A luxury at first, and then the only hope; the first 100 days of e-learning in a LIS education institute

Abstract

The following reflection briefly describes the unpredicted drive of online LIS education during the COVID-19 lockdown at the National Institute of Library and Information Sciences (NILIS), University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. It is a unique story in an unconventional educational setting supported by a handful of institutional academic staff and a band of visiting lecturers from various institutions. University of Colombo (UOC) is a high ranked government funded University in Sri Lanka which consists of nine faculties, seven institutes and seven centers on its academic profile. Unlike other faculties and institutions within the UOC system, NILIS does not have a uniform supply of learners through regular channels since it does not offer undergraduate courses. However, NILIS provides Advanced Certificate to Diploma/Higher Diploma (professional) and Postgraduate Diploma to MPhil/PhD (postgraduate) education in Library and Information Science, Teacher Librarianship and Information Management. Fifteen courses are offered below undergraduate level spread over five regional centers. Four postgraduate courses are conducted at the NILIS headquarters only. Each course is coordinated by a single academic (who can be from internal or external academic staff). Each member from the six office assistants of NILIS has been assigned as Course Assistants to support the Coordinators. A majority of courses are conducted in Sinhala language while one class is conducted in Tamil language. Sinhala and Tamil are vernacular languages in Sri Lanka. Postgraduate courses are either held in English (the link language), or bilingually.