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Please join us in welcoming Mohsin Ali to the UCLA Library! Mohsin is our new Instructional Design and Outreach Specialist for the Humanities and Social Sciences division of the Eugene and Maxine Rosenfeld Management Library and the Charles E. Young Research Library. In order to introduce you to our newest Library member, we asked him a few questions about coming to UCLA:
What goals/hopes do you have for this year as our new Instructional Design and Outreach Specialist?
Overall, my goal is to collaboratively develop engaging instructional materials that support the learning needs of the Library's user community. This will require learning more about the Library’s user community, including their information needs, preferences and challenges. In addition to learning about the user community, I also need to become acquainted with ongoing projects and the instructional content already available. Thus, I expect much of my first year to be devoted to better understanding the Library’s resources and users. I also hope to publicize and help celebrate the contributions of librarians and staff in the humanities and social sciences division.
How has your prior experience prepared you for this role at the UCLA Library?
I became interested in instructional design while a graduate student at UCLA. I helped create Introduction to Islam as one of the first online courses on the new Bruin Learn learning management system and provided assistance to instructors in my department on how to utilize Bruin Learn. I have taught and supported instruction for many years at UCLA, and I hope to leverage that experience to facilitate library instruction and outreach to students and faculty. More broadly, my graduate training helped cultivate intellectual curiosity, so I am also excited to learn more about the library’s services, resources, and centers.
What projects will you be tackling first?
The Library’s Writing Instruction and Research Education (WI+RE) team has numerous tutorials about different aspects of research and writing. One of my first projects is to help the team in their ongoing initiative to integrate WI+RE’s resources into Bruin Learn so that instructors can easily import them and students can more readily access them.
What are you currently reading/watching/listening to? What do you like to do outside of work?
I recently finished reading “Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn” by Sanjay Sharma. It was an informative and enjoyable read.
My best friend is my two-year old son, and I like to spend the days I am not working hanging out with him. I also love playing basketball, and try to play full-court games at least once a week.
We are delighted to have Mohsin at the UCLA Library. You can contact him at mohsinmalikali@library.ucla.edu(opens in a new tab).
