WebJunction Illinois: Change is at the Crossroads
by Jeannie Dilger-Hill, MLS, and Lisa Barnhart, WJIL Project Coordinator
WebJunction ( http://www.webjunction.org) and its many partner sites, including WebJunction Illinois ( http://il.webjunction.org), are undergoing a major update that goes significantly deeper than mere design, layout, or even features. Coming late this summer, WebJunction Illinois will re-launch on an entirely new technology platform loaded with new features, a dramatically different design, and extensive improvements to all aspects of the community and learning experiences.
Design goals for this next version of the site included:
- Deliver improved and easier-to-use experiences for users based on extensive feedback from many voices in the community.
- Develop a site and technology platform that will be a solid foundation for the future.
- Take advantage of many developments in learning, community, and social technologies that have emerged in the past few years to create the premier online learning community site for library staff.
The end result will create better ways for both library staff and the organizations that support them to connect, create, and learn:
Connect
- Personalization - Updates, news, activities, events. A range of new features to make WebJunction Illinois feel like home.
- Social Tools - Use powerful new social features to find and connect with colleagues from across the library community to share ideas, insights, recommendations, and common interests.
- Content-Centric – Allow users to collaborate and build their own communities around discussion topics, articles, courses, and more.
Create
- Member Contributed Content - New tools make it easier than ever to make your name shine while contributing your knowledge and insights to the broader library community.
- Common Interest Groups - Members will be able to create their own small communities on the topics that interest them, and invite their friends and colleagues to collaborate.
- Courses - WebJunction Illinois will have a customized course catalog which will include a number of LibraryU modules as well as the option to add courses to share with our members or the library community as a whole.
Learn
- Learning Management and Tracking – Individual organizations can plan, manage, and track member progress against learning plans and goals using tools previously affordable only to the corporate world.
- Improved Course Selection - The course catalog is being built with new, more relevant, and more flexible courses to help users develop the skills they need to thrive.
- Blended Learning – Opportunities will be available to pair the new collaboration tools with Web conferencing to deliver a true blended learning experience.
New Logo
The signpost logo is at long last being retired in favor of a new, clean, simplified logo. What exactly is that logo, you might ask? It's a stylized bird's eye view of a street intersection (continuing the "junction" theme)...or it could be four letter J's stuck together to play off our name. It depends on who you ask.
Course Transition
WebJunction Illinois is particularly excited to be a part of new improvements and additions being made to the course catalog and content this summer. The WebJunction Illinois Course Catalog will be more focused, with courses matched to specific competencies and skills. A significant number of LibraryU courses will also be incorporated into the Catalog with more to follow in the future. The new and improved course catalog will provide many more courses to you as well as continue to add more library specific content.
In preparation for this transition, WebJunction Illinois users should remember these important things:
- The course catalog will be unavailable for one week starting July 14, 2008, and no new enrollments will be allowed from June 21 to July 21, 2008.
- If you are currently enrolled in a course we encourage you to finish it and print your certificate by July 14, 2008.
- If you are considering enrolling in a course, we encourage you to do so by June 21, 2008, and complete the course by July 14, 2008.
- NOTE: This timetable does not apply to the facilitated courses, the University of North Texas LE@D courses, or the free webinars available through WJIL.
- For your records, you may want to print out your course list or all course certificates prior to mid-July.
Did You Know?
Published June 4, 2008 in vol. 2, iss. 10 [View]
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