Designing a Workflow for Online Learning Objects Created by Health Sciences Librarians

Abstract The COVID-19 lockdown led to immediate changes in how Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) Health Sciences Library (HSL) would support faculty and students through the means of online learning objects (OLOs). Each Research and Education (RED) librarian is responsible for responding to the educational needs of a specific health sciences school or college as well as those of the VCU Health System. A rapid increase in the OLO creation required a mechanism to curate these objects, make them available to all liaisons, and standardize workflows. The act of curating and creating standardized workflows would allow for easier management and updating of content, the ability to share and cross-pollinate content between liaisons, and the prevention of duplicated content by liaisons, thus lessening the workload. Support from key stakeholders, including RED administrators, the Online Learning Librarian (OLL), and the Multimedia Teaching and Learning Librarian (MTLL), enabled a team of RED librarians (who formed an Online Learning Team (OLT)) to standardize workflows and upload them to the department’s intranet for future reference.