Grey Literature: A Pilot Course constructed and implemented via Distance Education

Co-authored together with J. Frantzen, J. Schöpfel, and C. Stock: Over the past years, training courses, guest lectures, seminars and workshops have been organized by information professionals on the topic of grey literature. Most of these endeavours have undoubtedly had some impact on this field of information, however difficult it would be to measure. Many of these course lectures were given within existing programs and may have only been one-time offerings. At the Eighth International Conference on Grey Literature (New Orleans, 2006), two of the authors in this pilot study participated in a roundtable on curriculum development and grey literature. For their part, it was more important to find a proper structure within which to further construct an accredited course than to simply provide an inventory of ad hoc training courses or workshops, which deal/dealt with grey literature. The intended structure would have to incorporate the expertise of a number of stakeholders in order to guarantee potential students course credit, access to courseware and resources, qualified instruction, etc. Early on, it became evident that these stakeholders need not be physically present within one particular academic institution, but could rather be brought together in a joint venture by way of distance education. This paper will focus on the stakeholders in the pilot program and the specialization of each, as well as the students who are profiled and the knowledge and skills from which they would benefit. Built into the pilot is the maintenance of an ongoing log that would capture the pilot courses’ development and progress, facilitate a SWOT analysis, enable comparison with other distance education courses in the LIS (Library and Information Studies) sector, and ultimately substantiate this course offering beyond a pilot phase to academic institutions with degree programs in information and other related fields on undergraduate and graduate levels.