Working Well Online - Readings and Professional Development
On this page, you will find professional development opportunities and ideas for staff who are now working from home. You can use Ohio University Libraries resources to professionally develop!
The first thing to get familiar with is how your department or units are communicating with each other. If email is the most efficient way then get familiar with Outlook and all the ways it can be used. Teams would be another application that most of the university community would benefit from becoming more familiar with, especially if your area has decided to work within that environment for collaborative work. Help available from OHIO's Keep Working site.
Below are a few helpful eBook titles available through Alden Library:
Writing Online by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9781606497814Publication Date: 2015Online writing plays a complex and increasingly prominent role in the life of organizations.
Project Management Essentials, Second Edition by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9781948976404Publication Date: 2018Project management is a critical skill across a broad range of disciplines. Yet most people, regardless of educational background, have never received training in how to plan, manage, and execute projects.
Work Well from Home by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9781408134061Publication Date: 2005An increasing number of people are deciding to work from home. Whether they are setting up their own business or trying to cut down on the amount of time they spend commuting, the idea of turning a space at home into an office is an appealing one. Work well from home helps you make that idea a reality.
Web Based Project Coaching by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9783834970664Publication Date: 2013The traditional project coaching takes place mostly in a number of face-to-face coaching sessions. However, under conditions of time pressure in IT projects, a physical presence of coaches could form a bottleneck.
Low-tech tasks and training options
- Read the unit's website with an eye to improvement, and write a brief report offering suggestions. Here are some hints about what to look for.
- Hold brainstorming sessions via phone or Teams – Take a workplace a problem you've never had time to solve. Have staff phone 1-2 others, discuss it, and form possible solutions. Send or phone supervisor the results at the end of a defined period of time. These problems would come from supervisors who might be doing long range planning, or responding to issues on campus.
- Draft or Update Standard Operating Manuals (SOP) – May be computer dependent. Also would likely require phone discussions with others and supervisor.
- Read user manuals for tools or equipment they use – Make suggested improvements in our operations of those things or create training quick sheets for new users.
- Read Reference Materials for other bargaining unit positions they may be interested in testing for one day. – This would benefit the university to have employees ready for promotional opportunities as they become available.
- Dream Big. What's on your "it would be nice to do” list that might now be addressed? Do you have a "Read this later" file? Explore other institutions' handling of a recurrent problem? Call a colleague with idea you two keep talking about? Make a plan, with goals and dates.
- Get organized. Clean our your computer files. Get to inbox zero for once. Can you get to your paper files? -- recycle time! Reorganize your desktop, delete old work, create that time-tracker, create a color-coding system for your calendar, make a real to-do list, start a bullet journal.
As long as you have internet access you could start a book discussion group or journal club. This idea wouldn't require any technology beyond a device on which to display the reading content and some method to distribute discussion and responses. The group could communicate through Teams, create a WordPress blog, or simply start an email string. Choose topics related to the job (i.e. sanitation, food safety, wellness, etc.) and respond with reflection (a ranking of 5 highlights and any suggestions for implementation in their work). Follow up with phone or Teams discussions and discuss ideas to improve their workplace.
Below is a Video on how to get full-text from ArticlesPlus.
Below are some eBook titles that might relate to work you or your unit/department are on campus:
College Students and Their Environments by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9780398092887Publication Date: 2019
The survey of American college students : use of academic advisingCall Number: OnlineISBN: 9781574405040Publication Date: 2018
Philanthropic foundations in higher education : comparative perspectives from the United States and Germany by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9783658273873Publication Date: 2020
Emerging IT Issues in Higher Education by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9781799810292Publication Date: 2019- Exploring the pathways to the professoriate taken by first generation college students by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2011
- Next generation: a college completion tool kit for first-generation and nontraditional students : a comprehensive guide to position first-generation and nontraditional African American students for postsecondary success / White House Initiative on Educati by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2016
Higher education : handbook of theory and research by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9783030117436Publication Date: 2019
- SkillSoft through OHIO- courses on customer service, communication skills, conflict resolution, D&I, Collaboration and team building
- edX MOOC: Founded by Harvard and MIT, edX is home to more than 20 million learners, most top-ranked universities in the world and industry-leading companies.
- Open edX is the open-source platform that powers edX courses and is freely available. With Open edX , educators and technologists can build learning tools and contribute new features to the platform, creating innovative solutions to benefit students everywhere.
- Lynda.com (if you have a public library card from Ohio then you can access it with that and through your public library’s website)
- OHIO Professional Development – certificates include: accounting, human resources, personal effectiveness, purchasing, relationship building
- MOOC List: https://www.mooc-list.com/
- Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/