Enhancing Asynchronous Learning: Implementing and Impacting Education through Email Courses in the Medical Library
Objectives
• Describe how using email courses for asynchronous training is a transformative and novel approach to learning opportunities in libraries.
• Analyze the advantages of email courses as an innovative teaching technique.
• Evaluate the impact of three email courses delivered by librarians.
As demand for remote and asynchronous training opportunities continues to increase, email courses have been added to the asynchronous training offerings in the Medical Library. An email course delivers a series of bite-sized lessons on a specific topic. This is a novel and creative way to present an asynchronous learning opportunity allowing participants to learn skills and concepts in a structured, self-paced format.
Email course creation includes several steps. Course content, including text and images, is drafted outside the email platform. Each librarian developer determines factors such as the number of emails, timeline, and audience. Once the content is finalized, it is loaded into each email in the email series in the Yale Messaging system. In our case, this is Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud.
This training delivery method is of high interest because of its impact on librarians sharing "how-to" information with users. Over the past year, three email courses have reached over 750 unique subscribers. Two of the courses are based on a specific area of expertise, and one orients new students to the library's services.
The addition of email courses to our library's offerings has been a game-changer. They allow participants to learn at their own pace and access valuable information in bite-sized portions.
