Collection Development Policy Statement

School of Education:
Curriculum Support / Professional Development in Pedagogy and Instructional Technologies

University of Northern Virginia Library
Dr. Peter Williams, Dean of School of Education
Linda Nainis, Dean, Learning and Instructional Resources

Antje Mays, Consultant (email)

I. Purpose

The purpose of the Curriculum Support collection development policy is to support UNVA's commitment to continuing development for the teaching and library faculty. All UNVA degree programs, by their very nature of designing and delivering curricula, require a solid foundation of curriculum support and competency in subject knowledge and pedagogy. A solid curricular foundation consists of content knowledge areas and "how to teach" those knowledge areas; together, these are essential for transferring and advancing knowledge to future generations. UNVA's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching spearheads innovative development in the areas of subject-based teaching, curriculum design & delivery, evolving pedagogical methods, assessing student learning and instructional outcomes, as well as new developments in learning technologies. Continued development supports faculty in their roles as continuing learners and teachers and greatly benefits student learning outcomes.

Curriculum Support is the heart of education: It is rooted in the "content knowledge" and pedagogical delivery of that content knowledge to new generations of learners. Curricular delivery draws heavily on library and instructional resources and their meaningful integration in all academic programs.

II. Scope

Language
The materials are almost exclusively English or translations into English.
 

Geographical Areas
Emphasis is on curriculum development and teaching of all subjects taught in comprehensive curricula. Many of these principles originated in Europe and the Americas. For faculty and student teaching and training of students based in Virginia, United States focus is paramount. For distance students at the international campuses, geographically dispersed origins provide additional substance for future work as educators in their home countries. For faculty members at the internationally far-flung global campuses, online library collections with international perspectives add value to supporting teaching roles at those campuses.

Chronological Periods
Material from the twenty-first century predominates for faculty professional development. Some very targeted historical focus is sought only for specific research or teaching interests of UNVA faculty.

 
III. Types of Material and Formats
Given the geographically dispersed locations of UNVA, subject-supporting scholarly and practitioner-oriented e-book collections and full-text databases of journals, trade magazines are the best way to ensure that all faculty and students from all campuses have access to equal library resources. Faculty at all campuses typically conduct research from their offices and students are enrolled both in Virginia and worldwide (distance programs). Therefore, the primary emphasis should be on in-depth electronic resources to serve the education research needs of UNVA communities, including international campuses' faculty and distance learners.

Curricular support covers a mix of behind-the-scenes supports for curriculum delivery. The range of supports includes teaching tools such as books, journals, sound recordings (for example in language teaching and music instruction), videos (for visual reinforcement of knowledge areas such as fine & performing arts), software (for example, computer modeling, math, computer programming instructional files), educational technology (for example, course delivery systems, covered in-depth in the Educational Communication & Technology policy), teaching kits (games and other preschool-geared materials), etc.

Through electronic resources the library can provide current journal literature, conveniently accessible to faculty and students at all campuses. Electronic products are generally preferred over print equivalents, all else being equal. There is an ever increasing demand for online resources with remote access. This is an area with unlimited growth potential, and the library will meet that challenge. Education is affected by ongoing changes in policy and new advances in pedagogy and educational technologies that continue to rapidly evolve; electronic formats can most efficiently provide continually updated content. Thus, electronic resources are actively purchased.

For online materials, the purchasing preference is the subscription basis. Perpetual use purchases are generally discouraged. Given a choice between similar databases when selecting new content, it is preferred to stay with the same vendor, unless there is a strong reason such as truly unique content which only another vendor can provide. Many databases from few vendors keeps the database interface more consistent for students and faculty.

Print may be purchased selectively, as appropriate, on a small scale, mostly for reference materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and certain types of directories and handbooks. Two scenarios could occur and justify print materials available at only one specific campus: (1) materials of strictly local importance; (2) print publications from professional associations needed for faculty development, continuing education, and teaching preparation.

IV. Strengths & Weaknesses
The online collection is strong; over 110,000 e-books are provided by EBL and ebrary. Of these, about 5% are devoted specifically to Education Education and recent imprints represent a high percentage of the collection. All other e-books provide additional coverage on content knowledge needed for faculty development. Possible e-book additions might include computer and technology collections from O-Reilly and Safari. A rich collection of databases includes Education Research Complete, Library Information & Technology Abstracts, Teacher Reference Center, ERIC, as well as ABI Complete and its Education module. Further support for practical application in the teacher's classroom can be found in the Literature Resource Center, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center, the subject-specific ABI Complete modules, and ProQuest ELibrary for broad coverage across the curricular spectrum. Additional databases may be added in the future. Such future additions might possibly include IGI Global's Info Science Books and Info Science Journals.

The print collection is small, but in light of UNVA's multi-campus research environment, the collection-building emphasis should continue to be on electronic resources.

V. Related Resources
Additional library collections pertaining to Education are described in the collection policy statements for  Early Childhood Education, Educational Communication and Instructional Technology, Educational Leadership, TESOL, and Higher Education Administration; they are served by separate collection development policies.

VI. Subjects and Collection Levels:
Subject collecting is characterized by levels 1-5, with Level 1 representing the most intensive buying, and level 5 representing the lowest level of buying.

1. Research Level: Advanced and comprehensive collection supporting doctoral dissertations and independent research, as well as support for faculty in their doctoral-level course preparation and specialty-related research. Materials at this level should include research reporting, new findings, scientific experimental results, and other primary documents and/or original research dissemination. Other resources at this level include all important reference works, a wide selection of specialized books, e-books, instructional videos and/or streaming web-based instructional A/V materials, an in-depth collection of journals, e-journals, major in-depth full-text databases for indexing, abstracting, and full-text journal content.

2. Study Level: Thorough collection supporting baccalaureate and master's level coursework, master's theses, and project-based independent study, as well as support for faculty in their baccalaureate and master's level course preparation and specialty-related research. This level supports general subject overview and some specialized knowledge, but is not as in-depth as the Research level. Materials include a wide range of books, e-books, workbooks (for example teacher's workbooks, lab manuals), A/V materials where appropriate to the academic discipline, core journals, e-journals, electronic full-text databases, and reference works providing study foundations.

3. Basic Level: Introductory collection to provide a basic subject overview. May include some resources for faculty course preparation and research. Materials include major encyclopedias, dictionaries, important bibliographies, a few major journals / e-journals and possibly drawing from general academic full-text databases already purchased for other subject areas.

4. Minimal Level: Few selections of either very basic works or occasional selections of specialized works in a narrow sub-field, but no systematic support of the subject area.

5. Not collected

 

Subject emphasis: Materials should be primarily chosen for their emphasis by subject, keeping in mind that English is a second language for most undergraduate and graduate students. The subject list below is a starting point for selecting new materials and a guidepost in case of withdrawal projects.

Pertinent LC Call Number Areas

Although UNVA's library does not actively pursue print collections where call-numbers are traditionally emphasized, the Library of Congress (LC) call-number classification system has great value in drilling down with precision to the curricular areas to be supported, even with e-book collections. Similar to a taxonomy, the LC call numbers classify knowledge consistently. This systematic language for coding subjects supports several important library roles: (1) retrieving library holdings by classification ranges of e-books from the online catalog to assess where collections need to be enhanced or pared down; (2) coding curriculum-support profiles for e-book vendors and approval plans; (3) teaching students an additional way to search with precision for library resources on their research topics.

Following are some of the call-number ranges into which Curriculum Support titles can fall:

L General

L 7-991 Education-general. Societies, yearbooks, official documents, museums, directories :

L7-97 Periodicals. Societies (probably as many e-journals as the education databases can catch)
L111-791 Official documents, reports, etc.
L900-991 Directories of educational institutions

LB 1025-1050.79 Teaching. Principles & practice, including reading & technology

LB2806.15 Curriculum development

LC251-951 Moral and religious education
LC980-1099.5 Types of education
LC1200-1203 Inclusive education
LC1390-5160.3 Education of special classes of persons
LC5201-6660.4 Education extension. Adult education. Continuing education

Note: In addition to the Education-related LC call numbers, materials will also be classified in the subjects being taught and also fall under instructional resources (for example MT for Music education, NX for Art education, QA for Math and Computer Science education, Z for the library's role in curricular support). The dual emphasis is on content knowledge and the teaching of a given subject..