 Alright, hi everyone. I'm Karen. Welcome to our Information, Intermediation and Instruction Q&A with our lovely advisors. This is part of our pathway series introducing the different MLIS career pathways where you will get an inside perspective from instructors and guests who have worked in specific fields. Today we'll be talking about skill sets that prepare students for work in reference, instructional design and related information settings. So let's get started with our agenda. Today's agenda consists of finding out what is information, intermediation and instruction pathway, which courses students should consider. How do students use the skill set and information work? And then we'll meet faculty and staff with expertise in this area who have made themselves available to answer your advising questions. So what is information, intermediation and instruction? Well, it is about understanding how to help users define and articulate their information needs by using skills such as communication, retrieval techniques, evaluating sources and services, effective leadership and management skills, and instructing users. You might want to focus on designing tools to enhance clients' information literacy skills. Here's a list of core knowledge that students pursuing the pathway should be building for a career in this area, such as research methodologies and evolution of information services and the core values held by information service providers. These can be found on the iSchool MLIS career pathway for information, intermediation and instruction. Additional information on standards for these skills is available on the association of college and research libraries and reference and user services association websites. Please take a look at what is in the yellow. Foundational and recommended courses such as Info 282 with the topic on change management and Info 220 with the topic on psychology of the information user data librarianship can be found on our MLIS website under this pathway. If you're interested in this pathway along with other pathways, there is a great tool on our iSchool advising toolkit website that allows you to see which courses different pathways have in common. This tool is called MLIS career pathways compare courses in common. And here is Sheila. Great. So we're going to talk about information, intermediation and instruction jobs that cross a variety of library and non library environments. And I really highly recommend that everyone download our MLIS skills at work report, which is actually available from the homepage of our website was just released not too long ago. And there are many tips about the information, intermediation and instruction job landscape which could be found inside this report. And some of the career environments are listed on the slide here, where you would find specific information about working with information intermediation and instruction and those different types of environments. Now, many of the most in demand skills in library and information science are part of the information, intermediation and instruction skill set both the soft skills and the library and information science skills. So inside the report on pages 11 and 12, you will see that many of the most in demand skills are from this pathway, including soft skills such as communication, collaboration, interpersonal organization skills, but also LIS skills such as technology, training, research, customer service. And here are just a few job titles that you will find that relate to this skill set, including of course reference librarianship and many types of different libraries, student success and outreach librarians in the academic library, library instructors, database trainers, data services librarians and information brokers. And then on the right hand side of the slide are some applied skills from job descriptions that I had pulled out. For example, this one was asking for someone to train law students and others in the use of legal materials and databases through extensive classroom teaching, leading of tours and one-on-one instruction. Another job was asking for someone to do research, analysis of user needs, preferences, objectives and working methods and how users consume content including data categorization and labeling. Another was seeking out to seek out and develop opportunities to offer instruction and scholarship support with digital fabrication and multimedia services. So I highly recommend taking a look at our MLIS skills at work report for very specific ideas about what you would be doing in these different positions. On this next slide, I retrieved an example of a corporate instructional design position description, which had an annual salary of 89,000. And I wanted to point out that there are some highlighted skills that really dovetail well with some of the LIS skill areas that you can be building in our program if you're following the information, intermediation and instruction pathway. So I highlighted some that I saw here, advanced knowledge of instructional design and digital learning tools. They were looking for someone comfortable in a fast-paced environment with multiple deadlines and shifting priorities, sounds like iSchool. They were looking for specific skills I called out here. They were looking for someone who knew Evolve, Articulate, Captivate, PowerPoint, Adobe CES and Camtasia Studio. They were looking for somebody who could develop learning concepts through audio, video, role-plays, games. So there are a lot of skills here that we can see can come directly from the information, intermediation and instruction courses at iSchool. You can also create job alerts on resources such as nd.com or other job search aggregators with keywords so that you can begin to see what types of positions even in non-library settings might be available in your area. Now these are just a few that came up in the San Francisco Bay Area when I searched for positions with the information, intermediation and instruction skill set. So you can see there was a senior trainer position for customer success. There was a PeopleSoft trainer curriculum developer for a consulting company. PeopleSoft is a database that we use at San Jose State. There was an instructional designer position that was a remote position, an engagement project delivery manager within higher education for Workday. There was a product trainer and evangelist support position. And there was a curriculum design and training manager, which was also a remote position. And finally, I wanted to point out that LinkedIn can also be another great source of information when you're trying to analyze what could be available using these library information science skill set for information, intermediation and instruction. So if you want to see where other iSchool alumni are working in this pathway, you can do some searching through LinkedIn. Here's one example. Greta Snyder, who wrote for the iSchool career blog and was involved with iSchool's student research journal, found a position as an e-learning specialist in the private sector after she completed her MLIS here. So instead of working in an academic library, she's putting her skills to use. Working for a company that's an assistive technology provider for the visually impaired. And you can take a look at her profile and some of the skills that she's called out in her LinkedIn profile for this position. And they really do match up with the information skills that are learned following this pathway. So it's a real treat now for us to open up the floor. You're going to have an opportunity to hear from three speakers on our panel. They're all experts in this pathway within library and information science. We have two of our faculty advisors and our own director of online learning. And first, they're going to introduce themselves and let you know a bit more about their background and their background and their journey through this pathway. And the skills that they feel are important, as well as some a little bit about the courses that they teach. And then at the end, we'll be opening it up to Q&A for any of your questions. So first off is Dr. Aguinyaga. Hello there everyone, Jose Aguinyaga. I joined the iSchool back in spring of 2020. And since that time, as you might imagine, it's been a interesting teaching and learning experience for everyone involved. I'm teaching info 210 reference and information services. But before I got to San Jose State as a lecturer, let me give you a little background as to how I got here. I began my career hard to believe back in 1994 at the University of Houston as a social sciences reference librarian. During that time at Houston, wonderful place to work in and it's a great city. I learned many things. I also was prompted to assume the interim role of human resources coordinator for the library. So talk about a learning opportunity and an experience to really pick up on many new skills, the soft skills that were just mentioned that were needed at many times. After Houston, I transitioned to my alma mater at University of San Diego. And I was once again back in the library, but this time as a reference librarian but overseeing at that time the CD ROM collection for online databases as you might imagine. And we transitioned from CD ROM format to the World Wide Web. That also taught me many skills, more specifically dealing with vendors and how to get the best option for the university and the students. After that period, I transitioned back to Arizona. And I was at Arizona State University West Campus once again in the role of social sciences reference librarian, but also involved with web usability, database oversight, and other interesting projects within the ASU community, Arizona State Community. And then guess what I transitioned back to California this time to California State University Long Beach. And I was there for about a four year period. And what I did there was once again social sciences reference librarians specifying in education, criminal justice and social work. Those experiences were quite valuable. But the interesting part about being at Cal State Long Beach, that my last year there, I participated in a program and I was chosen to be a faculty advisor, but in the resident halls. So I lived in the dormitories with my wife. And as you might imagine that really opened my mind and my, my knowledge base regarding students that live on campus and how to provide library services to students on campus. That was a valuable experience. I also became the Union rep for the library that also taught me some interesting aspects about the shared governance process if you're going to pursue an academic career. So having said all of that, while I was at Cal State Long Beach, I decided to pursue a second masters. And that was in public administration, I completed my studies, but I was so intrigued by the, the content of public administration that I decided I'm going to apply for a doctoral program. I applied for various universities, and I was accepted at Arizona State University. So that meant my wife and I would be transitioning back to Arizona. And we did that. I joined Glendale Community College in order to sustain the lifestyle and pay the bills. By joining Glendale Community College that opened a new avenue for me. And for the past 16 years, I've been with community colleges. Majority of that time has with has been with Glendale as a reference librarian, but also participated in many aspects within the shared governance process of Glendale Community College in Arizona. I became a faculty senator. And after serving two or three terms as senator, I was prompted to run for faculty senate president. I was the first librarian to be running for faculty senate president and to be elected that in itself open a new avenue to understanding the administrative side and the faculty side of many issues. That was a quite valuable experience. Besides being a reference librarian, I also, in my entire career I've provided instruction. Instruction is a key asset and a valuable skill to have to share that knowledge with students, with faculty, even with visitors that just come in and they want to use the library. My current position with Glendale. I'm at the North Campus. I've been at the North Campus, which is about 10 miles away from the main campus, and we have a separate library there. I oversee that library and work with the information technology staff regarding that facility and also the services that we provide to students at the North Campus. And that's sort of the quick summary of my career path, but just to add a few other elements. I've also been involved with the American Library Association of various committees. I served on ALA council for a three-year period. I'm also heavily involved with ACRL, the Association of College and Research Libraries. I've been on various committees, various task forces, and that keeps me engaged in giving back to my profession and to your profession in the near future if you choose the academic path. So I would encourage you, your participation and getting involved, whether it's at the local level, state level or national level. Last but not least, the skills. Once again, the soft skills. They make a big difference in developing those relationships with your new partners that you're going to have, whether in the public library setting, academic setting, or even a special library setting. And last but not least, my wife, who I met in library school. She's also a librarian, but here's talk about a pathway. She began as a children's librarian. She did that for about 15 years. And the last 15 years, she's been a medical librarian. Talk about a transition. Having those soft skills, having the reference skills, the technology skills can assist you in whichever path you want to pursue. So we live an interesting life in two different worlds, academic and medical. So that's just a little bit about me. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Oh, wonderful. Before we move to our next speaker, I just wanted to ask, did you have any little tidbits you wanted to share about your class, your info to 10 class, maybe some of the projects or activities that students who would be interested in taking info to 10 might be doing in your class, Dr. Aguanyaga. Yes, Sheila. Thank you for the reminder that is that is important info to 10 just to give you the the rundown. It's an overview of the type of reference services that are available, whether you're you want to you're interested in the academic path. School librarian path public librarian path and even special library path. There are various assignments. The big project the project assignment that's what we call it gives you the opportunity to choose a project, not just the standard. I'm going to submit a 10 page paper 20 page paper. No, you have that option, but you can also participate. If you're interested in incarcerated librarianship. We have a great relationship with San Francisco public library, and they have a program for eight weeks. It could be part of that and that can become your project assignment, and that you will be answering actual reference questions from the incarcerated population in San Francisco. You will guide you through the process, but you will see interaction, which is all through a communication written process, but that's one one of the projects. You can also do a video. You can do a podcast, you can do instructional videos on various tools that as a future librarian you would be teaching others. So that's there are many pathways as to what your big project can be throughout the 16 weeks if you take it in the fall or spring. Currently, I'm teaching it in the summer, which is a condensed version in 10 weeks. We will also have discussions weekly discussion. There'll be a weekly discussion question. There will be opportunities to do some search activities, which consists of various examples of type of questions that you'll be asked to resolve. And these questions, mostly will be relying on online resources. So it's a quick overview, but it gives you a good feeling. If reference will be the pathway you want to pursue and in which which road you want to follow on academic public school or special. And if you have other questions regarding the course, feel free to ask whether now or later on you will have my contact information. I'd be more than happy to provide more insights. Thank you so much. That was a wonderful overview. And now we're going to pass over the mic to Dr. Loa. So she's here to talk to you about her specialty area and especially information about info 285. All right. Thank you, Sheila. Hi, everyone. I hope you can all hear me. And thank you for the opportunity to be here and to talk to you about my experience with information intermediation instruction as well as research methods. I'm currently a full professor at the high school and I joined high school in 2007. So it's been 14 years already. And when I first started, I primarily taught info 210 and reference and information services and research methods. But in the past few years, my focus has shifted exclusively to research methods. Still, reference and information services remains a big part in my heart and professionally. Right now I serve as the chair of the program advisory committee at our school for the information intermediation and instruction career pathway. And Jose is a very is a member of the committee and the committee consists of experts inside and outside of our school in areas related to information intermediation and instruction. We need once every semester to look at the course offerings for the pathway to look at a potential job opportunities for the pathway. And then the committee members would get together and share their observations regarding the trends in the pathway and make suggestions to refine the information on the career pathway page to make sure that everything is up to date. And the pathway to reflect what's going on currently in the professional practice. So because of that, even though I don't teach 210 anymore, I still get to stay connected with all the experts and practitioners in information intermediation and instruction related to field. In time, I am an instructor for the Institute for research design in librarianship, which is a federally funded program that offers a professional development on research methods for academic and research librarians. Every year we have a group of academic and research librarians participating in the program going through the training to improve their skills in conducting research and in disseminating their research findings. And a lot of those librarians, as you can imagine, they come from information intermediation and instruction related areas, such as reference librarians and subject librarians, liaison librarians, you know, the job titles that Sheila and showed you earlier. So it's wonderful just to stay connected with the professionals to observe them, to chat with them, to learn from them about their practice and the skill sets that are important for them to complete their job responsibilities. And I have to say the things that highlighted in Sheila's slides absolutely echo what I have observed in the field when I interact with professionals in information and information intermediation and instruction related areas. And I do notice that research skills, research knowledge, the capability to conduct research to understand user needs, to understand instruction, to understand the how to better design education programs to train and to deliver training to use research as a way to generate ideas for those. And that's a key skill highlighted in the skill sets for students or for people pursuing this career pathway. It's really not surprising to see that. And it's also comforting to see that because I teach research methods. I am the course coordinator for our required research methods course, Info285, Applied Research Methods. Currently I teach, personally I teach three topics in this curriculum. And as you probably have already noticed at our school, Info285, the Applied Research Methods curriculum is set up a little different from a lot of other library programs because they tend to offer just one general introduction course on research methods. But here at our school, we offer a wide variety of research methods related to topics in this curriculum. Some of the topics focus on a particular type of research. For instance, I myself teach, of course, exclusively focusing on just the survey research method, and then another new course focusing on unobtrusive research. I just started that this summer. And some other topics focus on a particular type of library and information and practice where research and research methods can be applied. For instance, I teach one course focusing on an academic librarianship, how academic librarians use research methods to conduct original research and to disseminate their research findings to improve practice. And we have colleagues that teach courses focusing on youth librarianship to look at research methods youth librarians may apply in their particular professional settings. So we do have a wide variety of offerings when it comes to the Applied Research Methods and Info285 course. I'd like to share with you the topic page for Info285 and to walk you through the offerings and focus on the courses, the Info285 sections that you might find useful if you are interested in pursuing the career pathway on information intermediation and instruction. So let me share with you the screen. So this is the page on the course website. I mean, on the school website that demonstrates the different topics for Info285. We do have a general overview course focusing on general introduction of the research methods. And this is really good for people who are still a little vague in terms of what they want to pursue. So they can just pick a general overview section of the research methods curriculum. And then for those who are interested in becoming youth librarians, we have one focusing on youth services. So this one about evaluating programs and services, I would definitely recommend this one to students that are interested in information intermediation and instruction. Because program evaluation and service evaluation can be a big part of the job responsibilities in related domains. And I did notice that program evaluation, being able to evaluate programs and services is one of the skills highlighted in Sheila's slides. So this can be a good choice. And the one that I teach myself research in academic librarianship. And as you probably have already noticed, information intermediation and instruction. A lot of the job opportunities do reside in academic libraries, liaison librarians, subject librarians, information literacy coordinators. These are all job titles related to the career pathway that are in academic libraries. So if you're interested, you can also choose this particular section focusing on research in academic, academic librarianship. And then action research is a good choice as well, because action research ultimately helps you produce these actual actions based on the research. And this can be very practical, no matter which career pathway you're interested in. You will be learning very valuable methods in conducting research and producing actions based on the research. And doing research online, especially for those of you who are interested in engaging in primarily like e-learning or remote work. And this could be a good option. And historical research in writing. And this one and this other one about records management and archival science. These two topics could be good for those of you who might want to work in archives or special collections. And then I teach one that focuses on survey research because survey is one of the most frequently used research methods adopted by librarians when they're conducting research. This can be applicable for pretty much all the potential pathways because survey is so frequently used. We also have a couple of new sections. Jason started teaching a 285 course focusing on technology management two years ago and looking at how research methods can be applied in examining technology related topics. And the one that I just started teaching this summer is about unobtrusive research methods. How we could use research methods to look at existing content and data without having to impose ourselves as researchers on human subjects for data collection. For instance, we can look at Facebook postings, tweets and other types of existing content to engage in rigorous analysis to look at the trends and patterns or conduct statistical analysis of existing data. So we can just access and identify existing data and content for analysis. We don't have to worry about gathering the data using focus group interviews or survey questionnaires. And that's why it's called unobtrusive research methods. So that's a very quick overview of the various types of possibilities for you when it comes to choosing the 285 section that could help you with your interest in the information intermediation and the instruction pathway. I'm going to stop sharing now. And just so you know, I'm the course coordinator for 285. So I do know the curriculum very well. If you have any questions regarding picking the 285 section and that's right for you, please don't hesitate to reach out to me and ask any questions. Okay, that's it from me. I want to say thank you so much for taking for walking us through that explanation of info 285 that's very valuable. So thank you very much. And then I get to introduce Bethany Winslow, who is our director of online learning for iSchool, and she has a fascinating background and and areas that she's going to share with us now. So thanks take it away Bethany. Great, thank you so much for that introduction. Hello everyone. I am the director of online learning here and I am so excited to speak to you guys today. Because I really do love the field of instructional design, and it's a great career in the information intermediation and instruction path. And being an instructional designer is still the foundation of my work here and it's part of my professional identity. Before I came to the School of Information I worked as an instructional designer at eCampus. That's the department that serves all of San Jose State University with managing the learning management system, and working with different faculty across campus to design or redesign their courses and integrate technologies with their teaching. And before that I worked as an instructional designer for a private company that helps schools across the country to launch their online programs. And that served a range of students working with students from vocational schools to undergraduates up to graduate level programs at four year institutions like San Jose State. And in the course of my work I've really seen there is a really big overlap with LIS professionals and instructional designers. Because very broadly speaking, we're both working to achieve the very same ends and that is to make usable information accessible to everyone. And in today's world with such large volumes of information that's subject to change very quickly, the skills to be able to analyze, organize and present that information in different ways to different end users is I think a really critical skill. So I think this is a very compelling career path and there's multiple ways in which you could end up there. I can't possibly cover all that. I can't cover instructional designers who come from all sorts of backgrounds from teaching technical writing web design sales and marketing. And there's all sorts of undergraduate or graduate degree programs to that lead to this path it's it's not there's not just one road. The skill set is so broad and it's evolving constantly, but what every instructional designer that I know what we share in common I think is first of all, a love of learning. And secondly, I think we're really geeks about categories, categorizing and organizing things organizing information. And one of the things I really most love about the career is that it demands that you have a wide range in terms of being able to be very good at big picture thinking, all the way down to being highly detail oriented. In my current position at the high school, I'm the course coordinator for a couple of classes that I help teach but these aren't traditional academic courses that you guys would take, but they are the kinds of courses that you might develop or teach if you end up on this kind of career pathway and you work in the academic world as an instructional designer. The courses I manage is teaching online. That's the course that new high school faculty take. And among other topics it covers how to design a course based on learning outcomes and developing content. I also briefly covers a backwards by design model. But I'm also the coordinator now for info 203, which probably you remember taking. I do teach a course and manage the peer mentors that are preparing to be the teaching assistants for that course. So they get kind of a crash course in learning theory because those students do design and lead a meetup they create a short instructional tutorial video for a couple of their assignments. And in my work, I've also designed self paced online courses I've created a lot of different workshops for both in person and remote delivery. I've made a lot of training videos I've certainly written a lot of tutorials and cheat sheets on various topics and technologies and you know when I skimmed the recent MLS skills at work snapshot and I think Sheila probably has it on this presentation. There were a couple things that really stood out for me that I wanted to impress upon you and first of all, there's some excellent advice there on page 40 it says specifically and I'll quote, do not underestimate the value of non LIS experience. I can't emphasize that enough because it and the that goes on to recommend that you know you should inventory your skills and really cultivate being adaptable that's that's great advice because in my own life in my career. I've actually had multiple careers that seem to be wildly divergent, but I know from experience and from observation of my peers working alongside other instructional designers. I know that what has set me apart and has made me more effective is some skills from, for example, you know I have a sales and marketing background, among other things and I've observed, literally working alongside other colleagues that don't have that same skill or background. I've observed a tendency in them to be generally a bit more differential to subject matter experts and not really as confident in advocating for good design. And I really credit my sales background with that point of effectiveness so when I think about looking at the foundational and recommended courses that Sheila and Taryn were showing earlier in this presentation. There are so many that jump out at me that I would love to take but just a few of them info 287 seminar and information science the sections there's three of them gamifying information design thinking user experience. Oh, that's those are three huge awesome topics info 246 the section on information visualization. That would be great info 251 web usability. And of course I did notice there's an info 283 marketing of information products and services. So so many different ways to kind of forge a pathway into this into this field and forge a new pathway that maybe doesn't even exist yet. But the people who teach those courses they would be great to speak to about the curriculum I don't teach any of those courses so definitely check our website for more information but I have three big final takeaways if at all you're interested in this career path, specifically instructional design, and my three takeaways are this. First of all I'd say you need to focus on the pedagogy, not the technology. Technology changes constantly. The principles of instructional design and learning theory they evolve over time but they're more stable. And I am what I mean to say here too is that knowing how to use a technology tool is not the same thing as being able to effectively design a lesson that uses it, or to teach effectively with that tool. That is a huge misconception. So the technology is not the center of it all it's it's it's a pedagogy or the end of goji. Finally I would say seek out opportunities to create things for your portfolio. You might not think that a one page cheat sheet is a big deal but I tell you there's a well written and concise guide is gold. So create before and after examples if you see something in your own workplace that's a bit muddled. I say go fix it, and get permission to post the before and after on your website or your portfolio. The point is I'd say you've got to love the partnership and the process. A lot of instructional design work is actually reworking existing content. You're not necessarily starting from scratch. You've got to love working as a partner with other people specifically subject matter experts that you'll work with to help bring a vision to life. So if you'd like being an editor died on the side kind of helping to refine and improve things. I think you'd really enjoy this kind of work. I think of it as, you know, sort of ordering chaos the difference in it for instructional design if I had to leave you with an image in your mind. I'd say there's a, there's an old bookstore with books piled up piggly piggly all over the place. And then there's the library where it's organized, you know, and if you if you like the organizational side of things that I think you have the heart of an instructional designer. So I welcome any questions I think that's about it for me. Oh, that was awesome. Thank you for walking us through both your career trajectory and how it was not a straight line. And then also all of your wonderful tips on, you know, the hot sizzling classes that you would just not be able to pass up on if you were a student following this pathway. Great, great suggestions from all of our panelists. We have the floor open now everyone should be able to enter their questions for our three panelists into the chat. I want to remind everyone to please select panelists and attendees from the chat menu at the top of the chat interface so that everyone can see your question. We have a little commercial on the slide to let everybody know that Taryn and I are available for live chat services during the day and we also are available for student services personalized advising appointments. If you want to sign up to meet with us in Zoom, we're doing those on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And if you have feedback on the workshop, you can also send us an email. So looking for questions in the chat window while we're waiting for those to come in. I did have a question come in before the session and I'll go ahead and read the question and see if any of our panelists would like to have a stab at answering it. A lot of these themes have already been touched on but the question is, how would a school librarian make the transition into this pathway, or any of the pathways to be fair. When our work experience has been in education. Is it challenging even with the MLIS. So maybe some tips for MLIS students who are classroom teachers or school librarians specifically that want to work in a different LIS environment, how they would position themselves, what are the some of the things they could be doing to position themselves to be competitive to change to a different environment. I was thinking myself Info 203 peer mentoring opportunity might be such a good experience. Do any of our other panelists have other suggestions. Well, I'll just chime in here this is Bethany just because you mentioned the info 203 the peer mentors. But if somebody was working as an academic librarian and maybe wanted to shift gears. Like I said with my my one of my last points, I would say look for the opportunities and they're there you don't even have to look for them if you are working in a library today. I'm not going to do this I talked to people who are librarians and I see what they're doing, and I'm thinking wow do you realize you're doing instructional design, you're being asked to create tutorials, create examples for people and how whether it's how to use the library or it's some exhibit that you're creating. You are engaged in instructional design, for example, so documenting those experiences and being able to essentially it's kind of it's spinning it you know you're you're you're you're just you're just being able to describe what you're doing to somebody else. That's the key skill we've talked a lot in this presentation about some of the soft skills and the people skills. I think this is also being able to present yourself in terms of you know using linkedin learning and I would absolutely recommend you guys use linkedin look at profiles. But being able to take what it is you do for your work, whether it's academic work or what work in your workplace, and being able to say, Oh, this actually matches over to there, being able to market yourself effectively and say, I've been doing instructional work, even though I've worked as a librarian and here's how. So being able to put yourself out there into a different looking for positions that you wouldn't otherwise consider, you know broadening your horizons. So, I think there's ways to do that but I think it's, it's kind of a matter of it's soft skills but it's also self promotion skills in a way. That's all I'll say to that. We actually have a class that's all about marketing yourself in the LIS landscape and marketing up your repackaging what you know how to do and and and preparing that for the job search and how you can, like Bethany mentioned you can repackage up what you know how to do for a different environment. And other panelists have other suggestions or ideas. We have so many opportunities for involvement here. Getting involved in our student organizations as a leader, perhaps giving a training, an online training that you can leverage and explaining in a job interview in a job story or vignette of how you, you leverage those skills that you learned to a different type of person that you worked in. We have a few. Oh, it's Bethany comments in the chat I was looking to see if we had any other questions for our panelists. All right here we go wondering how would the digital assets management certificate overlap with the information intermediation and instruction pathway. Do any of our panelists would like to comment on this one. The digital asset certificate is only nine units of your 27 units of electives and those courses are very technology skill focused learning how to use digital assets to organize digital assets management skills to organize digital assets. There's also one on information security and governance is one of the other pathways. So instructional design and information instruction is it's quite different than the aim of the of the digital assets certificate. If not sure if any of the other panelists want to to mention anything in addition. This is Jose, I believe it's Tina who's asking that question. Just, it came to my mind right now as I'm listening to Sheila's giving her explanation. The skills that you develop in info 210 can come in handy, especially in today's world of digital information with the digital assets management certificate. The question about security and privacy, I would imagine that also would pertain to such as the providing to the overlap as you're asking about great. We have another question that's come in. The question is, what are some of the challenges and obstacles that professionals might encounter in the instructional design field and what are your recommendations for overcoming or mitigating them. I'll speak to that this is Bethany again. I think one of the challenges would be, and it's kind of a mindset thing so it's it's not a skill set thing because skills are things that you can, you can all in fact you should be a lifelong learner you should always be learning new things and learning skills so not being attached to one technology one field one one hard rigid pathway. Being willing to adapt to change is is a challenge for some people but it really comes down to the mindset so I would say the mindset is is probably one of the challenges and related to that would be confidence because everybody's comfortable with change or with ambiguity, but the reality is is that in the instructional design field you're going to work with all different kinds of people if you go work in the private sector, you're going to be suddenly working, you know, I have a friend who's an instructional designer at Tesla, right and she did academic, you know instructional design and then you go work at Tesla and now you got to learn how to, you know, explain how these engine parts work or whatever you've got to be willing to learn and grow and the confidence to know that you can make those changes though those are the biggest challenges or obstacles. What are the recommendations for overcoming or mitigating them, I would say cultivating the mindset to really see yourself as somebody who is a lifelong learner that embraces change embraces ambiguity and can kind of roll with those that is a big part of I think the mindset part of the job so I hope that helps probably not the answer you wanted but that's what I got for you Amber. I thought that was great Bethany growth mindset is really huge and then I'm also wondering. Do you have specific recommendations for instructional professional organizations or websites or places where you content continuously grow your knowledge in the field that helps you to mitigate the explosion of of things that you have to keep up with to stay up in the field and do you have some suggestions for people in that area. Well, I definitely think leverage, leverage community because one of the things one of my librarian colleagues that I work with in virtual virtual stuff that I do. She constantly talks about the need for us to leverage each other's at least we can't possibly know everything the imprint the volume of information and change that we're facing, you know, as a society or whatever in any industry is is exponential so working with other colleagues to help kind of leverage different skill sets I mean I have, you know, different. I subscribed so many different subscriptions and other people who consolidate different areas of information, working with other instructional designers if I have a question about an instructional technology. That I can't even begin to tell you how many, how many platforms there are just for, for example, social virtual worlds. I can't, I literally can't catalog them all I can't keep track of all of them I have to work with other people. I explore these I learn and fool around with this technology over here, and then I compare notes with my colleagues so cultivating a circle of colleagues professional colleagues communities of practice, professional associations that certainly a part of it. If anybody's interested in instructional design you just want one good book that sort of explains it in a nutshell, Julie Dirksen's design for how people learn it's one of the easiest best. You know, very highly rated, it's a great book for a reason it's super easy to read to get a big picture glimpse at what instructional design is as a, as a career. Design for how people learn Julie Dirksen, but there's a gazillion websites oh my gosh I couldn't just say oh here's the one there is no one there's no one ring to rule them all. That's wonderful maybe if you have a chance you could type it into the chat so they have the authors spelling I wonder if any of our panelists. Did they want to mention anything else other resources, professional development resources or any other tips. This is Jose again, I believe some tips would be, especially as is as a current MLIS student get involved with the national organizations. Get involved with the local organizations through through the high school, get involved, and that will start opening up opportunities for you for what you're thinking about which career path you want to follow on. If I had not done that and I'm an introverted person, I would not have succeeded as much as I have so far, you have to push yourself and you may hear this all the time, you know you got to do it you got to do it. You're the only one that can do it, but you also have faculty and colleagues here at the high school that are here to support you, and even give you a boost to introduce you to other people. So just keep that in mind. And last but not least, any of you that are interested in open educational resources, the market is out there for individuals that are getting their MLIS that have OER experience, whether as a student, but as a also someone that has created OER. That is something that you may want to think about whichever path you're going to pursue. Wonderful. And since we have a few minutes. Why don't you maybe detail some of our students might be new to OER. What exactly is open educational, what are open educational resources. Sure. Thank you Sheila. OER open educational resources. The idea behind this concept is to provide textbooks, electronic test textbooks to students at zero costs. That's one of the definitions. Within the California Community College system, what they've done, and they are they are way ahead of the game. They have started to create zero textbook cost degrees that your entire degree will have zero costs in purchasing textbooks. The textbook can be created by the faculty member, and they created maybe it's a brand new one, or they can adapt an open educational resource with a licensing called Creative Commons, which is similar to copyright. And by adapting other textbooks that have been created OERs, they can create one that will be a fruitful product for the student at that specific institution. It's a wonderful way to help student success, but also to be aware of the financial struggles that happen when you're going through school. You have family responsibilities, you've got work responsibilities. Sometimes you may not be able to afford the textbook. This is one pathway to pursue that. Okay, that was an excellent explanation and we do have the OER class here at iSchool. So if you want to future proof your course selections, take those tips and make sure you're taking classes that are on the edge of all the trends in information, intermediation and instruction. We also have another tip that students in the pathway may also consider opportunities related to scholarly communication services at libraries. And there's a link from Dr. Lua. So if she would like to, if you would like to expound on that a little bit, we have a couple more minutes before closing the session today. Yeah, sure. Because I was just thinking about how academic libraries that in recent years have increased their investment in services that are supporting scholarly communications at their institutions. The link that I just send out was this graph detailing the different stages of the research life cycle and that comes from the University of Central Florida Libraries and they've identified the stages of the research life cycle where academic libraries can really play a role in supporting. And if you really look at the services and the kind of scholarly communication support services libraries can provide involve lots of skills that we are trying to impart in this career pathway like you, you have to design training and workshops and for faculty to assist them in the, in the scholarly communication process, helping them understand the, all the necessary elements related in the process to provide assistance. So that's something that students in this career pathway may also consider if they wish to explore more about this. Wonderful. Thank you for that. And I want to thank all of our panelists for your expertise and joining us for Q&A for this session. There is a, oh, there's one final question about marketing yourself. It is an info class. It's taught by Scott Brown. And if you want to email me, Kathleen, I will send you the link to that class. It is a, I believe it's a two unit class, if I'm not mistaken, but yeah, send me an email and I'll follow up with it with you and wanted to thank all of our panelists, Dr. Lua, Dr. Aguanyaga and Bethany Winslow for sharing your time with us on your lunchtime. And we hope to see students again for our next pathway workshop, which we'll be doing in the fall. So thank you again everyone for your time and your thoughtful questions. And if you have follow up questions, please reach out to us at ischoolsjsu.edu.