will be asked to suggest new materials to be included in future syllabi and other ways to improve workshops.
  3. The two information literacy and training specialists from the T-3 Workshops, Emily Werrell and Sharon Domier, will supervise the content of all materials being developed; and
  4. The E-Resources electronic discussion group will be a forum for raising questions about problems encountered and will provide ongoing opportunities for further evaluation of the project.

Methods of Operation

During FY 2005-06 the NCC proposes to offer up to ten E-Resource Training Workshops. Those workshops will take place in various regions of the country, will be focused on a range of teaching, research, and disciplinary needs, and will be taught for groups with varying degrees of Japanese language skill and computer familiarity. Each workshop will be co-taught by a team of two T-3 trained instructors using the growing library of lesson plans begun at the T-3 Workshops. The E-Resource Training Workshops will be jointly coordinated by the NCC and the hosting institutions, calling upon the advice of the NCC's RTN Steering Committee, co-chaired by Michael Smitka and Frank Chance.

The NCC has already been in contact with regional groups and institutions that will host workshops during FY 2005-06. Because we want to have the flexibility to offer other workshops during FY 2005-06 and to be able to respond to new requests, our goal is to keep several potential slots open until after the beginning of the grant year.

Upon receipt of the grant the NCC will post notices on H-Japan, Eastlib, Japan Art History Forum (JAHF), Easianth, and other Japan and East Asian-focused discussion groups to announce the launching of the E-Resource Training Workshops and to promote the opportunities for teaching and research that such training can provide. Organizations wishing to host a workshop will contact the NCC and its RTN steering committee will screen applicants. Our goal is to each year offer a geographical and topical distribution of workshops including those at the most introductory and more advanced levels of computer and Japanese language expertise.

Thus far seven potential workshop venues are under discussion; please see the schedule of activities section for further details.

Planned workshops include: 1) AsiaNetwork, a group of faculty who teach about Asia in small liberal arts colleges throughout the US which has asked the NCC to offer an introductory level E-Resource Training Workshops at their meeting to be held in April 2005 at Whittier College in California; and 2 & 3) Harvard University's Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies will host two E-Resource Training Workshops during the year, tentatively one in the Spring of 2005 and one in the Fall or Winter of 2005-06. Both of the Harvard workshops will be open to local faculty and students and to those from throughout the region. Partial funding support will be available to those who travel to all workshops if sufficient funding is received.

Discussions are also underway regarding possible workshops at: 4) the meetings of ASPAC (Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast) at Pomona College in June 2005 (special focus on religion); 5) the East Asian Academic Librarians of California (EAALC) for a workshop to be held in conjunction with their meeting in September 2005 in San Diego; 6) the Mid-Atlantic Association for Asian Studies at their meeting at the University of Pittsburgh in October 2005, and 7) the Society of East Asian Anthropologists for their meeting at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) annual meeting in Washington DC in November 2005. We have also been engaged in discussions with the Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ) regarding ways to better adapt our E-Resource Training Workshops for use in Japanese language instruction at all levels. We expect to receive requests from groups in all regions for workshops throughout the year and into the future.

Organizing Institution and Key Individuals and their Merits

The principal organizer of the E-Resource Training Workshops is the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC) which was founded in 1991 to coordinate, develop, and locate funding for projects to improve access to Japanese materials in all formats; to promote cooperative development of Japanese collections; to provide education to Japanese studies librarians and users in the field; to gather and disseminate recommendations and to articulate the collective needs of librarians, scholars, and others in relation to information resources; and to expand collaborations with and to advise funding agencies in developing relevant and valuable materials and programs.

To specifically plan and coordinate this project the NCC created two committees, the Training the Trainers (T-3) Committee co-chaired by Toshie Marra, Sachie Noguchi, and Kristina Troost and including Sharon Domier, Ellen Hammond, and Emily Werrell which oversaw the project during the first year and will continue to be involved in reviewing workshop content and evaluating results; and the recently established Regional Training Network (RTN) Steering Committee co-chaired by Michael Smitka and Frank Chance and including Brett Walker, Robert Felsing, and Laura Miller. (Please see greater details on committee members in attachment 3.)

The NCC will draw also upon the expertise of other committees and collaborative projects that have been created in recent years to make greater use of digital resources. These include;

Outline of the Program Planned

NCC's E-Resource Training Workshops Development Schedule Pre-Application Planning and Research, Grant Application and Pre-Workshop Planning

Summer-Fall 2004 Regional Training Network building
Fall 2004 Evaluation review and recommendations made for T-3 Workshops
October 2004 Grant Writing for FY 2005-06 applicatio
November 1, 2004 Year Two Application Due at Japan Foundation
December 23, 2004 On-site logistics completed at Duke
January 8-10, 2005 T-3 Workshop II at Duke
February 15, 2005 T-3 Workshop II Evaluations Due
March 31, 2005 Completion of T-3 Workshops Grant Year (2004-05)
March 31-April 3 2005 AAS Meeting in Chicago

The NCC's E-Resource Training Workshops Schedule for fiscal year 2005-06

April 1, 2005 Grant year begins (if funding is received)
April 2005 Japan Foundation Funding announced and advertised in appropriate professional newsletters, posted on the NCC's web site, and sent to major electronic mailing lists used by Japanese studies librarians and scholars of Japan
April 1, 2005 NCC Open Meeting at the Consulate General of Japan in Chicago Special presentations will be made on the E-Resource Training Workshops, suggestions will be sought about possible workshop venues, and additional librarian-instructors will be enlisted to teach future workshops.
April 2-3, 2005 Year Two Planning Meetings in conjunction with 2005 AAS
Wide publicity of the Project at AAS
Meet with AAS Council on Conferences
Meet with AAS Board Members
Meetings with Regional Training Network Steering Committee
Meetings with potential site coordinators
CEAL-related Meetings on Project
April 2x, 2005 E-Resource Training Workshops offered at AsiaNetwork conference at Whittier College (near Los Angeles)
Throughout year Work with Regional Training Network Steering Committee to plan and offer additional workshops upon request from regional institutions willing to provide co-sponsorship and on-site coordination of the workshops
Spring 2005 First E-Resource Training Workshops held at Harvard with local and regional participants
Spring 2005 Final Reports to Japan Foundation and other funders on Year One
June xx, 2005 E-Resource Training Workshop to be held at ASPAC the meeting (tentative)
Fall 2005 Planning and Grant Writing for Year Three
Fall 2005 Possible second E-Resource Training Workshop held at Harvard with local and regional participants
September 2005 E-Resource Training Workshop offered in conjunction with the meetings of East Asian Academic Librarians of California at San Diego (tentative)
October 2x, 2005 E-Resource Training Workshop at the Mid-Atlantic AAS meeting at University of Pittsburgh (tentative)
November 1, 2005 Japan Foundation Application Deadline for 2006-07
November 2x, 2005 E-Resource Training Workshop at the AAA Meeting in Washington DC (tentative)
March 31, 2006 End of Year Two (pending funding)
April 1, 2006 E-Resource Training Workshops 2006-07 (pending funding)
April 2006 Japan Foundation Funding announced and advertised in appropriate professional newsletters, posted on the NCC's web site, and sent to major electronic mailing lists used by Japanese studies librarians and scholars of Japan
Prior to 2006 AAS Possible E-Resource Training Workshop at Stanford University
April x, 2006 NCC Open Meeting with reports and presentations on the E-Resource Training Workshop offered to date
April 6-9, 2006 AAS Annual Meeting in San Francisco
Wide publicity of the Project at AAS
RTN Steering Committee Meeting
Meet with AAS Council on Conferences and AAS Board
At 2006 AAS Offer a Roundtable on Information Literacy in Japanese Studies E-Resource Training Workshops at AAS Meeting (tentative)
April 9, 2006 Possible post-AAS E-Resource Training Workshop on Sunday afternoon
Spring 2006 Final Reports to Japan Foundation and other funders on Year Two
TBD As needed offer a third T-3 Workshop (probably to be held at Harvard)
TBD Working with RTN Steering Committee schedule and offer up to 10 E-Resource Training Workshops
Fall 2006 Planning and grant writing for future Workshops
Pre-2007 AAS Conference of E-Resource Training Workshops instructors at Harvard or Yale
March 22-25, 2007 AAS Annual Meeting in Boston
At 2007 AAS Possible Roundtable on providing E-Resource Training
March 25, 2007 Possible post-AAS E-Resource Training Workshop
Spring 2007 Final Reports on Japan Foundation and other funders on Year Three

Sources of Matching and In-Kind Funding and That Sought from the Japan Foundation

$40,000 in principal funding for this project is being sought from the Japan Foundation through its professional conferences and seminars category. The Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies has pledged $5,000 as matching funds and has agreed to co-sponsor one or more E-Resource Training Workshop open to faculty and students from institutions throughout the region. Additional funding will be sought from the Northeast Asia Council of the AAS by the NCC and possibly by regional co-sponsors (as appropriate) to support travel for participants in the regional training workshops. The NCC will provide in-kind personnel support (2 month of executive director's salary, $3,000 for the webmaster/web designer's time and $2,000 for support staff assistance in coordinating regional seminars, providing support to web development, and assisting with grants management); in addition the AsiaNetwork, Harvard University and other institutions co-sponsoring E-Resource Training Workshops will provide in-kind support for the time of the local coordinator at an estimated level of $500 per workshop, and will also assist in providing facilities, computer terminals, and software as in-kind contributions to the project. Regional conference will also provide venues and promotion among their members which would otherwise require NCC resources. As appropriate other sources of funding will be sought. (A detailed budget is attached.)

Dissemination

The results of this project will be widely disseminated in multiple forms. The 33 librarian-instructors trained during year-one are required to offer future hands-on workshops to users of electronic resources both in their home institutions and throughout their local regions, and to report back to the NCC on those efforts. They are also asked to publish new lesson plans and other materials that they develop in the NCC's new online archive of E-Resource Training Materials. In addition many of those trained will be enlisted to serve on teams of instructors for future E-Resource Training Workshops.

Future workshops will be coordinated by the NCC and its RTN Steering Committee working with a large and growing ad hoc network of librarians, faculty, and administrators in regional institutions that will host future workshops. Local hosting institutions will be asked to publicize workshops broadly throughout their institution and region and to report on the workshops in newsletters, annual reports, and other print and electronic publications.

A major component of this request is the development and web publication of the archive of E-Resource Training Materials developed by T-3-trained instructors and others for use in E-Resource Training Workshops. The lesson plans will be keyed to the goals of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL's) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. All of the lesson plans in the archive will be developed in accordance with ACRL's guidelines and will be reviewed by one of the project's information literacy instructors Emily Werrell or Sharon Domier (see resumes attached). When completed, the archive of lesson plans will comprise a comprehensive approach to information literacy instruction for the field of Japanese studies.

This project will also develop an electronic mailing list that will include both instructors and users trained through these efforts. That list will work closely with the AskEASL project and will answer user's ongoing questions, offer regular updates on changing technology and new data sources as they emerge, and provide navigation tips and refreshers on major databases. The T-3 trainees will also publish additional user's guides in electronic form which can be easily downloaded and reproduced in print format. In addition all instructional materials will be published electronically on the NCC's web site.

A further venue for dissemination of information of these efforts will be the large network of information literacy instructors working worldwide especially those who subscribe to the ALA's Information Literacy Instruction-Listserv (ILI-L). That group actively contributes information on new training efforts and makes their resources freely available for others to copy and adapt to their own instructional situations. The materials developed for the E-Resource Training Workshops will be made available to this group, will be listed in all appropriate directories of information literacy instruction including DORIL (the Directory of Online Resources for Information Literacy, http://bulldogs.tlu.edu/mdibble/doril/), and will serve as a model for developing comprehensive information literacy instruction for users of other non-Western languages besides Japanese.

Conclusions

In keeping with its commitment to serving the library and information needs of those who study Japan, the NCC seeks the Japan Foundation's support to train faculty and students in the intricacies of new digital resources for teaching and research in the field of Japanese studies. The nationally offered E-Resource Training Workshops launched by this grant will greatly improve the proficiency of faculty and students in the use of digital resources on Japan, will greatly expand training and support to users of Japanese electronic resources in smaller and more isolated institutions, and will raise awareness among hitherto uninitiated faculty to the potential for using Japanese electronic resources in the classroom and for research without leaving their home institution. The web-based archive, online tutorials, and electronic discussion group being created will provide ongoing support to these users, will be a source of information for new users, and will assist those who need a refresher on the best techniques for proficient access and navigation of specific electronic resources.

The NCC's collaboration with regional networks and hosting institutions and the high degree of in-kind and matching grants proposed will greatly leverage the Japan Foundation's support of this project. This ambitious project is the next step in the NCC's extremely successful ongoing effort to provide comprehensive training to Japanese studies librarians and users that will to benefit the field of Japanese studies throughout North America. In keeping with our mutual goals of promoting better understanding of Japan everywhere, the NCC seeks the Japan Foundation's support of this important effort.