Introduction

The increasing availability of resources in electronic format has obvious benefits for distance learners in particular but in order to maximize those benefits library induction and ongoing support are essential. The use of virtual classroom sessions to provide library support to off-campus students is a relatively new concept; however, meeting students live online allows us to provide advice, guidance and training from induction through to completion of their studies. In this chapter, we describe our approach, discussing what has worked and what has been less successful, as well as outlining some of our plans for the future.

Background

Salford is situated in north-west England, less than two miles from Manchester city centre. The University of Salford as we know it today has come together through a complex history of mergers and separations spanning well over 100 years. Throughout this time, it has retained strong links with industry, and partnerships with business, industry and the public sector remain important to Salford's teaching and research activities.

The university has a student population of around 18,000 and a staff of over 2500. Part-time students account for approximately 23% of total student numbers overall but on postgraduate taught programmes part-time students outnumber full-time students.

The Information Services Division (ISD) is responsible for library and information technology services at the University of Salford. The schools (academic departments) at Salford are supported by dedicated ISD liaison teams, who work to ensure that the services ISD provides are appropriate. Liaison officers in these teams are subject or IT specialists who support distance learners alongside the campus-based students in their schools.

Over the past three years, we have worked with the School of the Built Environment to establish a new approach to library support for their internetenabled MERIT research programme and we have recently extended this work to cover one of the School's taught postgraduate programmes, the MSc Real Estate and Property Management.

MERIT programme

In January 2004, the School of the Built Environment added an internet-enabled, non-residence PhD programme (the MERIT programme) to its portfolio. The programme has truly international reach, with students located in countries around the world, including Ireland, Canada, Saudi Arabia and UAE. At an initial meeting with the MERIT programme leader, before the first cohort of students registered, it was agreed that ISD would deliver two slots in the four-week induction.