Online Learning Library : Leganto

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a massive implementation of distance learning. Many long months later, when students were gradually returning to campus, hybrid and online teaching remained. This placed a significant burden on higher education worldwide. Institutions needed to leverage their resources to ensure a meaningful academic experience and fulfill students’ expectations for online access to course materials to keep students engaged wherever they are. Libraries have a key role to play in delivering course resources efficiently and supporting the faculty in the creation and modification of course resource lists. The Ex Libris Leganto® list management system helps your library accomplish these goals at scale and maximizes your library technology, collections, and expertise. With its support for active learning, Leganto online learning library also helps instructors transform students from passive participants to lively contributors.

The building is closed, the library is open: Online learning at the University of Mary Washington

A Leganto resource list embedded in Canvas (instructor’s view)

Streamlining access to academic course resources

With the Leganto solution, students benefit from consistent, intuitive access to online resources, directly from the course page in the learning management system. Leganto makes it easy for students to find and use course resources remotely, on any device.

Leganto contributes to a frictionless learning experience by helping the library minimize problems with access to course materials, such as missing or broken links. Furthermore, with its Social Reading and Read & Respond assignments, Leganto fosters active learning.

Streamlining access to an academic online learning library

With the Leganto solution, students benefit from consistent, intuitive access to an online learning library , directly from the course page in the learning management system. Leganto makes it easy for students to find and use course resources remotely, on any device.

A Leganto resource list embedded in Moodle (instructor’s view)

Improving the teaching experience for the online learning library and hybrid environments

The Leganto solution saves instructors time and effort by enabling them to easily select, manage, and share quality course resources in an online learning library. Instructors can combine all types of resources to create structured and comprehensive resource lists, making it easier for students to relate to course content and understand what is required of them. Instructors can apply a “Social Reading” or “Read & Respond” assignments to a citation on the list. The Leganto online learning library helps instructors strengthen learning by increasing student involvement, and fostering interactions.

The teaching staff can create reading lists themselves or work in collaboration with instructional designers, teaching assistants, or librarians. Reading lists are embedded in the institution’s learning management system and online learning library, enabling instructors and students to access all materials in one place.

A Leganto resource list embedded in Moodle (instructor’s view)

Identifying electronic versions of books and book chapters in the online learning library

Libraries make substantial investments in licensing electronic resources for the use of the faculty and students. However, these resources are often underused in courses due to a lack of awareness or confusing processes required for adding them to the course page in the learning management system.

With Leganto, the online learning library can automatically analyze course resource needs and identify the physical resources that are available in electronic form. Leganto also enables the teaching staff, instructional designers, and librarians to easily update physical materials with online equivalents, leveraging the library’s collection. Links to the library’s resources are automatically created, thus eliminating the need for manual work.

Facilitating access to physical books

Despite the growing role of electronic resources, physical books still constitute an important part of teaching and learning. Leganto online learning library enables you to provide easy access to books by digitizing chapters, or even a subset of pages, under the fair use or fair dealing policy and make them available to students enrolled in the course.

Making online course resources affordable and diverse

The Leganto solution and online learning library helps reduce the cost of course resources for students without compromising on the quality of teaching. Librarians can recommend alternatives to costly course packs and textbooks by using the library’s own collections and other resources that are available at no additional cost, including open educational resources (OERs) and open-access materials. Leveraging the library’s expertise, the collaborative approach of Leganto online learning library, and the ease of finding and selecting any type of resource, faculty members can diversify the resource offerings for their courses and control the cost for students.