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Distance Learning Students andLibrary ServicesHazel M. Davis aa Rio Salado College in Tempe , AR, USAPublished online: 12 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Hazel M. Davis (2000) Distance Learning Students andLibrary Services, Community & Junior College Libraries, 9:2, 3-13, DOI: 10.1300/J107v09n02_02

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ARTICLES

Distance Learning Studentsand Library Services:Issues, Solutions

and the Rio Salado College Model

Hazel M. Davis

ABSTRACT. Distance learning courses and programs are being offeredby increasing numbers of higher education institutions. In the UnitedStates, approximately eighty-five percent of community colleges offersome type of distance education. Computer technologies are beingemployed as teaching tools and distance learning students have devel-oped an expectation of convenience and instant responsiveness. Libraryservices for distance education students should be tailored to their specif-ic needs, utilizing online technologies in combination with traditionalservices. Statistics show that many community college libraries do notprovide special services for their distance learners. Rio Salado College, anon-traditional college in Arizona, is profiled, and the college model forlibrary services is detailed. [Article copies available for a fee from TheHaworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address:getinfo@haworthpressinc.com <Website: http://www.haworthpressinc.com>]

KEYWORDS. Distance education, distance learning, libraries, onlinecourses, remote library users, electronic library

Hazel M. Davis is Director of Library Services and Faculty Librarian at RioSalado College in Tempe, AR (E-mail: davis@rio.maricopa.edu).

Community & Junior College Libraries, Vol. 9(2) 2000E 2000 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 3

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At the close of the twentieth century, the paradigm for higher educa-tion in the United States and around the world is changing. We seemid-life learners returning to school to re-train or re-career, and in-creasing numbers of employers providing on-the-job educational op-portunities and incentives for their employees. Students in the tradi-tional college age bracket, raised in an age of technological explosion,have grown up with computers and are attracted to online distanceeducation courses where in previous generations, they would havebeen more likely candidates for traditional, on-campus instruction.The expectation of convenience as more and more students juggle

work, family and personal responsibilities along with their collegecourse work, has led to a larger population than ever before who arecandidates for distance education. Distance Education in HigherEducation Institutions, published in 1997 by the National Center forEducation Statistics, reported the first national data about distanceeducation course offerings in the United States. The report found thatone-third of all higher education institutions offered distance learningcourses in 1995, and that another quarter planned such offerings with-in the next three years. More significantly for community collegeeducators, fifty-eight percent of community colleges offered distanceeducation courses, with another twenty-eight percent planning to offercourses within the next three years. By 1999, then, we can estimatethat over eighty-five percent of community colleges are offering someform of distance education.Much of this explosion in distance education may be attributed to

burgeoning technological advancement, allowing for the offering ofasynchronous course work utilizing computer technologies. The on-line university is a new phenomenon, a product of technological ad-vancement. Jones International University was accredited early in1999 by the North Central Accreditation Agency, the first such accred-itation of a completely ‘‘virtual’’ university (Blumenstyk 1999). Also,long-established traditional colleges and universities are beginning tooffer options to their students for off-campus courses, in addition totheir traditional formats. The American Council on Education esti-mated in 1998 that eighty-five percent of these traditional colleges anduniversities either offered or planned to offer some type of distancecourse (Kirk and Bartelstein 1999). The advent of the Internet as ateaching medium, and the increasingly sophisticated technologieswhich are being employed in higher education have meant that institu-

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Hazel M. Davis 5

tions are able to offer instruction in formats and in locations notconsidered possible only a few years ago.Distance education students are a diverse group, with a diverse set

of needs. Mid-life adults returning to school might have little comput-er literacy or technological know-how, while the younger studentswho have grown up with technology are very comfortable with allaspects of computer learning. Regardless of level of sophistication,however, common to all distance learners seems to be an expectationof ‘‘instant’’ responsiveness. In the library context, this translates intoa need for immediate access to full-text information, and ever-increas-ing levels of service. Serving a distant population does not mean lesswork for the librarian, but often involves specialized services, tailoredto individuals or to small groups.Commensurate with the explosion in instructional technologies has

come an enormously increased ability to provide library services tostudents in remote locations, and the expectation that such serviceswill be provided. Primary needs of remote users have been identifiedas twenty-four hour access to user-friendly online databases, twenty-four hour helpdesk support, personal assistance from library staff fol-lowing a customer/business model, and extensive informational re-sources describing the services offered by the institutional library(Cooper et al. 1998). Other components identified include instruction(printed, electronic or via telephone), contact information for request-ing assistance, interlibrary loan request information, and rapid re-sponse time for requested materials, reference requests and informa-tional questions (Lebowitz 1997). These recommendations emphasizethe need for a customer driven, service approach. ‘‘ . . . While remoteusers do not physically come to the library, they do have high expecta-tions of what libraries ought to offer . . . remote users depend onlibrarians to provide around-the-clock support’’ (Haricombe 1998).It is true that many distance courses are still designed so that stu-

dents are provided with all the required materials in their course-packs, thereby eliminating the need for library resources. Alternative-ly, the assumption might be made by college administrators thatstudents should visit local libraries for their research needs. The Uni-versity of Phoenix, the nation’s largest private university, has beenembroiled in controversy regarding this issue. A 1998 application tobegin operations in New Jersey was withdrawn after it became clearthat licensing by the state was in question--a decision attributed in

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large part to the lack of library resources and support offered by theinstitution (Selingo 1998). The University provides access to electron-ic subscription databases for enrolled students, but does not enterformal agreements with other libraries to provide for books and printmaterials, directing students to contact their local libraries as neces-sary. However, Jones International University, in addition to providingelectronic resources, reportedly has an interlibrary loan contract withthe University of Colorado libraries to provide materials for Jonesstudents.Conversely, many institutions have set up dedicated departments

staffed by distance learning librarians to serve the specialized needs ofdistance learners, or have incorporated service to distance students aspart of their on-campus operations.In part, this focus on service can be attributed to increasing scrutiny

by accrediting agencies, which are requiring evidence of library sup-port for distance education students that is equivalent to service pro-vided on campus. The North Central Association guidelines for dis-tance education, for example, list the following requirements in thecategory of library and learning resources:

S The institution ensures that students have access to and can effec-tively use appropriate library resources.

S The institution monitors whether students make appropriate useof learning resources.

S The institution provides laboratories, facilities, and equipmentappropriate to the courses or programs.

At the same time, the North Central Association is recognizing thenew technologies that may be utilized in bringing library resources tostudents. Accreditor Steven Crow has been quoted as saying: ‘‘Wehave turned away from counting books. We are trying to emphasizeaccess to appropriate learning resources, such as on-line journals anddatabases’’ (University Business 1999).Emphasis on the importance of library services to distance learners

has further been underscored by the revision of the Association ofCollege and Research Libraries’ guidelines for distance learning li-brary services in 1998. In addition to the ‘‘identical, through increas-ingly critical’’ criteria for revision used in the previous revision of thethen Guidelines for Extended Campus Library Services in 1990, theauthors added the following criteria as reasons for the revision: ‘‘ . . .

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the decrease in central campus enrollments, the search for more cost-effective sources for post-secondary education, and the appearanceand rapid development of the virtual or all-electronic university, hav-ing no physical campus of its own’’ (Association of College andResearch Libraries 1998).The preamble to the revised guidelines further emphasizes the tech-

nological changes that have taken place in the way that distancecourses may now be offered by institutions of higher learning. Lan-guage added to the definition of distance education states that courses‘‘ . . . may or may not require physical facilities, and may or may notinvolve live interaction of teachers and students.’’Data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics indi-

cate that the availability of library services for distance learning stu-dents in many institutions does not yet meet the standards set by theguidelines (National Center for Education Statistics 1997). Four yearinstitutions are doing more than two year colleges to provide services.Access to an electronic link with the institution’s library was availableat seventy-eight percent of reporting four year institutions, ascompared to forty percent of community colleges. Designated librarystaff for distance learners showed more equity, with forty-five percentin four year colleges and forty-one percent in community colleges, butthis is still a low figure overall. Cooperative agreements for students touse other libraries were in place at seventy-five percent of four yearinstitutions, as compared to only fifty-eight percent of communitycolleges, and deposit collections at remote sites were available forforty-seven percent of four year colleges and thirty-eight percent oftwo year colleges. Although these figures vary widely amongst thedifferent types of services libraries provide to distance learners, itseems evident that community colleges are doing far less than fouryear institutions to address these needs. It appears that a substantialnumber of community colleges offering distance learning courses arenot doing anything at all to provide library services to students en-rolled in these courses.

THE RIO SALADO COLLEGE MODEL

Most institutions adding distance courses to a traditional infrastruc-ture face the need to adapt traditional campus systems to support theirdistance course offerings. At Rio Salado College, support systems are

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part of a long-established and non-traditional infrastructure. An inno-vator from the first, Rio Salado was founded in 1978 under the philos-ophy of ‘‘Let the College come to you.’’ Established as one of seven‘‘colleges without walls’’ in the United States, Rio Salado is one of tensister colleges in the Maricopa Community College District, the larg-est community college district in the nation. Accredited by the NorthCentral Association, it is the only college in the Maricopa systemwithout a ‘‘brick and mortar’’ campus.For over 20 years, Rio Salado has provided education to distant

students through a variety of modalities, including print, mixed-media(a combination of print and audio or video materials), television, vid-eotape, CD-ROM, in-class instruction at selected sites, and, most re-cently, Internet. As stated in the college mission, Rio specializes indistance delivery, customized partnerships and programs, and acceler-ated formats. The college does not have a campus, per se. A limitednumber of classes are now offered in the building in which the collegeis headquartered, in Tempe, Arizona. A number of courses are offeredin sites located in the greater Phoenix area in Maricopa County, Arizo-na, including shopping malls and high schools, as well as five ‘‘supersite’’ locations. Extensive course offerings are also provided via busi-ness partnerships with local business and industry, as well as concur-rent enrollment programs involving partnerships with local highschools, in which students have the opportunity to earn college creditwhile taking high school courses.Rio offers its distance courses via an ‘‘anytime, anyplace’’ philoso-

phy, and offers twenty-six ‘‘starts’’ for most of its these courses,providing students with the opportunity to begin a thirteen weekcourse every other week.The college’s first online offerings, the first courses delivered over

the Internet in Arizona, were developed and offered in the fall of 1996.Within six months, enrollment in the Internet classes stood at ninehundred students. By the spring of 1999, the college offered onehundred and twenty-five Internet courses, out of a total of two hundredand fifty distance learning courses. The year 1998 saw a forty-fivepercent increase in distance learning enrollment at the college. Dis-tance student enrollment in January of 1999 stood at approximatelyfourteen thousand duplicated enrollments a year. Demographics forRio distance students are similar to national norms--slightly over fiftypercent are female, in their early thirties, and single. In total, Rio’s

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Hazel M. Davis 9

enrollment stands at approximately twenty-five thousand credit andtwenty-five thousand non-credit students, with about 6,500 studentsFTE.In keeping with its ‘‘college without walls’’ philosophy, Rio Salado

has only eighteen full-time faculty, each of whom serves as a depart-ment head. The college librarian is one of these faculty. The collegeemploys between five hundred and six hundred adjunct faculty to teachcourses, drawn from educators and content experts in the community.From the vantage point of the planning and provision of library

services, all of Rio Salado’s students with the exception of the verysmall percentage taking classes offered in the Rio headquarters need tobe considered as distance students, requiring access to library servicesfrom remote locations.Since the college’s early years, Rio Salado has maintained a small

library resource center, containing print and video materials intendedprimarily for faculty and staff support. Distance learning video andaudio course materials are checked out to students through this library.Over ninety-five percent of the college’s distance students reside inMaricopa County, and students have historically been directed to usethe services of Rio’s sister college libraries in the ten-campus Marico-pa Community College district for any additional research needs. Overthe past few years, however, with the availability of new technologies,this service philosophy has changed and expanded, with responsibilityfor the provision of library services being assumed by the college.Services are now structured to provide compliance with the preceptsof the revised ACRL guidelines: ‘‘Members of the distance learningcommunity are entitled to library services and resources equivalent tothose in traditional campus settings.’’Rio Salado College operates through an integrated, systems infra-

structure which includes eight components, namely: course develop-ment, course implementation, faculty services, student services,admissions and records, library services, technology and communica-tion, and marketing (Scarafiotti and Ambrosia 1998).Library and informational services are provided at the college as

part of this integrated unit in several different ways, woven into thefabric of the college infrastructure. Services provided are a combina-tion of traditional library services and innovative, technology-basedsystems. The full-time library staff at the college is a small unit,consisting of the faculty librarian who is the library director, a supervi-

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sor of library information and access services, who is responsible foroperational management of the library and the maintenance of thevirtual library or ‘‘cybrary’’ on the World Wide Web, and two libraryassistants whose functions include circulation, interlibrary loan, andacquisitions. This small team manages library services to a large anddiverse distance college population.As previously mentioned, Rio Salado offers twenty-six ‘‘starts’’ a

year for distance learning classes. Lists of newly registered studentsare generated on a daily basis and the required distance learning mate-rials are then automatically checked out to these students and mailedto their homes, by library staff. This process is no longer semester-bound but is ongoing throughout the year.The library director, in her capacity as faculty librarian, serves as a

member of the cross-functional Development Team, along with otherfaculty members, several college deans, and administrative personnelrepresenting faculty services, curriculum development, technologyand computer services. In this way, the library director is a participantin course development and is able to support informational and re-search needs of faculty, administration and students from the groundup. She is able to suggest and procure resources to support courseswhich are being developed or revised, in both electronic and printformats, and to anticipate future needs.As new courses are developed or existing courses revised, the facul-

ty librarian consults with faculty chairs regarding research assign-ments and requirements for library use within the courses. Libraryassignments are designed or revised which will satisfy informationliteracy competencies and assist students in developing research skills.This partnership between instructional and library faculty is an evolv-ing project and is an excellent example of the integrated approachtaken by the college.The faculty librarian also runs the college copyright department,

and is responsible for procuring copyright clearance for materials usedin print and electronic course packs and distance learning course mate-rials. These include all formats, such as licensing of videos, the use ofprint materials, or Internet resources. Owing to the current uncertaintyregarding fair use in the digital environment, and the history of legisla-tion regarding course packs, permissions are routinely sought fromcopyright owners before materials are used.The college has long had a small library resource center, containing

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Hazel M. Davis 11

materials primarily intended for faculty development and instructionaluse. This collection is about 60 percent video material, which is circu-lated freely. Currently, collection development procedures are beingrefined to reflect clearly the areas taught at the college and curriculumsupport. As one of the ten Maricopa Community Colleges, Rio Saladoshares a common OPAC with the rest of the college district. Studentsmay use the Web interface of the OPAC to identify holdings at any ofthe ten colleges and to make their own requests. Materials may berequested for retrieval at any of the ten colleges, depending upon thestudent’s geographical location. The Rio library staff will also routerequested materials to any of the Rio sites throughout the greaterPhoenix area that are convenient for students, or will mail items fromthe college’s holdings at no charge to students’ homes, if this is theonly viable alternative for the student.Rio Salado’s first ‘‘virtual library’’ or ‘‘cybrary’’ was developed in

1996 as one of the first home pages on the College’s web site, and maybe viewed at http://www.rio.maricopa.edu/ci/riointernet/library. Thiselectronic library was originally organized by broad subject category,reflective of the first Internet courses developed at the College, inorder to provide guidance to quality web sites in the subject areasbeing taught on the Web at the college. Also included were an OnlineWriting Center (OWL) and several Internet tutorials.The electronic library has been completely revised and redesigned

since its first incarnation, and is constantly being maintained, updatedand expanded. Currently, in addition to collections of web sites in allcategories taught at the college, it includes several tutorials, includingInformation Literacy tutorials, copyright information, and an exten-sively organized reference link collection.Reference help is available in the electronic library through an

e-mail link to the reference librarian. Most e-mail inquiries come induring weekend hours when the library resource center is closed, andstudents are unable to make telephone requests, so this feature hasdemonstrably resulted in increased access for the student community.Turn around time for responding to e-mail requests is twenty-fourhours at the most, but in many cases, faster.The newest addition to the online library at Rio Salado is an exten-

sive collection of online, full-text databases, which are shared re-sources for the Maricopa Community Colleges. A proxy server en-ables these databases to be accessed from home or from any remote

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site by any legitimately enrolled student or current faculty member.Computer terminals are available for student research in the libraryresource center, for students who do not have computers at home.Additionally, students may use the computers in the labs at the col-lege’s five major sites, which cover a wide geographic area, for accessto the electronic library.Bibliographic instruction sessions are provided to students at in-

class sessions at the Rio sites, upon instructor request. The computerlabs or computer classrooms at these sites are utilized for this purpose,so that students may have hands-on instruction and practice with usingthe electronic databases. Also in development at this time is a libraryservices orientation video, which will introduce Rio students and newadjunct faculty to the many services available to them through the Riolibrary, and also the basics of searching the online catalog and data-bases. Once this video has been completed, plans are in place to checkit out to new students and faculty through the library, to create aCD-ROM version for increased convenience, and to add componentsof the video as streaming video within the online library, therebyproviding online guidance and instruction for distance learners.Another aspect of the approach to library services at the college is

to utilize partnerships in cases where this would be the most advanta-geous approach for students. A good example of this occurred in thecase of the Rio Salado dental hygiene program, a flagship program ofthe College, first offered in 1998. Phoenix College, another of theMaricopa Colleges, had a long-standing dental hygiene program andan extensive core collection of the required resource materials. How-ever, this collection needed updating. Instead of duplicating the sametype of collection at Rio Salado, librarians at both colleges cooperatedto form a partnership, whereby Rio Salado funds were used to pur-chase a large collection of recent and updated books and journal sub-scriptions to be housed with the existing collection at Phoenix Col-lege, a short drive from the Rio Dental Clinic. Students from bothprograms have primary access to these resources, which now have thedepth expected of a long-established collection, as well as the curren-cy expected of a new collection. Students have expressed interest infull-text online information, and librarians at the two colleges areresearching the availability of a database relating specifically to dentalinformation needs. This database would then be made availablethrough the electronic library.

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The approach to providing library services to the distance learningstudent population at Rio Salado is constantly evolving, keeping pacewith new course offerings as new technologies make new servicespossible. The non-traditional infrastructure of the college and the well-developed systems approach to supporting students allow for continu-al adaptation, change and growth as new needs become evident.

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Association of College and Research Libraries. 1990. ACRL Guidelines for Ex-tended Campus Library Services. College & Research Libraries News 51 (4):353-355.

Association of College and Research Libraries. 1998. ACRL Guidelines for DistanceLearning Library Services. College & Research Libraries News 59 (9): 689-694.

Cooper, R., P.R. Dempsey, V. Menon, and C. Millson-Martula. 1998. Remote LibraryUsers: Needs and Expectations. Library Trends 47 (1): 42-64.

Haricombe, L.J. 1998. Introduction. Library Trends 47 (1): 1-6.Kirk, E.E. and A.M. Bartelstein. 1999. Libraries Close in on Distance Education.

Library Journal 124 (4): 303-308.North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Commission on Institutions of

Higher Education. 1997. Handbook of Accreditation. 2nd ed. Chicago: The Com-mission.

An On-line First: Virtual University Gains Accreditation. 1999. University Business2 (4): 16.

Acarafiotti, C. and A. Ambrosia. 1998. Rio Salado College: A Systems Approach tothe Distance Learning Gold Rush. Academic Leadership 5 (3): 4-11.

Selingo, J. 1998. U. of Phoenix Retract Application to Operate in New Jersey.Chronicle of Higher Education 45 (14): A32.

U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. DistanceEducation In Higher Education Institutions, by Laurie Lewis, Debbie Alexander,and Elizabeth Farris. NCES 98-062. Washington, D.C., 1997.

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