Tag: remote work

The benefits of using Microsoft Teams for research consultations and chat reference

Over the past few weeks, I’ve conducted 8 scheduled research consultations and answered 2 chat questions via Microsoft Teams. This is approximately 30 percent of the 27 patron reference transactions that I have personally recorded since school resumed on March 23. While my overall numbers are down likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the interactions that I have had with students, faculty, and other patrons have been positive and fruitful.

After each Teams encounter I’ve tried to reflect on how the session went, what worked, and what did not. What follows are my general observations about the benefits of using Microsoft Teams for research consultations and general chat reference.

You know the names of everyone you meet with

Since Microsoft Teams requires everyone to have an account, and since accounts are tied to the university, that means I have seen the names of every student I’ve talked to. From a direct chat perspective, this means that I’m not talking to an anonymous person who is on my guide page using my chat widget. I feel like this makes the interaction seem more like a conversation between two actual people, rather than just between me and some random person on the Internet.

Names have also been useful in meetings. Many of my consultations have been with teams of 4-6 students. For in-person consultations, I typically only know the name of the person who reserved the appointment with me. Once the team shows up, I have no idea who is who, and no way of keeping track of all of the names. With Teams, since everyone in the Teams meeting has a name, I can actually use their names when responding to questions. For me, this made the consultations more personal, even if they are at a distance.

Teams gives you a virtual paper trail

During many of my consultations, I would share links I found on the web, quick screenshots, links to searches, files, or additional search terms in the chat. Because I did not record any of the consultations, whatever I put in the chat (which is perpetual) could be referenced later by the students.

Also, because the chat creates a perpetual connection between student and me, the student can immediately reach out with follow up questions. This has actually happened on two occasions so far. Because I can see the chat history, I can more easily recall what I discussed with the student the last time. With conventional chat programs, in person consultations, and even email, the student may vividly remember the last interaction they had with me, but it is very difficult for me to remember ever encounter (especially since many are so similar).

You can follow up very easily

As is the way with many encounters, I sometimes forget to tell a patron or group something during a consultation. Also in many cases, I get similar questions over a period of time, and during that time period I discover new ways or different sources to answer the similar questions. As a result, the students I talked to a few days ago may not get the same answer as someone I talked to this morning. Microsoft Teams enables me to follow up with them if I remember or learn something that can help them. With in-person consultations I don’t keep detailed notes, so follow up is difficult. With my experience with Teams thus far, I have been successful in sending links in the meeting chat later, and the students appreciated the follow up.

By the same token, Teams makes it easy for the student to follow up with questions later as well. I have had two students in the past week chat with me on a few different times after our initial consultation. Because I had a record of our previous conversations in the chat, I was more prepared to give them help to their specific projects.

You can let the patron drive

For most of my consultations I have been sharing my screen with the patrons. However recently I had a student share her screen with me and I was able to tell her where to go in the database. This worked well with this particular student as she was able to build a report and a map on her computer, rather me demonstrating and her trying to replicate the steps later.

I also found this exercise useful as I was able to view a shared screen from the user’s point of view. Watching this student share her screen has helped me slow down and be more intentional about describing what I am doing while sharing my screen with others.

You can record your steps

In one of my most recent consultations, I used the “Record Meeting” feature in Teams to record my screen. This automatically generates a Microsoft Stream video file that the student could then refer to later. I was demonstrating one of our more advanced databases, and I figured the student might appreciate referring back to the video if needed. I did tell the student that I was going to record the next part of our meeting together, which I think is a good practice.

What’s next

As we think about work and life post-pandemic, I have been thinking about how I will continue to incorporate Teams into my normal workflow (Will we return to normal? What will the new normal be?) Here’s some quick thoughts:

  • Continue offering Teams consultations. Most of the students that I typically help live either on campus or close to campus, so in-person consultations have been the norm. However, I have thought about making Teams meetings an option, or may consider offering evening consultation hours which I would staff from home via Teams.
  • Promote the Teams chat over my general Libchat. Since Libchat is web-based, I’m pretty guilty of failing to log in or out. I am in Teams all day every day. It’s just easier and the notifications are better than Libchat.
  • Hold drop-in online office hours via Teams. I can create a meeting in Teams and link to it from my guides. Students could come and go during the time slot to ask questions.
  • Record in-person sessions in Teams. This would enable the patron or student to refer back to what we discussed later. This could be especially useful for those consultations that require multiple advanced search techniques and sources.

What about you? Have you used Teams effectively? Please leave a comment and share your experiences with others.

Improving my WFH video tutorial setup for better audio and video quality

Chad is talking on camera to his webcam while shooting a video

My first videos in my new work-from-home basement office were a bit rushed, so I didn’t have much time to work out all of the details before recording the research sessions for my students. While the content was okay, I wasn’t happy with the quality of the audio and video. I watched a few YouTube videos and some Lynda training, and have adapted some ideas to improve my video tutorial setup.

Chad is talking on camera to his webcam while shooting a video

The picture above shows my latest setup when making videos at home.

Before making the changes

Here’s what the video looked like before I made the changes outlined above.

  • Webcam sitting on top of monitor, making adjustments of the camera angle a little limiting
  • Background is a mess, though reflects reality of my life at that moment. (I have to day the guitars on the wall do make me look cooler, I think?)
  • Blinds are open and overhead lights are on, but the webcam was on “Full Auto”. As a result, I am a bit blue in the video
  • Audio recorded with a headset — not necessarily bad, especially if you’re going for the “air traffic controller” look. However, the audio was “tinny” sounding
  • Nice flannel shirt

After

  • Webcam at eye level and a bit closer to the subject. (supposedly this creates more trust with the audience)
  • Less cluttered background — No Legos on the floor, open bathroom doors, or sons playing Xbox photobombing me
  • Background picture, lamp and plant are not distracting, but still provide something to provide some depth to the video image
  • Blinds open to the left, overhead light on, two lamps behind me. This makes the video less pixelated.
  • Webcam settings (exposure, white balance, saturation, etc.) were tweaked manually (more on this in another post)
  • I still need to work on the white balance. While I’m not as blue as the “Before” shot, I am a bit too warm in this shot.
  • I’m not doing any color correction (yet) as I just edit in Screencast-o-matic, so I need to get the white balance as close as possible when I record
  • I also feel like I need a key light for off to the right and behind the camera to help balance the light from the window
  • Different day, same flannel shirt
  • Same shiny head, too

Video resources that helped

Here’s a selection of the videos that gave me ideas for improvements.

Lynda.com Training

YouTube

A great book on remote work is now free!

One of my favorite books about remote work, The Year Without Pants, is now free on Amazon Kindle at the request of the author, Scott Berkun.   You don’t need a Kindle to read it, just the Kindle app and an Amazon account. 

I liked it so much when I first read it, I even blogged my thoughts about it a few times many years ago. When I read it in spurts in 2013-2015, the book prompted me to think about libraries and support work, how we can change our mindset about our jobs, what we can learn from the WordPress creed, as well as librarian perspectives on telecommuting. I now want to re-read it and discuss with my newly-distributed teams . Book club via Microsoft Teams, anyone?

It’s a great read and highly recommended. However, webcams have advanced a bit since the book was published, so keep your pants on. 😉

How to add Microsoft Teams chat links to your Libguide and Libcal

Now that we’re working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty, staff, and [sometimes] students are encouraged to use Microsoft Teams for chats, calls, and meetings. To help faculty and students connect directly to their librarian, we have added individual Teams chat links to our subject librarian and archivists directory. I have also incorporated my Teams chat link on my Libguides contact pages , my Libguides Profile Box, as well as in my Libcal appointment confirmation and reminder emails. Here is how you can do it, too. You can also use the steps below to create links to embed in other websites or in your email signature. Professors and instructors can also use Teams links for students to directly chat or meet with them during their online office hours.

Create your link

Microsoft has some in=depth documentation in how to create “deep” links to Teams chats. However, it can be a bit overwhelming so I’ll try to keep it simple.

Let’s look at my link: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi%20Chad%20I%20have%20a%20question

To make it work for your Teams account, just simply replace the user, boeninge@ohio.edu (that’s me) with your own campus/corporate Teams account. You will also want to replace “Chad” with your name, unless your name is also “Chad.”

For my Libcal links I have a different message: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi%20Chad%20I%27m%20here%20for%20my%20research%20appointment

This will allow me to see if the person is coming via my general link, or if they here for an appointment. To add your own language and get the url, just delete everything after the “message=” and customize your message. For example: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi Chad this Teams Thing is really cool

Copy the url that you just made, and paste it back into your browser address bar in a new tab. This will add all the code for the spaces and punctuation, so it should now look like this: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi%20Chad%20this%20Teams%20Thing%20is%20really%20cool

Add the link to a Libguide

Adding the link to your Libguide should be just as simple as selecting the text or image in the Libguide editor, then adding the link you created above.

Add links via the Libguide Rich Text Editor

Add Link to Libcal confirmation and reminder emails

First, go to your personal appointments settings, as outlined in these directions from Springshare. You will want to modify both the confirmation and reminder emails.

For my confirmation emails, I have the following:

Hi {{NAME}},

This email confirms your appointment:

When: {{TIME_DATE_DIRECTIONS}}
With: {{MY_NAME}} ({{MY_EMAIL}})
Where: Online Only. At the time of your appointment, <a href= "https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi%20Chad%20I%27m%20here%20for%20my%20research%20appointment"> connect with me online via Microsoft Teams chat </a>.

{{NOTES}}

To cancel this appointment visit: {{{CANCEL_URL}}}

For my reminder emails, I have the following:

Hi {{FIRST_NAME}},

This is a reminder about your appointment at {{START_TIME}}, {{DATE}} at {{DIRECTIONS}}.

Until further notice, my research consultations are limited to online meetings only. At the time of your appointment, <a href= "https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=boeninge@ohio.edu&message=Hi%20Chad%20I%27m%20here%20for%20my%20research%20appointment"> connect with me online via Microsoft Teams chat </a>.

To cancel this appointment, visit {{{CANCEL_URL}}}.

In theory, you should just be able to cut and paste the above, change your Teams link, and you’ll be good to go.

What the user sees

After the user clicks your chat link, they will have the option of either using the Teams Web App or opening the Teams Desktop App (if it is installed).

What the user sees in their web browser

Once the Teams app is open, the message that you added to your url will populate the chat box, so the patron can just start chatting by hitting enter. Since I can’t chat with myself, the image below shows what it looks like when starting a chat with a colleague.

Does it work?

We’re still on the extended spring break, but classes resume (online only) on Monday. I’ll post again with an update soon. In the meantime, if the directions here work for you, come back and leave a comment to share your story. Likewise, if you have questions, leave a comment. Good luck and stay healthy!

Teaching remotely with Microsoft Teams

a screenshot of Chad within the Microsoft Teams app

This week I had the new experience of teaching with Microsoft Teams. While I have given webinars on many occasions to both student and librarian audiences, this was the first time I taught an instruction session to 120 students across three on-campus classrooms simultaneously from my office.

Background

The Business Cluster is the core educational experience that all business students at Ohio University take during the sophomore year. Each semester there are at least 9 sections of 40 students, all taking their full load of management, marketing, information systems, and communication courses together with their section. In the past, I had met with the three morning sections, the early afternoon sections, and the later afternoon sections in a large ballroom type space that was specially reserved for the “project launch days.”

This semester the faculty decided to change the format of launch day (along with other flipped experimenting), and all students remained in their individual classrooms. Since each section is taught by a team of four faculty, this works fine for their part of the launch. But because I can’t be in three or more places at once, we decided to use Microsoft Teams for me to broadcast to all classrooms simultaneously.

a screenshot of Chad within the Microsoft Teams app
I give my first teaching with Teams session a thumbs up!

Setup

I set up meetings and invited all faculty to a morning, mid afternoon, and late afternoon meeting. This allowed the faculty to just click on the Teams link to launch into the correct Teams meeting for their class time.

I used a Logitech webcam for my video, and a Blue Yeti mic for my audio. Once the session began, I muted the three classrooms to avoid feedback and other sound distractions. The faculty had the option of using the text chat to ask questions if necessary during and at the end of the session, but no questions were asked.

a screenshot of a calendar invitation

Concerns & Challenges

I was a bit nervous Monday morning that the audio or video would not work right in each classroom. Faculty also voiced some concerns about the technology not working. I was tempted to go over to the classrooms Monday morning to run some tests, but figured that would be cheating. In a real distributed online meeting or teaching space, you cannot troubleshoot someone’s setup if they aren’t in the next building over, so I also opted to play by those rules. I figured it’s also important for students to see us succeed (or conquer struggles) with using technology. All of the sessions went off without a hitch.

The recording of the first session of the day can be found below. In theory, we could have just given the mid-afternoon and late-afternoon the recording, but we opted for me to deliver the session live, via Teams, for all three sessions throughout the day. This provided a more genuine experience for all students, as well as additional practice for me. I do believe I got a little bit better with my delivery throughout the day.

As is the case with any sort of web-based live teaching application, there were some challenges:

  • As you can tell from the video, it’s hard to look into the camera when it is mounted on top of your monitor while talking or sharing your screen. The camera looking down on you, or from the side, is much better, however, than the up-the-nose shot (ewwww).
  • I could not see the students in the classroom, so I could not see heads nod (whether due to understanding the content or falling asleep).
  • I felt like I went a lot faster than I would have if I had delivered the content in person.
  • Having taught in person in those classrooms, I know the projectors are not the best and I have no idea how my session displayed on the screen. I did enlarge screen text when I thought it was necessary. However, the recording is really good and posted on my guide for the project, so they can review if needed.

Observations & What’s Next

Faculty observed that overall the session worked great from my office, and thought that having students in their individual classrooms and teams was better than the big launch day sessions. While the faculty probably had a tighter connection with the students on the first, day, I felt a little bit distant from the launch day festivities, and was concerned that I would just be the guy on the screen at the end of class. However, I had a student flag me down in the library Tuesday with a question as I was on my way to a meeting, and another student asked me yesterday, “Are you the famous Chad? That video was great!” Evidently students can make the connection between virtual and in-person me. My guide hits are through the roof as well, as students have used the guide I created for their project almost 6,000 times over the past 5 days, while my other business guides have collected another 2200 hits.

During peak project and assignment weeks, there aren’t enough hours in my usual 8-5 workday to accommodate all of the research appointment requests. Given the success of this initial teaching experience, I am thinking about hosting research appointments via Teams on a few select evenings and weekends during the crunch time. This would allow me to set up a few available appointment blocks and meet virtually with those student groups, without having to commit to coming back to the office.

I am scheduled to meet with the same class sections via Teams in October. I have typically done an active learning exercise for their second project, which as resulted in significant demonstrations of learning. I’m racking my brain for ideas on how I might do an active learning exercise without physically being in the classroom. More on this later……

Librarian perspectives on working from home, flexible work schedules, and telecommuting

Can you work here?

Update 4/13/20:  The COVID-19 Pandemic has lots of librarians working remotely, driving some renewed interest in this post that I originally wrote in 2013.    Sadly many of the links below have expired in the last 7 years, but hopefully the annotations will still be useful to you.   I will try to update this post with some new links, or perhaps write a new post.   In the meantime, one of my favorite books on the topic of remote work is free via Amazon Kindle.   Stay well!

In addition to being a library manager, I’m a father who has to make (and often coach)  the after-work basketball, soccer, and baseball practices, who has to lead the Cub Scout den meeting, and who has to occasionally stay home with a sick kid.  Like many professional librarians, this means that I often do work outside the “normal” 8-5, Monday thru Friday schedule.  In some cases the work outside the traditional workday is a means to stay ahead, in other cases it’s a way to make up for lost time.

I have a great office environment and I love to go to work each day.  In our office suite — a cubicle environment housing me(in an office, with a door that rarely closes) and ten other staff members –I get great ideas, energy, and motivation from the colleagues around me.  I really enjoy the conversations we have – some work related, some not – and appreciate our camaraderie.  However, there are times when I love to just kick back in my recliner with my laptop, a cup of coffee, and my favorite pair of sweatpants, and really focus on a project (or my inbox).  At other times I have done work in a different environment, sipping a hot beverage while mooching the wifi in one of our many coffee shops about town.

I’m a believer in giving my staff the resources they need to do their best work, and giving them the spaces and time to accomplish their tasks.  In addition to reading some books on the topic of work, I looked around the library web/blogosphere to see what librarians have written on the topic.  Below are some of the best articles and posts covering teleworking, working from home, and flexible work schedules/environments in libraries.

Tell Your Boss: Benefits of Telecommuting

At a time when we’re looking at reduced staffing in libraries, reduced salaries, reduced benefits, and reduced morale, it might be a good time to ask your boss about telecommuting (working from home) opportunities. Maybe your union could concede a 5% pay cut if every staff member gets two telecommuting days per month. Maybe you agree to a transfer or a reduction in health care if you get to work from home a half-day each week. I can tell you from experience that telecommuting is a positive thing: for both the employee and the employer.

Director’s Day in the Life: working from home

It also happens that I hear from a variety of librarians that they work for library administrators who don’t “like” or “approve” or “support” working from locations other than the libraries.

To which I say, “Why not?”

In my experience, offering library staff the freedom to intermittently do their work in the way they see fit isn’t a detriment to productivity, to collegiality, to collaboration, or to accountability. On the flipside, forcing attendance at the library can result in more paid time off being used, in lowered productivity from people who could have been more effective in a different environment, and some serious crushing of morale when the administration is perceived as being inflexible and unsympathetic.

Telework Guidelines — University of Washington Libraries

Telework involves the relocation of an employee’s work site to his/her home or alternative work site on a scheduled basis utilizing telecommunications and computer technology. Telework is intended to enhance employee productivity, creativity, and satisfaction through a mutually agreeable work arrangement between the employee and the University Libraries. Telework involves a formal agreement for a set period of time as approved by the supervisor, division head, and the appropriate Associate Dean or Director.

On occasion, a staff member may, with the approval of the supervisor, work at home but this short-term or ad hoc change of workstation is not covered by these guidelines.

Working From Home — A Day in the Life of  a Librarian post

At the time of writing I am recovering from a recent operation on my foot and am housebound. Because I am no longer a frontline librarian but a manager and thanks to technology, this does not preclude me from most of my duties – the most obvious being that I’m not attending face to face meetings at the moment. Even so, Skype also allows a restricted version of that too. Thus, for most of the working day, I am sitting on the sofa, my right leg extended on a chair, laptop on lap, writing and responding to emails. Even a few years ago I’m not sure this would have been possible.

Working from Afar: A New Trend for Librarianship?

Traditionally, librarians have been tethered to a facility either because their public service role demands face-to-face interaction or because they work with materials housed in the building. As collection formats and service mechanisms change, however, librarians may be poised to take advantage of more flexible scheduling arrangements. In Spring 2007, I embarked on a six-month telecommuting experiment between Washington, D.C. and Logan, Utah that proved to me that most of my daily responsibilities are perfectly compatible with a more flexible work arrangement.

Why librarians are well-suited for location-flexible work

Many library services and jobs are almost completely virtual and some libraries are completely virtual now. I don’t mean to say that I think physical libraries will disappear. I think they will continue to thrive, since they provide so many wonderful services to their communities. Working virtually is just another option that some of us may want to try at different times in our lives.

Librarians considering telecommuting, consider this

Not all employees or positions are right for telecommuting, but for those that are, libraries can gain advantages by opening up a telecommute option. Such flexibility may be key for recruiting and retaining employees whose specialized skills are difficult to replace. Library employees who negotiate a formal telecommute agreement may find more job satisfaction and be less likely to seek out other employment. For both libraries and library employees, then, here are four factors to consider when considering telecommuting.

Telecommuting for librarians

While not everyone has the liberty to do this, some kinds of tasks or positions are more suitable for telecommuting than others—generally tasks/positions that require little or no contact with the public, like cataloging, indexing, working on websites or the library’s intranet, developing user aids, virtual reference, and writing reports. However, even reference librarians might have time scheduled off the desk, which could be used for telecommuting.

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