Members Sharing presentation delivered by Stephen Bull at the 2012 BLA conference held in Stirling from 4-6 July.

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].

7. Pre-sessional Students
350
300
250
200
150
100
Business Management English
50 English for Academic Purposes
0
2009 2010 2011

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

10. eResources Training 2009/10
Vancouver Film School (2008)

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)

13. eResources Training: Now

14. eResources Training: Now

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.

19. FAME Xerte

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)

23. Questions?
Balin (2006)

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) .