Unleashing the Potential of Students’ Film Productions

Shun Han Rebekah WONG

Multimedia Services Section, Library, Hong Kong Baptist University (link)

Abstract:

The Academy of Film of the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) aims at nourishing students’ critical, aesthetic, and operational perspectives of cinema studies, and developing the future great talents of the Greater China Region. To meet these goals, the Academy requires students to produce many, often times high-quality dramatic movies, video documentaries, and animations during their study. An online archive of these student productions is of great value to the learning experience of current and forthcoming students. It can support individual learning and nourish discussions inside and outside classrooms. Making these productions publicly accessible through the internet can also raise the profile of the Academy and thus the University.

In 2009, the Library shared this new initiative with the Academy, and both departments started to collaborate in setting up an online database named “HKBUtube (Student Productions)” to showcase the video productions of the students of the Academy. This online platform has been open to the public since August 2010. As of today, a total of 110 productions have been uploading for online viewing. These productions come from one Bachelor program and one Master program.

“HKBUtube (Student Productions)” is a rewarding project in terms of use and student feedback. After running for around 2.5 months, this collection already attracted more than 6,700 views, with 86 percent accessed from off-campus. A student survey also showed that this database is important for enhancing students’ learning experiences, through:

a. motivating students to produce high-quality work (67%) ;
b. enhancing student motivation for learning and doing assignments (51%) ; and
c. helping students better understand the assignment expectations and standards (38%).

Overall, 85 percent of student respondents “strongly agree” or “agree” that HKBUtube (Student Productions) is a valuable service that the Library and the Academy should continue to provide.

Sharing your minds, Shining your learning--exploit users' wisdom to active e-learning

Chunyan AI, Fei ZHAO, Feng LI, and Yue YOU

Peking University Library (link)

In e-age, it's concept of learning that knowledge is more to be shared than to be imparted.E-Learning is based on tools that combine ease of content creation, web delivery, and integrated collaboration. With the idea of e-learning, Peking University Library provides various personalized information services based on web, as well as “face to face” services, to advance the interaction between users and library and exploit users' wisdom. And users acquire knowledge from the e-learning process of knowledge sharing.

The library is campaigning for a service called “Professors' Recommendation Readings”. The recommendation readings were used by the few and not collected. Resources sharing is the primary goal of the service, by posting the readings on the web. The library is also actively working with student groups and faculties and academic associations to improve e-learning, for example, Peking University Partnership Program's "Robots, Us" campaign. Library prepared many kinds of e-resource about theme, and hosted the exhibits. Meanwhile, a series of workshops were supplied. And there is an online forum to share good experiences. Using e-resource and continuous guidance from librarians, the professionals promote e-resource as a critical information source selected by libraries.

The best learners are not isolated scholars, but the best collaborators. It's better to tap into the collective wisdom of the right group of peers. One of the e-learning services refers to taking advantage of the intelligence of users, rather than treating them as passive recipients of learning. The library provides personalized e-learning services, involving campus life of the students. For the freshmen, the library establishes the freshman cyberspace and designs special handbook, to facilitate them using library. And the library has also launched the graduate cyberspace and a physical graduate wall, making students communicate to library or others.

Gateway to Chinese Art: An Effective Implementation of Resource-based Learning

Sheena SHUM & Wendy YAU

City University of Hong Kong Library (link)

With information in flux every second, there has been a shift towards a more student-centered pedagogy and this has led to the increasing prevalence of e-learning. To accommodate today’s teaching pedagogy and evolving learning behaviors, the City University of Hong Kong Library is placing much importance on repositioning itself as a centre to promote informal learning which is considered to be the learning activities undertaken on campus but outside the classroom. Digitalization has provided an innovative and convenient media for reinforcing and enhancing the academic experience of our technology-savvy generation in a resource-based learning environment. This model enables students to learn from their own interaction with a wide range of information resources rather than from conventional class exposition. Against this context, the Library tries capitalizing on our own physical and virtual collections to organize different out-of-classroom activities so to facilitate and encourage the academic development of students. The Chinese Painting Promotion Programme we conducted earlier this year is a good example.

The Chinese Painting Promotion Programme can be seen as one of our pioneering initiatives to promote Chinese art electronically in both Hong Kong and Suzhou campuses. By making use of our own databases and collections, the Library has designed a digital step-by-step learning journey for students to have an overview of Chinese painting spanning the major dynasties. To engage students with holistic learning experiences, the Library has also organized other activities in support of different modes of educational delivery, such as physical exhibition and art talk by renowned scholar. An online quiz was also delivered as a form of learning assessment.

This poster session will outline the rationales and descriptive characteristics of the whole programme, with our reflections and an explanation on how we gauge the programmes’s effectiveness. We will also share our ideas in pushing forward informal learning in the University.

* Both City University of Hong Kong Library and National Taiwan Normal University Library received the award for No. 3

Scholarly Publishing Services in the University Library:
Sharing the Experience of National Taiwan Normal University

Chao-Chen CHEN, Hao-Ren KE, Wei-Ning CHENG, and Wen-Chieh LIN

National Taiwan Normal University Library (link)