Fall Semester Housekeeping

Fall semester is almost upon us, which means it’s time to review some information to make working with CALI easier for you and your students.

DVDs and Authorization Cards

By now you should have received your box of the famous (or perhaps infamous) CALI DVDs as well as your authorization code cards.  If you have not, please contact LaVonne Molde, our Director of Membership Services. Please distribute to your 1Ls as part of your orientation programs.  This year’s DVD not only contains our lesson library but also a selection of our eLangdell Press books.

Believe it or not, the DVDs do come in handy during times of Internet outage or on those rare moments when the website crashes.  However, as someone who used to routinely trip over a box of CALI DVDs in my office back when I was a law librarian, I do understand that the DVDs aren’t always a welcome addition to an office decor.   If you have DVDs you aren’t going to use, please contact me at Sarah AT CALI.org and I can work with you to get them recycled properly.

Registering with CALI

Please encourage your students to register with CALI as soon as possible.  There are two benefits to this: (1) They can access CALI lessons throughout the semester and stay on top of their education. (2) It cuts down on the panicked emails and phone calls to you from students looking for the authorization code during finals.  CALI’s Marketing Blog has a bunch of resources (including print and digital sign templates, email form letter suggested language, etc) for you to use to promote CALI at your school.

(Also, if you could, double check to make sure your library website or other sites that link to call use the correct URL of www.cali.org )

Registering with CALI is fairly easy.  All students need is a valid email address (and it doesn’t have to be their school one) and an authorization code from their school.  The most common mistake is that they register as a GUEST instead of as a registered user.  This FAQ has answers to how to fix that as well as solutions to other registration issues. There’s even a video showing how to register.   Please feel free to embed that video in your library blog or course website.

Classcaster

Speaking of library blogs or course websites, if you have need of one and aren’t satisfied with the commercial offerings, CALI’s Classcaster is available for you to use.   You just need a valid CALI username and password to sign up.  Classcaster is powered by WordPress – it’s easy to use and highly customizable.  If you can use word processing software, you can create a very professional looking website with Classcaster.  Questions? Contact Elmer Masters, our Director of Internet Development.

New Outreach Blog

Finally, with the loss of former Marketing Director Austin Groothius from CALI’s staff, [everyone pause and look sad for a minute] we have a big hole to fill in many ways.  While we could never actually replace Austin….I’m replacing Austin.  At least as far as marketing portion of his job goes.  To that end, you’ll be hearing a lot from me in the coming weeks and years about how CALI can better serve you and all of our members as well as how you can best use the tools we provide.  Instead of overloading your email inboxes, I’ll be putting tips on how to use CALI products over at the CALI Outreach blog. The first post explains a little more. The CALI Spotlight blog will remain as a current news and awareness portal for CALI information as well as our staff’s more thoughtful and perhaps provocative posts about legal education and technology.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/caliorg/7018724267/ One of the many 100s of CC licensed cartoons available for you to use on CALI’s Flickr.