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Support for pre-sessional business courses
1. BLA Conference 2012: Going Global? Challenges of Internationalisation
Library Services: Support for
Pre-sessional Business Courses
Stephen Bull
Subject Advisor (Birmingham Business School)
Library Services
University of Birmingham
Friday 6th July 2012
2. “The University of Birmingham has been hosting international
students since its inception in 1900, and now boast one of the
largest international student communities in the UK”
University of Birmingham (2012) International Students. Available from:
www.birmingham.ac.uk/international/students/index.aspx. [Accessed: 26 June 2012].
3. Outline
International students in the Birmingham Business
School
English for International Students Unit: Pre-
sessionals
Library Services support: „then and now‟
Benefits and considerations of LS involvement
Teaching international students using Xerte
4. Profile of the Birmingham Business School
Undergraduate Postgraduate Postgraduate Total
Taught Research
Home/EU 1664 332 34 2030
Overseas 158 862 61 1081
Total 1822 1194 95 3111
In total, in 2009/10, UoB had 27,276 students of which 3,815
(14%) were overseas students
Over 34% of students in the BBS were overseas students
Over 70% of students on PGT courses are overseas students
University of Birmingham (2012) The Planning Office: University Statistics.
Available from: www.planning.bham.ac.uk/busint/uni_stats.shtml. [Accessed: 26 June 2012].
5. Top 10 countries for the College of Social Sciences
Rank Country of Domicile Number of Students
1 China 504
2 Taiwan 86
3 India 85
4 Nigeria 78
5 France 70
6 Germany 58
7 USA 57
8 Vietnam 51
9 Thailand 47
10 South Korea 42
University of Birmingham (2012) The Planning Office: University Statistics.
Available from: www.planning.bham.ac.uk/busint/uni_stats.shtml. [Accessed: 26 June 2012].
6. English for International Students Unit (EISU)
Provide a number of courses including:
– Business Management English (BME)
For students entering the Business School
– English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
For students entering other courses (inc. Economics)
University of Birmingham (2012) English for International Students Unit.
Available from: www.eisu.bham.ac.uk. [Accessed: 26 June 2012].
8. Business Management English (BME)
Courses cover both subject specific and more
generic skills
Most suitable for students planning to do a business
postgraduate course
Courses last between 6 and 20 weeks
Library Services contribute significantly to this
programme…
9. Library Services offering: then
Peel (2011)
@matylda for hackNY (2011)
iStock Photo
2008: Subject Advisors provided tours, EISU provided eResource training
2009 and 2010: Subject Advisors provided tours and
eResource training
11. The problem…
Difficult to sustain:
– Student numbers rising
– Tours are LS staff intensive
– Further LS staff needed for
eResource training
Resource choice not aligned
Could we deliver a better, but more
streamlined programme?
Phillips (2010)
12. The solution…
Teach the teachers to lead the
library tours
eResources training
– Remove less relevant databases
– Reduce from 4 taught sessions:
2 taught sessions
– Journal databases / Marketing databases
1 session on iVLE
– FAME
– Less prescriptive worksheets, more
aligned to assignments
Bartell (2008)
15. What is Xerte?
www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte
An open source programme developed at the
University of Nottingham which creates
interactive elearning modules
You don’t need to be a techie to use it!
Pittaway, S. and Robertson, C. (2012) eLearning, Innovation and Information Literacy
[Teaching and Learning Conference, University of Birmingham]. 27 June.
20. Benefits
Better support to EISU
students from LS
Improved engagement
with eResources
training
Variety of teaching
methods
Less LS staff time
Telling (2006)
21. Challenges
Increasing number of
students
Ensuring students work
through the Xerte
module
Increasing demands on
staff time over summer
Different levels of
expertise of students
post-September
Sundström and Letzter (2006)
22. Recommendations
Training the teachers to
deliver tours
Library to retain the lead
on eResource training
Align teaching with
assignments
Experiment with Xerte
No harm in repeating
material post-September
Watkins (2011)
24. Photo Credits
@matylda for hackNY (2011) Summer Series 1: Ann Miura-Ko. Available from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61623410@N08/5788772871 [Accessed: 28 June 2012].
Balin, J.V. (2006) Unknown_blue. Available from: http://openclipart.org/detail/973/unknown_blue-by-
jean_victor_balin [Accessed 28 June 2012]
Bartell, K. (2008) Light bulb. Available from: http://openclipart.org/detail/12935/light-bulb-by-
anonymous-12935 [Accessed 28 June 2012].
Peel, M. (www.mikepeel.net) (2011) Tour of the British Library. Available from:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editathon,_British_Library_-_tour_6.jpg. [Accessed: 26 June
2012].
Philips, J. (2010) Thought cloud. Available from: http://openclipart.org/detail/36367/thought-cloud-by-
anonymous-36367 [Accessed 28 June 2012].
Sundström, O and Letzter, M. (2006). Everest-073. Available from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29367353@N00/279759366 [Accessed 28 June 2012]
Telling, J. (2006) Thumbs up. Available from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124473769@N01/292642699 [Accessed 28 June 2012]
Watkins, G.G. (2011). iRecommend. Available from:
http://www.library.bham.ac.uk/support/ordering/irecommend.shtml [Accessed 28 June 2012]
Vancouver Film School (2008) Digital Character Animation campus at VFS. Available from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38174668@N05/5843671482 [Accessed: 28 June 2012].
Images from Open Clip Art Library (http://openclipart.org), iStock Photo (http://www.istockphoto.com)
or via Creative Commons from Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) and
Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org) .
Notas do Editor
Students divided into classes of 12-14.
Business vocab, analytical and critical skills, essay writing, problem solving, presentation skills, business lectures, referencing, library & referencing skills.6 to 20 week courses all culminate the week prior to Welcome Week
4 work books created which showed how to use the resources
Approx 18 tours per year. Approx 18 staff hoursIn total ran each session 5 times over the summer (25 sessions). Each hands-on session required 1 Subject Advisor to lead and 1-2 assistants. Approx 75 staff hours minimumWe were training on Creative Club (for example) which had no relevance to their assignments
Reduction from a total of 34 pages across 4 work books to 12 pages across 2 work books plus an 18 slide Xerte
Firstly, who’s heard of Xerte?Mention online toolkits – template wizard (link to via title & show the Learning Object demo ( for different kinds of interactivity available)Also mention Glomaker (another similar tech which colleagues have used), innovation awards (2010 Xerte Online Toolkits won the IMS Platinum Impact Award), v active mailing listLink to e.g. of Xerte: www.nottingham.ac.uk/toolkits/play_560 (or via: www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/toolkits.htm and click on ‘Online Toolkit demo’Can show screenshots of back-end if time.
Download Xerte & download toolkitsOpen page template and save a folderStart creating!
Can’t demo it here because software not downloaded but can show our finished products – save as SCORM files and embedded into our VLE (URL linked from title)
We teach all of BBS PGTs / PGRs in September / October