Grounding the Vision: future plans for Knowledge Ontario

[1204] Grounding the Vision: future plans for Knowledge Ontario
David Thornley, Executive Director and Peter Rogers, Board Chair, updated on Knowledge Ontario projects and future directions.

ResourceOntario: several new databases have been added:
Gale: Student Resource Centre – Canadian edition
More titles in the Virtual Reference Library
Ebsco: Auto Repair Reference Manual
Canadian Points of View
-- say goodbye to Canadian Reference Centre
Rosen: Teen Health and Wellness – will be adapated to add Canadian content
Career Cruising – bilingual career and post-secondary education database
CEDROM SNi – Actualite Francophone Plus: French language current affairs resources

LearnOntario – formerly Teach Ontario.
Diane Bedard, formerly with Essex County Catholic School Board, former OLITA chair, award winner, has joined as Project Lead. (Great news!)

Province-wide licensing for Atomic Learning movies has been arranged. These are very cool – they break software down into small lesson bits: files are small enough to be downloaded via dialup. A pilot group of 500 teachers started using these tutorials on January 29. Phase 2, involving 1500 more pilot users in college, university and public libraries, will run September to December. Volunteers are wanted!

OurOntario
Version 2.2 of the OurOntario portal was released at OLA Super Conference 2009. Highlights include:

• a “did you mean?” feature;
• the ability to view search results in other applications such as Google Earth;
• now users can browse collections held at other institutions.
  Over 200 contributors (collections) already, constantly adding more.

Plans for 2008-2009: Extend and enhance discovery options by adding the ability to access data via podcasts, RSS/Atom feeds, bookmarkable search results, and integrate use of KML data for mapping in alternate applications.

AskOntario
Expanded service: askON/ONdemande is

• accessible via 36 public and post-secondary library websites.
• available through public libraries 40 hours a week,
• 62 hours a weekthrough colleges and universities
• 25 hours a week in French, thanks to participation of Ottawa PL.
  

4ReSrch, delivered in partnership with TVOntario’s Ask-a-Teacher service,
offers live homework help by providing teacher-librarians to assist Ontario’s
secondary students with curriculum-based research projects and assignments.

ConnectOntario
Will move from the pilot phase of the BiblioCommons Online Public Access Catalogue, at Oakville PL, to implement system in at least 12 to 15 early adopter public libraries.
Will announce in early February which libraries will go first, April-June; all others will migrate June-December 2009.

Knowledge Ontario, the parent organization itself, developed a project management framework, with consistent decision-making processes, roles and responsibilities, reporting standards, across the organization. 2007-2008 Annual Report lists a lot of accomplishments!
Big challenge for 2008-2009 is securing stable ongoing funding.

For RWL: Use and promote the new databases. Volunteer to be a LearnOntario pilot tester (this could be an alternate way to deliver computer literacy classes). Wait for the Bibliocommons announcement!