Breakout Session Format

Due to the online format, there is only one type of breakout session:

• Presentation: A 60-minute session that includes time for a 50-55 minute presentation and 5-10 minutes of question and answer. Most feature a successful program, practice or key issue related to instruction or information literacy. Presenter(s) should include in the proposal a description of the topic and an outline of the presentation. Based on past experience, sessions can have as few as 25 people or as many as 150.   The exact number of participants won't be known until the session takes place; however, estimates of attendance based on the results of an interest survey will be provided to the presenters before the conference.

Note that even though this is an online conference, your session's topic does not *have* to be related to online work. It can be any topic that you feel is relevant today and/or in the future to instruction librarians.

Proposal Tracks

Proposals should reflect elements of one of the following seven tracks:

• Pedagogy: Transforming the Classroom   

Share the strategies you have adopted to help students advance their information behaviors: What practices have helped to develop the skills and dispositions students need? How are you incorporating students’ lived experiences? What culturally responsive and inclusive pedagogies do you undertake to support students from underrepresented and historically marginalized backgrounds in bringing their unique contributions forward? How have you adapted your pedagogical toolkit to an online environment?

• Assessment: Measuring Progress

How are you accommodating different modes of learning and using data to demonstrate library value and impact across your institution? How are you assessing your efforts at information literacy instruction in order to rework and improve your instruction toward greater inclusion, accessibility, and student learning? What about the online environment has altered your approach to assessing student learning? Share your strategies for improving your instruction over time. 

• Leadership: Elevating the Field

How are you working with your colleagues, administration, or student workers in your library’s diverse and vibrant environment to help them lead into the future? What systems are you creating or dismantling to draw attention to the work of practitioners whose voices haven’t been heard? What new perspective do you bring? Share a project in which you enhanced your own instruction savvy and nurtured others in their professional growth.

• The Value in Failure: From Missteps to Forward Movement

Failure is often the product of variables outside of our control, but failure can help us learn to be agile and adapt for the future. How has a shortcoming in your instruction, planned project, or in a partnership fueled later success in your goals for student learning? How have you come back from misreading your audience or their experiences? Share with us your solutions to perennial problems such as sustainability, the one-shot, intrusive faculty, or those unexpected situations that demanded your creativity!

• The Anti-Racist Instructor: Cultivating Inclusion and Belonging

Racist ideas are frequently present in our media, culture, social systems and institutions. How are you fighting against racism in your practice as a librarian and educator? What are you doing in the profession or in your library to dismantle white supremacy, assumptions of a white-dominant culture, and unequal institutions? How are you centering marginalized voices in your library in a way that reaches outside the classroom and into the community? What are you doing to support BIPoC students, colleagues, and community members to (co)create anti-racist pedagogies and learning spaces?

• Theory in Practice: Reversing the Paradigm

Many of us approach educational theory only in order to justify or contextualize a completed project. How have you used educational and critical theory to form the backbone of your instructional design? How have you taken an idea or framework and developed that into a working instructional practice? What theories and thinkers inspired the groundwork for a particular lesson plan or your instructional philosophy?

• Collaboration: Building Unity in Diversity  

In collaboration, success is not determined only by the partners involved but also how relationships were developed and under what circumstances. Tell us how you worked to bring a variety of voices and partners together to create a successful partnership between units outside of the library. Who are your collaborators? How has collaboration led to underrepresented viewpoints taking a more central role in information literacy instruction at your institution? How have you developed successful initiatives for communities beyond your campus and measured those successes?

Submission Information

  ***The deadline for proposal submissions was December 4, 2020; proposals are no longer being accepted.***

Proposals can be submitted only through the online submission form and must be received by Friday, December 4, 2020. The primary contact for the proposal will receive a message indicating receipt of the proposal when it is submitted and will be notified if the proposal has been accepted for presentation by Monday, January 18, 2021. 

If your proposal is accepted, then up to three presenters will be automatically registered for the conference and required to pay registration in full by the due date in April. Presenters are encouraged to submit a full paper version of their presentation (see due dates below) for inclusion in the LOEX Conference Proceedings.

All proposals must include the following:

• Session title (limit 20 words)
• Short description of the session (limit 100 words)
• Long description of the session (limit 500 words)
• List of 1-3 learning outcomes (visit Tips on Writing Learning Outcomes from the University Library at UIUC for guidance)
• Type of audience(s) for which the session is intended

You do not need to be a LOEX member to submit a conference proposal. We accept the best proposals, regardless of institution or membership. LOEX membership only matters for general registration, which begins Friday, February 12, 2021.

Note: Failure to pay the registration fee will result in the cancellation of presentation and conference registration. All presenters are responsible for paying their own travel and lodging expenses.  

Proposal Timeline

• Friday, December 4, 2020: Deadline to submit proposals
• Monday, January 18, 2021: Notification of acceptance of proposal (edit: due to an unexpected circumstance, notifications may be delayed by about a day)
• Tuesday, May 11 - Friday, May 14, 2021: 49th Annual LOEX Conference held online (e.g., Zoom)
• May 7, 2021: Deadline for all breakout session presenters to submit full papers (up to 2500 words) for inclusion in the LOEX Conference Proceedings

Proposal Selection Criteria

Successful proposals will showcase effective and innovative library instruction & information literacy practices, provide valuable information that participants can utilize at their libraries, support collaboration, and be applicable to the broad variety of academic institutions.

The committee will be using a rubric to score the proposals. Along with the criteria listed under the session format descriptions, the rubric scores each proposal on:

• Content and objectives of presentation
• Relevance to the selected conference theme and track and to the field of library instruction
• Originality and creativity
• Demonstrated expertise of the presenter(s) on the topic
• Methods used to inform and also engage the audience

All committee members participate in the review process.  Each proposal will undergo double-blind peer review by two committee members and be scored based on our rubric. Upon receiving the recommendations of the reviewers, the LOEX Director and conference co-chairs will conduct an equity check to ensure diversity in presenters, institution types, and topics

While we encourage presenters to utilize a variety of presentation modes and methods to engage their audience, this does not include breakout rooms, so please plan accordingly.

Presenter Benefits

The solid reputation of the LOEX Conference ensures that presenters benefit as much as their audience. Presenters can expect to:

• Contribute to the field of library instruction and information literacy
• Receive professional recognition at the conference
• Highlight their institution's accomplishments
• Publish a full paper on the presentation topic in the LOEX Conference Proceedings
• Obtain valuable feedback from colleagues
• Receive up to three registration spots set aside, per session, for presenters at the LOEX Conference