Construction of a virtual course on digital libraries within the Colombian Digital Library project

Abstract

In the development of the applied research project «Creación de la Biblioteca Digital ColombianaBDCOL» («Creation of the Colombian Digital Library»), one of the objectives was to establish a common ground of knowledge that would allow the biggest number of institutions to participate in the project and begin to build their own digital repositories. When academic and librarian communities in the main universities of the country were consulted, the differences as to the knowledge about digital libraries and repositories became evident. For this reason, it was decided to create and offer a virtual course on digital libraries to institutions member of the Red Nacional Académica de Tecnología Avanzada – RENATA (National Network of Advanced Technology). This paper presents a) the context given by the BDCOL; b) the course’s methodology of instructional design; c) its structure of contents and the pedagogical strategies established; d) the diffusion of the program and selection of participants; e) the course’s evaluation, conclusion, and recommendations —specially concerning the time needed to complete the course, and, finally, f) the information and knowledge management. This course was successful in making possible to generate a ground of common knowledge for the institutions associated to the BDCOL project and setting a precedent in this area for education and self-education, applicable to other moments and contexts.