Learning and Teaching Librarian; Milton Keynes, ENG, GB, MKAA

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About the Role

The role of Learning & Teaching Librarian has three main purposes:

1. To support learning and teaching activities, including the development of students as independent learners, by providing advice and guidance on the access to and use of Library Services content, resources and services to meet the needs of students, learners and University staff.

2. To work in partnership across the OU’s Learner and Discovery Services (LDS) unit and with faculty colleagues to support the growing digital capabilities agenda and integrate library content systematically into the curriculum using new and innovative approaches as appropriate.

3. To support students fairly, consistently and in line with University policies.

Key Responsibilities

For full time roles the postholder will usually focus on three of the specialist areas below:

Enquiry Services

• Provide expert assistance to students, staff, Associate Lecturers (ALs are off-campus module tutors) and researchers via a virtual helpdesk (email, webchat and telephone).

Academic Liaison

• Cultivate productive working relationships across departmental boundaries, with a pivotal role in embedding digital capabilities and library content into modules and qualifications to enable student success.
• Evaluate the value of digital capabilities materials and library content to identify practical improvements for the live curriculum.
• Support qualifications and modules already in presentation to students.

Accessibility

• Work with colleagues across the library to assess the accessibility of third-party content.
• Work with library and faculty teams engaged in module and qualification production to ensure library content is accessible to all users.
• Develop and maintain effective relationships with teams across the University, championing the library’s role in providing accessibility services.

Authoring

• Work closely with the Academic Liaison and Live Engagement teams, to advise and agree on requirements for the integration of digital and information literacy skills into modules, qualifications and other forms of learning delivery.
• Create, reuse and maintain accessible multimedia materials that teach digital capabilities, informed by best practice in technology-enhanced learning and learning design.
• Update and maintain information, advice and guidance (IAG) content and library web pages and promote awareness of and engagement with the OU’s DIL (Digital and Information Literacy) skills framework (2022) and digital capabilities agenda.
• Embrace innovative technologies to deliver skills training, increase accessibility and improve the student experience and showcase best practice.

E-resources Troubleshooting

• Work closely with colleagues in a cross-Library team to ensure a high-quality experience of online content for OU students and the wider OU community.
• Investigate and collaboratively resolve a wide range of content access issues.
• Work closely with the wider team to address some of the underlying issues relating to content access.
• Contribute to the development of a knowledge base to support this work.

Live Engagement

• Design and deliver live training events for students and staff. This includes, but is not limited to, online and in-person events and training on a range of digital capabilities embedded in the curriculum.
• Work closely with the Authoring and Academic Liaison teams to ensure digital capabilities are delivered in the most appropriate way to meet module/qualification learning design and student need.

In addition, all post holders are expected to:

• Contribute to the development of efficient workflows and processes, to support all colleagues and stakeholders. (Occasional evening and weekend work may be required.)

• Develop and maintain effective…