Interactive session

AMICAL 2025

Evi Tramantza · Anna-Maria Xygalidou

The Bissell Library decided to create a new role for OPEN Education and OPEN textbooks and respond to our College needs. We developed and now offer relevant resources and services to support our academic community with existing OERs and OPEN Textbooks. In this presentation we will share our journey in reaching out to networks, educating ourselves, starting collaborations with faculty, creating guides, building best cases to use for promoting our new services to faculty and more. Lessons learned and next steps will also be discussed.

Recording available

Exhibit hour

AMICAL 2023

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2023

Project Incubator feedback: “EcoJustice OER repository”

Project description: Our team aims to create an open repository of curated pedagogical and scholarly resources that could support faculty, students, librarians and instructional designers in teaching, learning and research related to environmental justice.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2023

The following sponsors will be exhibiting: EBSCO Perlego OCLC Oxford University Press Project MUSE William S. Hein & Co., Inc. Taylor & Francis

Interactive session

AMICAL 2023

Academic integrity: Issues and solutions

Emilienne Idorenyin Akpan · Jasmina Najjar

Attendees are encouraged to participate in a 10-minute survey about academic integrity in higher education to help the facilitators prepare (deadline 20 May). Join us for an interactive session on academic integrity where we pinpoint issues specific to AMICAL institutions and collectively brainstorm solutions. Plagiarism has interesting cultural nuances in our settings and the evolution of technology (essay writing AI etc.) is having a massive impact not just on writing courses but on academia as a whole. This is something that concerns us all: from leadership to faculty, writing centers, librarians, and IT specialists. This cross-institutional and cross-departmental discussion and brainstorming session is a rare opportunity to think about our current challenges and the future of teaching and learning. Come with concerns and questions and leave with answers and an action plan.

Interactive session

AMICAL 2023

Project Incubator – Collaboration sprint

The Project Incubator aims to bring together teams of librarians, faculty and technologists to work on collaborative projects at AMICAL 2023. The Incubator is not a traditional conference session, but rather an opportunity for teams to devote concentrated time to the development and growth of collaborative projects. More information: https://www.amicalnet.org/conference/2023/project-incubator

Invited workshop

AMICAL 2022

Critical digital literacies: What next?

Catherine Cronin

Overview: The workshop will focus on the practice of developing critical digital and data literacies (for self/students/faculty/staff, as required). The workshop will include two different Liberating Structures activities to invite and support participants to explore developing critical literacies in different ways (all grounded in each participant’s own perspective and context): what I care about; challenges I face; goals for my own practice and for collaborative practice; and hopes/intentions for the future. Activities: After summarizing the main points from the keynote, as well as issues raised in the keynote discussion and Q+A, the workshop will begin with a Spiral Journaling activity, encouraging participants to reflect on their cares, challenges, hopes and goals. Following this, a Conversation Café activity will encourage participants to engage with one another to discuss ways forward, with a particular focus on collaborating to help develop critical digital and data literacies.

Keynote

AMICAL 2022

Critical digital literacies: Developing agency and sustaining hope in troubled times

Catherine Cronin

Many of us are thinking deeply about our roles as educators, learners and citizens (local and global) in a time of increasing inequality, pandemic, climate crisis, austerity and instability. The challenges we face within higher education –both global and specific to our own contexts– reflect, refract and can only be considered within this bigger picture. All modes of teaching and learning (in-person, blended and online) entail the use of increasingly opaque digital infrastructures and algorithmic decision systems. This keynote will explore the evolving, continual need to develop critical digital and data literacies. How best can we help students to develop critical agency as learners and creators, within and across online platforms and spaces including the open web – as educators, librarians and administrators, both individually and collaboratively? Particular attention will be paid to how we can amplify the effectiveness of this work, and support one another, by collaborating and developing strategies across roles and institutions. Cognisant of the trauma and turbulence of the past two years, this keynote will explore what it means for each of us to build and foster critical digital and data literacies at this moment, to support learning and learners, and to build critical and epistemic hope.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

Enakshi Sengupta

15th August 2021 is a date that will remain forever etched in the memories of Afghan citizens, it was a day when the Taliban took control of the country. Students and staff members of American University of Afghanistan got severely affected by hurried evacuation and the destruction of records and the fall of its flourishing campuses. Bringing students back into the mainstream of study, ensuring their mental wellbeing and instilling confidence was the priority of its faculty members connecting from all corners of the world, with those who were still in the country and leading a life of obscurity.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

Meeting challenges through collaboration

Anastasia Logotheti · Lara Bachmann Tampouratzis

This presentation details the collaboration between the Deree Teaching & Learning Center and an instructional designer for the purpose of responding to faculty needs which emerged during the Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) period. During the campus closure TLC organized monthly gatherings which offered instructors the opportunity to resolve common tech issues and acquire new knowledge. These sessions, called Remote Instruction Tips, focused on features of MS Teams and how to create instructional videos while interactivity tools, such as Padlet and Edpuzzle, were also featured. Since Fall 2021 such meetings, renamed Ed Tips, present mostly tools and apps, like MindMeister and Sli.do, which increase student engagement. This presentation, which will be helpful to administrators responsible for faculty development as well as technologists, will outline best practices for effective collaborations across institutional constituents. Based on our own experience, collaborations allow institutions to respond to challenges efficiently and to maintain the efficacy of support systems.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

Professional development pathways: AUS Library staff reflections

Ghada El Abbady · Heba Hussien · Yasmine Mohamed

Continuing professional development (PD) for library staff builds greater confidence, bolsters morale, and grows existing skill-bases in library teams. It also values the contribution that allied professionals provide in representing the library more effectively and developing leadership opportunities. This presentation articulates the AUS library staff professional development experience with particular focus on participation in ALA’s Library Support Staff Certification (LSSC) program. It will be of interest to those currently exploring PD offerings, applying for funding support, and seeking first-hand insight into study options and time commitments. It will also be important to librarians exploring enhanced learning opportunities for staff.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

Using a digital repository to showcase 25 years of societal impact of the American University of Sharjah

Samar Yassin

Digital repositories are important for educational institutions in helping to manage and capture intellectual assets as a part of their information strategy. A digital repository can hold a wide range of materials for a variety of purposes and users. It can support research, learning, and administrative processes. As archive specialists at AUS, we archive audio-visual, pictorial, and textual material. We also handle archiving requests from different departments to archive documents in digital repositories. In this presentation, we will talk about the importance of digital repositories and their role of providing important documents when needed. AUS will be celebrating its 25th anniversary next academic year, and AUS Archives was the first department to turn to, to seek material for the Silver Jubilee celebrations. Lastly, we will be addressing the challenges faced in retrieving the requested material and how to improve the Archives processes to serve the next 25 years at AUS.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

AMICAL’s member-driven organizational structures include 6 standing committees leading the development of consortial initiatives, and 7 interest groups through which members can exchange ideas on topics of consortially-shared interest. We’ll start the session with a brief overview of all AMICAL committees and interest groups, then open breakout rooms with representatives of five committees: Digital Liberal Arts Programs, E-Resources, Elisabetta Morani Grants, Information Literacy Initiatives, and Leadership and Assessment. Committees will describe their work and their plans for the coming year, including the ways in which members can get involved, and take any questions you have. We’ll run several rounds of the same breakout rooms, so you’ll be able to hear from and ask questions of several of the committees.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

An AMICAL project for Open Educational Resources and Open Access scholarship supporting global environmental justice

Jeff Gima · Antonio Lopez

AMICAL has unique strengths as a consortium that could help us advance education and scholarship on environmental issues, ultimately supporting global environmental justice. An AMICAL team including faculty, librarians and instructional designers is currently developing a project to act on this important opportunity. Hear about plans for the “Open Resources for Environmental Justice” project, which would promote intercultural and interdisciplinary resources related to the environment, improve visibility of scholars and educators from the global south, and build capacity for OER and OA scholarship. Then share suggestions for the project and ways in which you can imagine yourself contributing to it!

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

Community Idea Exchange #1 (and opening remarks)

Participants in this session will be able to fully attend any three of the presentations below. The moderators will introduce the format and then open breakout rooms, one for each of the presentations below. Attendees will then be able to join the breakout room for a presentation topic of their choice. After about 16 minutes of presentation and discussion, participants will be returned to the main room, and the same breakout rooms and choices will again be offered, allowing participants to move to a different presentation of their choice. After about 16 minutes, this will repeat for a third and final round. Presentations included in this session: An AMICAL project for Open Educational Resources and Open Access scholarship supporting global environmental justice (Jeff Gima & Antonio Lopez) Dual delivery modality at AUC: Capacity building and assessment of a one year pilot (Hoda Mostafa & Caroline Mitry) Inspire and empower learners in a composition class: Writing process through Google Docs and Weebly portfolios (Adeel Khalid & Fatima Syeda) M6L learning spaces (Khawla El Akkili) Occupying a digital space: Engaging the literature classroom (Reine Azzi) Road map to develop asynchronous information literacy modules at the Lebanese American University (Nabil Badran & Hani Salem) Sharing history with the community (Effie Kompouri & Evi Tramantza) The Design Show: A bootcamp model for collaborative course design (Nadine Aboulmagd & Samah Adel) Transitioning your face-to-face syllabus for an online instruction: Sustaining an engaging experience (Aziz El Hassani)

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

Effie Kompouri · Evi Tramantza

Anatolia College Archives holds archival material from the operational time in Thessaloniki and Merzifon , Turkey. Last June they received a request from the US Consulate General Thessaloniki. The intention was to create an exhibtion to honor the Greek War of Independenence (1821-2021) and to celebrate the long term alliance between Greece and US. The challenge was to find these elements and deliver to the curator appropriate stories accompanied by photos and artifacts. This presentation describes the coordinated actions of the AC Archives for the delivery of the project. Sharing the content with the community via OMEKA is following.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2022

An Unconference is a highly-participatory structure based around informal, but focused conversations and knowledge-sharing among peers. It allows participants to drive their own learning by continuing discussions started in other sessions, beginning new conversations, and planting seeds for future collaborations. More info

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

“Put yourself in my shoes” - Inclusive pedagogy

George Kyparissiadis

Teaching diversity is a critical consideration for today’s classrooms. This presentation regards an active learning exercise conducted in class as part of the curriculum for a course on Advertising. Its purpose is to encourage students to consider the portrayal of diversity in inclusive advertising, and to adopt different perspectives through the eyes of diverse audiences. The exercise consists of a research component, role playing and in-class discussions around the students’ contribution, as well as contemporary case studies. The purpose of my presentation is to contribute to the ever-increasing bibliography of inspiring research and practices, on the topic of teaching diversity.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

3D modeling in cultural heritage field in Kyrgyzstan

Aida Abdykanova · Jyldyz Bekbalaeva

3D modeling methods have recently become very popular in documentation, restoration and preservation of cultural heritage. However, 3D modeling is yet a complex process, which requires accuracy of measurements and individual approach to each cultural heritage object. We will present our experience in creating 3D models of heritage objects of the Issyk-Kul region, with the focus on methodology and techniques. This is an ongoing collaboration project between Anthropology Department and Library, which involved faculty, librarians, students and other partners.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Community Idea Exchange #4

Participants in this session will be able to fully attend any three of the presentations below. The moderators will introduce the format and then open breakout rooms, one for each of the presentations below. Attendees will then be able to join the breakout room for a presentation topic of their choice. Those with updated Zoom clients can move themselves to the breakout room, otherwise they can ask the moderators to move them. After about 15 minutes of presentation and discussion, participants will be returned to the main room, and the same breakout rooms and choices will again be offered, allowing participants to move to a different presentation of their choice. After about 15 minutes, this will repeat for a third and final round. Presentations included in this session: “Put yourself in my shoes” - Inclusive pedagogy George Kyparissiadis Teaching diversity is a critical consideration for today’s classrooms. This presentation regards an active learning exercise conducted in class as part of the curriculum for a course on Advertising. Its purpose is to encourage students to consider the portrayal of diversity in inclusive advertising, and to adopt different perspectives through the eyes of diverse audiences. The exercise consists of a research component, role playing and in-class discussions around the students’ contribution, as well as contemporary case studies. The purpose of my presentation is to contribute to the ever-increasing bibliography of inspiring research and practices, on the topic of teaching diversity. 3D modeling in cultural heritage field in Kyrgyzstan Aida Abdykanova, Jyldyz Bekbalaeva 3D modeling methods have recently become very popular in documentation, restoration and preservation of cultural heritage. However, 3D modeling is yet a complex process, which requires accuracy of measurements and individual approach to each cultural heritage object. We will present our experience in creating 3D models of heritage objects of the Issyk-Kul region, with the focus on methodology and techniques. This is an ongoing collaboration project between Anthropology Department and Library, which involved faculty, librarians, students and other partners. Crossing borders through digital media and dialogue Emilienne Idorenyin Akpan, Ekaterina Galimova AUN and AUCA students have been participating in online discussions of mutually selected topics to promote discourse between communities of learners and foster partnerships based on acceptance and understanding. This forum provides opportunities for the students to develop research, thinking and speaking skills which show unity in thought, coherence in ideas, objectivity in reasoning, factual argumentation and empathy for the other. The long-term goal is the creation of a Virtual International Debate Society (VIDS) modelled on the Karl Popper Debate to provide an academic and social bridge for participating students. Digital collections for digital literacy Fatme Charafeddine, Mona Assi, Elie Kahale, Basma Chebani In this session a we will give short presentation of the UL digital collections featuring ways to use this collection for digital literacy of concepts such us: types of digital collections, digitized collections vs born digital collections, metadata vs full-text search, open access vs in the public domain publications, copyright and creative commons licenses. The presentation we end by introducing the library team responsible for the in-house technical production of the UL digitization collections. Effective academic engagement of students at AUN using online tools during the COVID-19 lockdown era Jennifer Tyndall, Benson Ali One of the most important aspects of pedagogy is effective communication. Here at AUN, students were actively engaged in online learning during the lockdown period using different types of IT applications including having access remotely to public health officials and medical doctors at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic through interactive online lectures. This session will demonstrate the success of online academic engagement from a university in the remote region of Northeastern Nigeria to our students in the US and to those who were residing in cities and remote villages throughout the country during the COVID-19 mandatory lockdown. It takes a village to reshape learning, technology and library services Ola El Zein, Hossein Hamam In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of innovative educational technologies, there arose a need for a transformative change in education. Therefore, a taskforce of Librarians, IT technologists, and Academics was established to reshape teaching and library services post pandemic by providing guidance for AUB-FM’s educational programs to ease the transformation and to sustain skill development. This presentation will cover the taskforce’s findings through a roadmap that includes the identified gaps, recommendations, pedagogy and e-learning tech-tools (gamification, virtual learning, augmented reality) and assessment tools. Also, the methodology and the collaboration process between the stakeholders will be presented. JCU Teaching and Learning: A culture, not a service Khaison Duong Every member of the university has something to contribute. We all have knowledge and skills. If those could be shared, many would benefit. Creating an entity to cultivate this is not a simple process. John Cabot University Teaching and Learning was envisioned to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and skills. JCUTL, however, is not a physical teaching and learning center. It’s a mindset, an initiative, a cooperation, a community. This presentation intends to address the success and challenges of the initiative. Its aims to show that a teaching and learning culture can be created and not just a service. Student-led cross-institutional collaboration between France and Morocco David Tresilian, Michael Stoepel, Paul Love This presentation reports on a student-led cross-institutional project between AUP in Paris and AUI in Morocco. Students worked under faculty and librarian supervision, with students at AUP drawing up questionnaires for use in structured interviews with peers at AUI. Digital technology was used to gather and transcribe data and standard interview protocols regarding data confidentiality and storage. Students interpreted and reported on collected data in a mini-conference at the end of the semester. The presentation will interest faculty working cross-institutionally using digital technology and library staff interested in data-collection and learning using the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Sustainable development goals as a teaching framework across three AMICAL institutions Stella Apostolaki, Tamo Chattopadhay The purpose of this presentation is to share teaching experiences of three AMICAL Institutions (American University in Cairo, American University of Central Asia, American College of Greece) on Sustainable Development Goals. While based on different continents and facing local challenges, especially during Covid-19, the three institutions brought their students together in discussion and shared learning around this common theme. The presentation will include the activities implemented on the three campuses as well as collaborative inter-institutional efforts, highlighting common student learning outcomes, including student peer support, sensitisation to cultural diversity and human similarity, and recognition of contextual privilege and power dynamics. Project collaborators: Stella Apostolaki (Associate Lecturer in Environmental Sciences, ACT), Tamo Chattopadhay (Associate Professor of Politics and International Studies, AUCA), and Amani Elshimi (Senior Instructor of Rhetoric and Composition, AUC).

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Crossing borders through digital media and dialogue

Emilienne Idorenyin Akpan · Ekaterina Galimova

AUN and AUCA students have been participating in online discussions of mutually selected topics to promote discourse between communities of learners and foster partnerships based on acceptance and understanding. This forum provides opportunities for the students to develop research, thinking and speaking skills which show unity in thought, coherence in ideas, objectivity in reasoning, factual argumentation and empathy for the other. The long-term goal is the creation of a Virtual International Debate Society (VIDS) modelled on the Karl Popper Debate to provide an academic and social bridge for participating students.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Digital collections for digital literacy

Mona Assi · Fatme Charafeddine · Basma Chebani · Elie Kahale

In this session a we will give short presentation of the UL digital collections featuring ways to use this collection for digital literacy of concepts such us: types of digital collections, digitized collections vs born digital collections, metadata vs full-text search, open access vs in the public domain publications, copyright and creative commons licenses. The presentation we end by introducing the library team responsible for the in-house technical production of the UL digitization collections.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Nadine Aboulmagd

This is a guided meditation session where participants will be guided through a 15-minute meditation with the theme of gratitude and loving kindness. Remembering to be grateful helps us have lives we are more satisfied with. Loving kindness or “metta” meditation is a form of meditation that involves giving love towards ourselves and others. During our busy lives we rarely pause and just sit with ourselves to be mindful and grateful for a few minutes. Meditation has many physical, mental, emotional and spiritual benefits. Loving kindness meditation in particular increases self compassion, focus and a sense of emotional strength. We all can benefit from showing ourselves and others some love, compassion, gratitude and kindness, which is what this session is dedicated to.

Social event

AMICAL 2021

Icebreaker and networking (Thursday)

Nooruddin Merchant

This informal session will help attendees connect with each other, since AMICAL 2021 is our biggest event yet. It’s a great way to meet new colleagues and reconnect with old friends!

Social event

AMICAL 2021

Game night

Get ready to play and laugh! Join us for our unique PG-rated adaptations of Cards Against Humanity and FUNemployed. These interactive social games will bring a smile to your face. Feel free to bring snacks and your favorite beverage.

Invited workshop

AMICAL 2021

From vision to action: Fostering engagement and collaboration in building an OER program

Regina Gong

The implementation of OER initiatives in higher education institutions typically begins with setting up a vision and establishing goals for the project. This process entails developing a strategic plan to help guide institutions on how to start an OER initiative to gain buy-in and support from campus stakeholders. The strategic plan helps translate the vision into concrete actions that are attainable as well as measurable. Drawing from my experience and lessons learned in initiating, implementing, managing, and building an OER program at a small college and at a research-intensive institution, participants will learn practical strategies that fosters faculty collaboration and student engagement.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

A librarian turning student: New opportunities for library and the faculty

Zhuzumkan Askhatbekova · Anastasia Valeeva

At this session, we would like to talk about our year-long experiment. Zhuzumkan Askhatbekova, AUCA librarian, has joined a group of master students for ‘Data Journalism’ and ‘Data Storytelling’ classes offered by the JMC Department. We will tell you how a librarian can contribute to the class and what she can take away for her own practices. The class was a mix of online, blended and hybrid learning, including project work. Additionally, thanks to AMICAL micro grant, we attended the biggest data journalism conference NICAR; we will also talk about the benefits of conference participation as a course-integrated activity.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Emilienne Idorenyin Akpan

When the AUN promoted DailyChatter, I identified a learning resource to enhance reading, writing and creativity skills. Students subscribed to the digital newsletter, and then over 4 weeks they selected ten stories (from 3 sections) to respond to through activities that demonstrated engagement with text, identification of the main idea, critical thinking, summarization, relatability and paragraph development. Response options ranged from short essays, poetry, and video commentaries, to songs, artwork and photo diaries. The main takeaway is how the students embraced this exercise to express themselves in a variety of exciting ways while meeting expectations for the class assignment.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Wicked questions: Maintaining quality while ensuring equity and equitable learning

Maha Bali

I will report practical frameworks I developed during AMICAL-funded global PD event offered by OLC (IELOL Global) where I worked with 3 other education leaders on 3 wicked questions: 1. how can universities ensure equitable learning while ensuring quality learning for all? I will share our global-minded adaptation of the “Inclusive excellence framework” 2. How to infuse culture/worldview of inclusivity, equity, diversity, decoloniality not just terminology and not just policies & documents, but practices on the ground? We used the Equity/Care Matrix by Bali & Zamora 2020 3. How to build coalitions & use Ecocycle planning to strategize?

Recording available

Meeting

AMICAL 2021

Building an AMICAL Peer Knowledge Exchange: Matching needs with expertise for mentoring, training and consultation

Fatme Charafeddine · Jeff Gima · Nooruddin Merchant · Evi Tramantza · Stephen Urgola

This structured discussion aims to generate and refine together practicable ideas for facilitating peer-to-peer mentoring, training and consultation among AMICAL colleagues. The focus will be primarily on libraries, but colleagues from other areas are welcome to join the discussion. We will first present some general goals that have been identified over the years for facilitating these peer connections, along with some rough prototypes of methods we could use for this. Through guided discussions, partly in breakouts, we will: clarify what we should be aiming for with AMICAL peer mentoring, training and consultation identify specific conditions or requirements might influence the success of these connections gather feedback and recommendations in reaction to the prototype tools presented for peer matching identify next steps for building an AMICAL Peer Knowledge Exchange Network This session, proposed with the support of AMICAL’s Leadership & Assessment Committee, is organized by a group interested in assessing professional development needs and organizing peer-to-peer knowledge exchange among AMICAL members.

Recording available

Discussion

AMICAL 2021

Creating learning experiences: Reimagining IL instruction for Fall 2021

Fadia Al Akhras · Christine Furno · Araz Margossian · Krasimir Spasov · Michael Stoepel · Tatevik Zargaryan

This session will offer participants an opportunity to discuss one of four topics related to IL instruction for the Fall 2021 semester. Participants will choose one of four topics offered (see below). They will then meet with others in their topic’s breakout room to develop teaching activities for their selected topic. The session will conclude with all four groups briefly reporting out their breakout room discussion outcomes. A shared Google document will be used to gather each groups’ contributions and serve for future planning and inspiration. Topic 1: “Google” versus Library Databases (Fadia Al-Akhras, AUK) Topic 2: Digital Privacy and Citizenship as part of the IL Class (Krasimir Spasov, AUBG) Topic 3: Research as Inquiry (Michael Stoepel, AUP) Topic 4: Information has Value in a Complex Digital Research Environment (Araz Margossian & Tatevik Zargaryan, AUA)

Workshop

AMICAL 2021

Share, rate, review, discover tech for writing and research

Jasmina Najjar

After a year of teaching online, come share, rate, and review cool tech we can all use for hybrid/hyflex courses with a writing and research component in the immediate future and for our own research and writing. In this interactive workshop, you’re in center stage and your input will guide the session. Together let’s get the most out of the best online tools, apps, platforms, and resources (preferably those which are free) which cover all stages of the writing and research process, including: finding credible sources, managing research, note-taking and annotation, citing sources, brainstorming/invention techniques for pre-writing, drafting, peer-reviewing, editing, argumentation and evidence-based persuasion, and assessment. Technology that promotes engagement, collaboration, and inclusion is encouraged. Leave the workshop having discovered juicy recommendations from fellow attendees.

Social event

AMICAL 2021

Social mixer

Come chat and unwind! Join us for a fun and laid-back social session with breakout room madness and quirky prompts to break the ice (no shop talk here! 😀 ). It’s a great opportunity to get to know one another better. Feel free to bring snacks and your favorite beverage.

Keynote

AMICAL 2021

Bearing witness as an act of love, resistance, and healing

Mays Imad

In this session we will briefly consider the neuroscience of toxic stress and its impact on our ability to engage, connect, and learn. How will we welcome our students and colleagues to our institutions and classrooms this fall? What can we, educators, possibly do to help attend to their mental health and ameliorate their exhaustion and distress? In this session, we will examine the principles and practical examples of trauma-informed approaches and reflect on the connections between trauma-informed education, healing, and restorative justice.

Recording available

Unconference

AMICAL 2021

Unconference #1

An Unconference is a highly-participatory structure based around informal, but focused conversations and knowledge-sharing among peers. It allows participants to drive their own learning by continuing discussions started in other sessions, beginning new conversations, and planting seeds for future collaborations. More info

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Nooruddin Merchant

This informal session will help attendees connect with each other, since AMICAL 2021 is our biggest event yet. It’s a great way to meet new colleagues and reconnect with old friends!

Invited workshop

AMICAL 2021

Isabel Hurtado · Sara Perez

In a post-Covid context where the economy has impacted all sectors, including education, it is essential to rethink the role of universities, as well as that of libraries. The library’s commitment to developing more services and resources to support researchers is a potential instrument for bringing the library closer to professors. After a brief presentation of the research services in our case, as well as in other libraries, we would like to generate a little debate in relation to the provision of library support to researchers, with a special focus on the research funding information service.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Helping teachers adjust to use of technology in teaching

Gregory Katsas

Relating to the teaching and learning experiences of the last year, it becomes clear that the use of technology dominated education, finding teachers running to forcibly adjust. Educating the educators to use technology to effectively cover their approach on teaching and the needs of their students is of essence. A necessary synergy between technology departments, administration and faculty is of crucial importance to achieve this. This session discusses a model that will help teachers adjust and employ technology for their own and their students’ benefit.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Longing for “normality”? Faculty engagement & the challenges of blended learning post-crisis

Michael Kozakowski

This session explores strategies for engaging faculty around blended learning possibilities. Improving public health prognoses in some countries raise the prospect of some institutions or departments abandoning online teaching. Beyond questions of the timing or degree of such a change, faculty opinion is divided in its assessment. Some joyfully await a return to the “normal” they knew. Others fear a return to the status quo ante would erase lessons and possibilities for teaching and learning opened up by the pandemic. This interactive session explores strategies and areas for building inter-faculty dialogue and engagement as institutions exit emergency remote teaching.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Opening remarks + Community Idea Exchange #1

Participants in this session will be able to fully attend any three of the presentations below. The moderators will introduce the format and then open breakout rooms, one for each of the presentations below. Attendees will then be able to join the breakout room for a presentation topic of their choice. Those with updated Zoom clients can move themselves to the breakout room, otherwise they can ask the moderators to move them. After about 15 minutes of presentation and discussion, participants will be returned to the main room, and the same breakout rooms and choices will again be offered, allowing participants to move to a different presentation of their choice. After about 15 minutes, this will repeat for a third and final round. Presentations included in this session: 11 Research Impact Things Kara Jones, Fiona Glasgow 11 Research Impact Things’ is a collection of modules for upskilling librarians on the use of a range of metrics around research impact. The AUS Scholarly Communications Librarian worked through the IATUL ‘Things’ (https://iatulimpactthings.info/) with our librarians. Delivered in 5 online sessions over two months, we used live demonstrations, etherpad notes and guest speakers to engage librarians. Consequently, librarians felt more comfortable dealing with enquiries on these topics, and understood the Scholarly Communications Librarian role and responsibilities better. This session will provide an overview of the ‘11 Research Impact Things’ for AMICAL colleagues to upskill themselves or their organizations. Expansion of research support services from the library: Research funding information service Sara Pérez, Isabel Hurtado In a post-Covid context where the economy has impacted all sectors, including education, it is essential to rethink the role of universities, as well as that of libraries. The library’s commitment to developing more services and resources to support researchers is a potential instrument for bringing the library closer to professors. After a brief presentation of the research services in our case, as well as in other libraries, we would like to generate a little debate in relation to the provision of library support to researchers, with a special focus on the research funding information service. Helping teachers adjust to use of technology in teaching Gregory Katsas Relating to the teaching and learning experiences of the last year, it becomes clear that the use of technology dominated education, finding teachers running to forcibly adjust. Educating the educators to use technology to effectively cover their approach on teaching and the needs of their students is of essence. A necessary synergy between technology departments, administration and faculty is of crucial importance to achieve this. This session discusses a model that will help teachers adjust and employ technology for their own and their students’ benefit. Longing for “normality”? Faculty engagement & the challenges of blended learning post-crisis Michael Kozakowski This session explores strategies for engaging faculty around blended learning possibilities. Improving public health prognoses in some countries raise the prospect of some institutions or departments abandoning online teaching. Beyond questions of the timing or degree of such a change, faculty opinion is divided in its assessment. Some joyfully await a return to the “normal” they knew. Others fear a return to the status quo ante would erase lessons and possibilities for teaching and learning opened up by the pandemic. This interactive session explores strategies and areas for building inter-faculty dialogue and engagement as institutions exit emergency remote teaching. Oral history collection at AUCA: Accessing memories of Soviet past Jyldyz Bekbalaeva, Aijamal Sarybaeva The presentation will showcase the first oral history collection at AUCA. The team of faculty and students undertook a project to collect testimonies of the Soviet past across the country. The team collaborated with Library and IT Department to archive and to make accessible a collection of selected interviews via the Omeka. We will talk about project implementation: collecting oral histories; data management and preservation; creating public archive collection; dealing with ethical issues and others. The project is among very few archival initiatives countrywide aiming to preserve and showcase Soviet-era memories through oral histories. Resisting datafication in the digital classroom Jana Fedtke In this presentation, I explore the processes of excessive datafication in online teaching. Remote learning tends to recreate the physical classroom in the digital environment through technological affordances. In its current form, online teaching often privileges visibility in the ubiquitous use of cameras, presents a sense of curated authenticity, and encourages instructors to police students in the digital classroom. This tech-capitalist datafication feeds the commodification of content in the digital sphere. Without being techno-pessimistic, I argue that we need to create networks of resistance to counter these tendencies of datafication and avoid being implicitly ableist, classist, sexist, and racist. Strengthening multiliteracies through departmental collaborations Emilienne Idorenyin Akpan, Omachi Okolo Transitioning to college can be daunting especially with regards to the rigors and expectations of academic writing. On campus, learning resources collaboratively provide the requisite support for college-level skills in reading, writing, research and digital and information literacy. Using a first-year composition course, we will demonstrate how the research plan for an argumentative essay enhanced quality departmental collaboration. The instructor explained the writing style; the librarian provided guidance with DIL provisions; and the writing center oversaw the outlines and first draft of the essay. The takeaway is how constructive partnerships meet student-centered, course-specific and support services goals. The use of Hypothesis for sequencing and scaffolding writing assignments Tatevik Zargaryan, Elitza Kotzeva We will show how to integrate Hypothesis in the online learning system (at AUA we are using Moodle) and set up reading assignments. Then, we will show how teachers can use the social annotation tool to scaffold larger writing assignments by creating manageable tasks in a step-by-step sequence. To this end, we will share ideas on how to help students prepare for class, participate actively in the class discussion with their annotations, and use their notes from Hypothesis to finish a larger writing assignment.

Recording available

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Oral history collection at AUCA: Accessing memories of Soviet past

Jyldyz Bekbalaeva · Aijamal Sarybaeva

The presentation will showcase the first oral history collection at AUCA. The team of faculty and students undertook a project to collect testimonies of the Soviet past across the country. The team collaborated with Library and IT Department to archive and to make accessible a collection of selected interviews via the Omeka. We will talk about project implementation: collecting oral histories; data management and preservation; creating public archive collection; dealing with ethical issues and others. The project is among very few archival initiatives countrywide aiming to preserve and showcase Soviet-era memories through oral histories.

Community Idea Exchange

AMICAL 2021

Nooruddin Merchant

This informal session will help attendees connect with each other, since AMICAL 2021 is our biggest event yet. It’s a great way to meet new colleagues and reconnect with old friends!

Social event

AMICAL 2020

Sightseeing tour (afternoon)

The Mubarakiyah tour will take participants through the heart of the city where they will have a panoramic view of the history of trade in Kuwait, exploring the traditional market within the context of a planned city. The tour will take 90-120 mins. AUK will provide transportation from and to the tour location. The cost will be KWD 15 per person, if ten or more join the tour. The tour will take you through the heart of the city where you will have a panoramic view of the history of trade in Kuwait, exploring the traditional market within the context of a planned city. The tour will take 90-120 mins. AUK will accommodate participants’ transportation from and to the tour location. Cost per participant will be KWD 15, if ten or more join the tour.

Social event

AMICAL 2020

Participants will have the opportunity to experience the Glass Room Community Edition exhibit and Data Detox kit firsthand and reflect on their usefulness for developing digital literacies at their own institutions in a discussion session. The Glass Room Community Edition is a pop-up exhibition that explores how society is dealing with the growing dependency on data and technology, and the normalisation of monitoring and surveillance. It aims to engage visitors to think more critically about their devices and interactions with technology, as well as the mechanisms and companies that create the environment of those technologies. The exhibition set features interactive apps, posters, digital games and displays. Participants can pick and choose different activities and stations and go through the exhibit individually or in pairs in an hour or so. The Data Detox Kit is an 8-day guide with tips and tricks on data safety, digital wellbeing, smart habits for smartphones and social media. Issues of data, privacy, surveillance, normalization of monitoring are important for institutions looking to promote digital literacies, so that academic staff, faculty and students are aware of such issues, and are also thinking critically think about ways to ensure data privacy and safety. (Participants may also choose to explore the Data Detox Kit online on their own, so their time in the Glass Room Exhibit is focused on the elements they cannot do online on their own.)

Keynote

AMICAL 2020

The operating system of our lives: How we misunderstood the digital transformations

Siva Vaidhyanathan

Maha Bali · Sawsan Habre · Elisabetta Morani · Mark Muehlhaeusler

Robin Derosa

Amani Elshimi · Abdel Aziz Galal · Kristen Highland · Mark Muehlhaeusler

Panel presentation

AMICAL 2018

New learning spaces: Transforming the way we teach, learn and research

Bella Avakian · David Horn · Bushra Almas Jaswal · Henry Myerberg · Anguelina Popova

John Traxler

In practice its historical development and delivery have been shaped by specific historical, technical, political and institutional forces, and its subsequent dissemination is failing to recognise its cultural baggage and bias. Digital technology is now pervasive, ubiquitous and intrusive, taken-for-granted and no longer worth mentioning to digital natives and digital residents; it seems to support a chaotic abundance of content, communities and tools, and to effortlessly facilitate people and communities creating, sharing, storing, coopting, transforming, discussing and discarding opinions, identities, images, ideas and information. In the developed regions of the world, it does however seem to presage a slide toward subjectivity, fragmentation and transience of learning at the onset of a crude post-modernity, whilst in the developing world it seems to presage the next round of the epistemicides that threaten fragile or marginal languages, cultures and traditions with the might of anglophone corporate technologies driving the global knowledge economy along the information superhighway. So, what then are the roles of teachers, librarians and universities when everyone - well, almost everyone - seems to be able to learn for themselves and to teach others? And of course what exactly does digital literacy mean in these brave new worlds?

Recording available

Meeting

AMICAL 2018

Library Resources Buyers Group annual meeting

Alex Armstrong · Elisabetta Morani

Open to Library Directors and Electronic Resource Librarians, the Buyers’ Group meeting is the annual appointment for the AMICAL Electronic Resource Committee to inform and discuss with member institutions, providing updates on recent activities and receiving feedback and indications on future directions. This year agenda includes: Deals 2017 (savings, outcomes, lessons learned) The Buyers’ Dashboard (a new online tool for finding information on current deals) Composition of the Buyers’ Group on Connect New roles for improved workflow: the Negotiators and the Negotiation Coordinator.

Mini-workshop

AMICAL 2018

Resource sharing in the digital age

Isabelle Dupuy · Thomas Hodge

This mini-workshop will start with presenting the results of the survey conducted by the OCLC Programs Committee in Fall 2017, and then focus on the practical challenges and possible solutions in AMICAL institutions of providing Document Delivery services in the digital era. It will provide a professional development opportunity for librarians responsible for planning, funding and managing of Document Delivery Services. We will discuss the challenges of today’s electronic licensing and DRM environment. The session will be conducted by members of the OCLC Programs committee with a background in Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan. We’re interested in helping participants analyze their DD/ILL challenges and develop solutions, and to receive feedback on how existing OCLC Programs and services are working at their institution.

Extended workshop

AMICAL 2018

Digital tools for teaching, writing, and research: Building capacity in the Digital Humanities

Najla Jarkas · Dalal Rahme · David Joseph Wrisley

Digital Humanities tools and methods have become an integral part of the educational process and emergent research in institutions in the 21st century. Digital Humanities has proved to provide a successful framework and a culture of cross-institutional collaboration enriched through a technologically enabled environment. Growing this field at our liberal arts institutions is only possible through a practical teamwork effort across disciplines and communities of practice. The following workshop smoothly introduces participants, with no knowledge of any digital tools, into some low-barrier DH tools that can be aligned with learning outcomes and real classroom applications, and will prepare them to initiate their mini projects. Each session will focus on one of the following tools: TimelineJS, Omeka, Voyant Tools, and Palladio offering a theoretical background on ways of integrating them into their classroom and research, followed by hands-on practice. Day 2 will allow participants to create, revise, develop their own mini DH projects using one of the tools that fits their data. Audience The target audience for this workshop includes any interested faculty, librarians and IT staff at AMICAL partner institutions already somewhat involved in, or significantly interested in digital scholarship. All hands-on sessions require no previous training on the digital tools introduced in this workshop. Schedule Pre-workshop (April) Participants who signed up for the workshop are contacted by the facilitators to offer them guidance and basic instructions for preparing materials for each hands-on session and for their projects. Participants must send a brief outline/description of a project/assignment/idea, no later than April 30 to the organizers, providing an appropriate context for using one of the tools being taught in the workshop. This can be very brief (1-2 paragraphs, or 50-100 words). Day 1 (4 May) Omeka (2 hours, Dalal Rahme): Omeka is an open source web application used by libraries, archives, museums and many academic departments all over the world to create and manage web exhibits and databases. The workshop will introduce participants to this tool allowing them to create their archive of digital objects, apply metadata and create a search engine-optimized website. Participants will also learn how to build digital exhibits, use plugins for digital collections and create student-driven class projects like building online exhibits with an archive of primary resources. TimelineJS (1 hour, Najla Jarkas): TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. The theoretical session will showcase real classroom applications of the tool aligned with course learning outcomes. The hands-on session will gently introduce participants to the tool’s different features and allow them to produce interactive digital timelines. Palladio (1 hour, Najla Jarkas & David Wrisley): Palladio is a user friendly web-based toolset that allows participants to map, create and analyze networks from structured data. The theoretical session will showcase real classroom applications of the tool aligned with course learning outcomes. The hands-on session will gently introduce participants to the tool’s different features and allow them to create a number of unique visualizations answering research questions that reflect humanistic thinking about data. Voyant Tools (1 hour, David Wrisley): Voyant Tools is a free web-based reading and text analysis environment. It allows participants to apply both distant and close reading practices on single/multiple texts. The theoretical session will showcase real classroom applications of the tool aligned with course learning outcomes. The hands-on session will gently introduce participants to the tool’s different features and allow them to create a number of unique visualizations of textual analyses of their corpus. Day 2 (5 May) Mini Project Exercise (2 hours, Najla Jarkas, Dalal Rahme & David Wrisley): Participants choose one of the four digital tools introduced in this workshop and: Revise, modify, clarify, or develop their project/assignment/idea where they can apply one of these tools Share the idea, decide which tool is more appropriate to use, and justify Apply found data on the tool Present their group project Follow-up Sessions The trainers will create opportunities for follow-up sessions on AMICAL Connect and/or through webinars with groups that wish to expand on their training and move forward with developing their mini projects and/or integrating the tools into their courses. Participants are expected to post to AMICAL Connect, by December 2018, a brief report (1-2 paragraphs) on the impact of the workshop on their teaching or research. Some posts may be selected for republication on AMICAL’s blog. Participant requirements Gmail accounts (Some tools require a gmail account, and some session material and instructions may need to be shared with participants prior to the workshop) Optional: Participants may bring their own laptops Expectations of participants Before the workshop: participants are recommended to post a brief outline/description of a project/assignment/idea providing an appropriate context for using one of the tools being taught in the workshop. This can be very brief (1-2 paragraphs, or 50- 100 words). After the workshop: participants are expected to post to AMICAL Connect, by December 2018, a brief report (1-2 paragraphs) on the impact of the workshop on their teaching or research. Some posts may be selected for republication on AMICAL’s blog.

Plenary session

Interdisciplinarity, co-teaching, and information literacy

Elena Berg · Antonio Lopez · Linda Martz · Michael Stoepel

Thinking and teaching across the disciplines as well as co-teaching already have a long tradition in academics; many fields now consider themselves formally interdisciplinary in nature and there is strong encouragement from university administrations to share this interdisciplinary thought with students who come to liberal arts institutions with the desire to be well-rounded thinkers and contributors to workplaces and society. It is worthwhile to look at the methods and means by which this takes place and to generate ideas for best practices in the classroom, especially regarding information literacy. During this panel discussion, the panelists will present and reflect on different questions such as: what is interdisciplinary thinking and teaching? What are effective strategies for interdisciplinary co-teaching, and why is it vital for students’ learning experiences? Are there limits to what can be accomplished? What are the common barriers to effective co-teaching, and how can we find effective solutions to these problems? How do faculty and librarians approach co-teaching and what recommendations do they have? How can librarians and faculty work together effectively to meet interdisciplinary goals? What are challenges and opportunities for interdisciplinary thinking at AMICAL institutions?

Recording available

Keynote

AMICAL 2017

Building information and learning experiences through partnerships

Christine Susan Bruce

Information literacy is about ways of experiencing the world that are personally and socially transformative. Information literacy education introduces learners to information literacy experiences that underpin their disciplinary and future professional practices. This paper explores these ideas in relation to the development of partnerships for information literacy education in higher learning contexts. The importance of partnerships amongst educators across our higher learning institutions is highlighted including faculty, academic developers, technologists, learning advisors, students and information professionals. The purpose of partnerships is widened beyond teaching collaboration to the development of policy, curriculum design, peer review as well as learning and teaching research. Some innovative information literacy partnerships are discussed. By way of conclusion, the paper will introduce some emerging learning spaces and research concepts currently challenging information literacy scholars and researchers. The paper will be presented in three parts: 1) learning and information, cornerstones of informed learning 2) creating partnerships, building informed learning communities 3) research into practice, new futures.

Recording available

Plenary session

AMICAL 2016

Conference closing

Committee 5+5 reportsClosing remarks by Jeff Gima, AMICAL’s Director

Recording available

Meeting

AMICAL 2016

Committees finish 5+5 reports

The committees have been tentatively assigned the following venues for their meetings: Digital Collections: B106 Digital Pedagogy: Auditorium Digital Scholarship: B204 E-Resources: B206 Information Literacy: B304 Institutional Research & Assessment: Student Lounge OCLC Programs: B305 Professional Development: B306 But they are welcome to use other spaces if they prefer, including the Computer Labs if they need to use technology besides their own devices.

Birds of a Feather

AMICAL 2016

Small is beautiful: A study of ed-tech as if people mattered

Jim Groom

Ekaterina Kombarova · Anguelina Popova

This discussion group will present most interesting findings of 2014 ECAR Study of Faculty and Information Technology from AUCA, which reflect faculty answers about their experience and expectation. After a brief presentation and discussion of our findings, considerations that were taken based on survey results, we would engage the participants in a discussion panel on their own findings/experiences. The final goal of the discussion will be to draw a map of faculty experiences and expectations with technology, problems and come up with guidelines for overcoming them. During the discussion about faculty experiences and expectations with technology, main points to be covered: Faculty evaluation of LMS potential and online learning opportunities Potential of mobile devices to enhance learning Faculty and IT units collaboration to support teaching and research. The aim of the discussion group will be to emphasise on different aspects of faculty IT experiences and draw some guidelines of how faculty could deal more effectively with technologies and specifically in terms of using technologies for academic engagement. Presentation methods: Our data will be reported using slides (infographics) For stimulating the discussion, we would use questions on others’ experiences – whether related to the outcomes of the ECAR study or personal/institutional observations/data The findings from the ECAR global study 2014 draw a picture of faculty experiences and expectations somehow and sometimes different from findings of the participating AMICAL members. We would like to discuss these differences and the reasons for them, and position ourselves in the broader picture.

Focus group

AMICAL 2015

David White

The Web is more than a means to distribute content it’s also a series of ‘spaces’ where individuals can be co-present. Used in this way it can become a location for discourse where knowledge is evolved rather than simply the location where ‘finished’ ideas are posted. In this presentation I will discuss how students negotiate the relationship between the world of the physical institution and the new ‘currencies’ of the Web. Drawing on my recent research I will discuss what it means for students to ‘Reside’ online and how this effects their fundamental perceptions of education. I will go on to explore various ways that institutions can become more present in online spaces, effectively engaging students online without invading their privacy.

Check-in

AMICAL 2014

Check in on your first day to get your badge and conference bag! Attendee check-in will take place in the morning of each day. If you arrive later in the day you should go to the Library to check in.

Check-in

AMICAL 2014

Attendee check in

Check in on your first day to get your badge and conference bag! Attendee check-in will take place in the morning of each day. If you arrive later in the day you should go to the Library to check in.

Discussion group

AMICAL 2013

Discussion: Free and open access materials

Possible focus: - Helping users find and use them - How to handle ‘accessible collections’ as opposed to purchased ones - different search engines - none complete

Discussion group

AMICAL 2013

All-Conference dinner party, open to all registered attendees.

Discussion group

AMICAL 2013

Follow-up discussion on Char Booth’s keynote presentation, “Informing Innovation: Contextual Investigation for Effective Academic Technology Practice.”

Discussion group

AMICAL 2013

Arthur Smith

Overview of the core services provided to AMICAL members participating in RESPOND, as well as new services that have become available to libraries as part of their RESPOND participation.

Discussion group

AMICAL 2013

EBSCO Ebooks - value and integration (Paola Piretta - EBSCO) Innovation, Collaboration, Engagement: Sierra and Encore in Libraries (Maryvonne Enjolras - Innovative) Strategic ebook Acquisition: 10 reasons why ebrary Academic Complete underpins your present and future ebook development (Aine Rice - ProQuest) Emerald in 2013 : Products and Services - (Wendy Knox - Emerald)

Meeting

AMICAL 2013

Faculty-library study meeting

A closed meeting for JCU, ACT, AUCA and CEU participants in the project led by Nancy Foster studying faculty use of libraries.

Meeting

AMICAL 2013

AMICAL Members Council meeting

Meeting for AMICAL Representatives from member institutions.