Produced at Temple: Recent submissions
Now showing items 1-20 of 127
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Barriers to Supporting Accessible VR in Academic LibrariesVirtual reality (VR) shows great promise for enhancing the learning experience of students in higher education and academic libraries are at the forefront of efforts to bring VR into the curriculum as an innovative learning tool. This paper reviews some of the growing applications and benefits of VR technologies for supporting pedagogy in academic libraries and outlines the challenges of making VR accessible for disabled students. It defines existing regulations and guidelines for designing accessible digital technologies and offers two case studies drawn from each of the authors’ own academic libraries, at Temple University and at the University of Oklahoma, in order to provide insight into the challenges and benefits of making VR more accessible for students. The paper argues that to continue to serve their mission of equitable access to information for the entire student population, academic libraries that implement VR programs need to balance innovation with inclusion by allocating sufficient staff time and technical resources and bringing accessibility thinking into VR projects from the beginning. To accomplish this, libraries will need the assistance of software developers and accessibility experts, and librarians will need to act as strong advocates for better support from commercial software and hardware vendors and to promote change in their institutions.
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Rediscovering an Old Genre: Open Textbook Publishing and University PressesMost discussions about university presses focus on presses as monograph publishers. This article examines university presses as textbook publishers, and argues that presses could potentially play an important role in supporting the proliferation of open textbooks. I begin by tracing the long history of university presses’ involvement in textbook publishing, and more recently, presses’ involvement in open textbook publishing. I describe the different types of presses that are interested in open textbook publishing, and then attempt to classify the open textbooks that are currently being published by university presses.
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Getting Organized for Action: Governance Structure Models for Statewide OER ProjectsWhen academic librarians began to address the high cost of textbooks a decade ago, they typically created textbook affordability programs tailored to the needs of their own institutions. Acting independently allowed for fast implementation and progress, but the downside of going it alone is the potential lack of sustainability. While colleges and universities continue to develop local programs, the predominant trend more recently is the statewide open educational resources initiative. This article reports the findings of a survey of these state initiatives to learn more about their governance structures, as no one model has emerged. This information can benefit existing and future statewide initiatives to optimally structure their governance model for productivity, inclusiveness, and sustainability.
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Empathy-based VR: Harnessing emotion for learningTemple Libraries’ Virtual Reality (VR) studios at Charles Library’s Duckworth Scholars Studio and Ginsburg Health Science Library’s Innovation Space host two empathy-based VR (EbVR) experiences that individuals can use by appointment and faculty members can integrate into their classes. EbVR may deepen students’ understanding of a topic and enhance their ability to empathize with those they will encounter in their professional life. One set of recent reviewers writes, “there is no single recipe for empathy development,” (Bertrand et al. 2018). Still, our experience hosting EbVR course collaborations suggests that, when supported by a structured curriculum, this may be an exciting new mode for engaging students by harnessing empathy and emotions for learning. This poster discusses the pedagogical potential of EbVR, presents details of Nursing and Social Work course collaborations, and links to more information on EbVR at Temple Libraries.
