Virtual Placements

Virtual Placement Guidelines for Hosts

Background

In 2020, the School of Information & Communication Studies expanded its professional placement options to include virtual placements as a direct and positive response to COVID-19 so that students could continue with their course plans effectively. Since then hundreds of either fully virtual or hybrid (part-virtual/part-physical) placements have been completed.

Through these placements, students have developed not only their skills and knowledge as information professionals (as they do with physical placements) but they have also helped with developing valuable experience working in a virtual environment. At the same time, many hosts were able to kickstart, or complete, project work useful for their organisations or have students participate in valuable daily tasks.

Host Guidelines

In conjunction with the overall Placement Host Guidelines from the School, the information below relates directly to virtual placements and should be read in conjunction with what’s on this site overall.

The information below is structured around stages of the virtual placement and an estimated time commitment to supervise one:


Prior to a virtual or hybrid placement:

Students are first advised to consider carefully whether a virtual placement is going to be suitable for them. This includes consideration of: their experience (or lack of) in the library and information sector, their individual learning styles, and whether they are aware of the responsibilities involved in doing a virtual placement as well as whether they are suitably equipped to do one.

  1. The student must organise a mutually suitable virtual meeting time with the placement host.
  2. The pre-placement meeting should include:
  • Discussion around the placement project/activities to be undertaken during the placement, including specific outcomes;
  • Discussion of the student’s placement goals and CV, experience, knowledge and skills
  • Establishing mutually suitable dates for the placement to occur
  • Creating a schedule for ongoing communication and progress updates throughout the placement. This should include a plan for daily phone calls or emails and at least one virtual, synchronous meeting per week of the placement (using Skype, Zoom, Microsoft Teams or other suitable means)
  • A discussion of the organisation’s remote working arrangements (around privacy/confidentiality/copyright/intellectual property or other matters) that the student would need to abide by.
  • Students must present a Virtual Placement Proposal Form to you so both can sign off on it, verifying that discussion of these topics has taken place and for the student to demonstrate understanding and acceptance of, their responsibilities in doing a virtual placement.
  1. After this meeting, the student submits a proposal for the placement. This is reviewed by the subject coordinator for formal approval and a confirmation email will be sent to the host from the School’s Workplace Learning admin team.

Note: During this meeting the student needs to be provided with the correct contact details for the placement supervisor so that the School can communicate with that person during the placement.


Upon commencement of a virtual or hybrid placement:

  1. Please ensure the student has a written program plan for the placement duration. This should include description/instruction about the project and/or professional activities to be undertaken during the placement, including specific outcomes agreed upon during the pre-placement meeting.
  2. Please also ensure the student has a written copy of the agreed communication schedule planned during the pre-placement meeting.


During a virtual or hybrid placement:

  1. The student is aware of their responsibility for their own learning in a virtual or hybrid placement. This includes proactively seeking out information and assistance as required and particularly if experiencing difficulties/challenges with the set project or practice-based activities planned for the placement. If the student is not doing this or there are any other difficulties with the placement please call the School’s WPL admin team on (02) 6933 2460 or email and they will direct you to the appropriate subject coordinator to discuss.
  2. The subject coordinator will call or email the student and placement supervisor mid-way through the placement to check on progress towards the project/professional activities as outlined in the placement program.
  3. The student is to establish a mutually agreeable time to hold a synchronous, virtual meeting at the end of the placement to discuss their placement. At this meeting, a Placement Review Meeting Record is completed and signed by both parties and then it is the student’s responsibility to attach it to their placement report assessment task.


Estimated time commitment and breakdown for supervising a virtual placement*

It is anticipated that the approximate time commitment of supervising a virtual placement would be about 6 hours total with an approximate breakdown as follows:

  • 1.5 hours for the pre-placement meeting
  • 15 minutes/day for communication for the 10 days of placement
  • 30 mins/week for the weekly meeting for the 2 weeks of placement
  • 1 hour for the Placement Review meeting

*This is an estimate only and may vary according to student/host/project or placement activities.


Sample virtual placement projects

These are some sample virtual placement projects already undertaken:

  • Doing a literature review for a university library that were exploring options for innovation around a specific type of technology.
  • Investigating and writing a formal report for management in a private senior school around library design.
  • Doing a collection sustainability/life-cycle analysis and report in a public library
  • Fielding specialised reference questions and evaluating research protocols/guides in a health unit library
  • Doing a collection analysis in a special library
  • Creating how-to videos for a public library website – eg. how to join the library, search the catalogue etc.
  • Doing data curation, adding new concepts and building hierarchies into systems for an employment agency
  • Creating storied videos of particular items in a special collection within a special library/archive to help users engage with those items
  • Creating training/PD resources for teacher-librarian staff in remote locations for a library association
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