A Case Study of Rajarata University of Sri Lanka - Library Contribution for Online Teaching and Learning Process during the COVID19 Pandemic

Abstract

Abstract - COVID 19 turned the entire world upside down and especially the traditional teaching and learning process was attacked. Almost all the educational institutes in the world transformed to the online teaching and learning process with the pandemic. Libraries also changed their traditional mode and adopted online education. Most of the Libraries focused on the digital literacy concepts to uplift the services by conducting awareness sessions, maintaining e-repositories, issuing online reference materials to patrons, etc. This research has analyzed the effectiveness of library contribution for the online teaching and learning process during the pandemic. The Library Management System of the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka had been chosen for selecting relevant parameters to measure effectiveness. Mainly, Requests for course materials, Library repository hits, Patron participation for the online awareness sessions were considered to measure the effectiveness. Further, an Online feedback form had been generated to collect patron feedbacks about the online awareness sessions and provided services based on selected parameters, i.e.: Responsiveness, Ease of Finding through Online Public Access Catalogue, Supportiveness of Library staff. Finally, the effectiveness of the provided services has been analyzed from the collected data using descriptive statistics concepts. The obtained results showed a 55% level of effectiveness in the library contribution for the online teaching and learning process in the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka during the COVID 19 pandemic.