Using Digital Scholarship Methods and Tools to Enhance and Transform Learning during COVID-19 at a Liberal Arts College

Abstract

Abstract This article describes how the libraries at Lafayette College used digital scholarship methodologies to enhance student engagement and learning during the transition to remote learning due to the COVID-19 crisis. The article argues that digital scholarship tools and methods enhanced active learning during the shift to all-remote instruction by allowing students to engage directly with digital tools for collecting, analysing, organising and presenting information from wherever they were. We discuss how active learning using these tools enabled students to participate more fully in their own learning process and construct their own forms of knowledge and understanding; and provided an effective way to keep students engaged at a time when the unexpected transition to online instruction created a sense of dislocation for many. For institutions returning to in-person instruction these methods can provide enhanced engagement in the traditional classroom setting, and offer increased flexibility for the delivery of future programs.