Online Content for the “Global Access” Library METRO Workshop February 21, 2007 Kathryn Shaughnessy Instructional Services Librarian
Dec 21, 2015
Online Content for the “Global Access” Library
METRO Workshop
February 21, 2007
Kathryn Shaughnessy
Instructional Services Librarian
From Distance Access to Global access
Background:
• Wireless infrastructure / e-resources• Distance Learner “amenities” for all students• St. John’s “Academic Computing Initiative”• Distance Learning accreditation • Missions:
– Social Justice– Leveraging technology
From Distance Access to Global access
Academic Growth in terms of Mission:
• Title III Grant for “Core” Faculty Development
Information Literacy
Critical Thinking
Incorporation of Technology
• CTL fellows: enhancing pedagogy through technology
• SJC: Global Development and Social Justice MLS
• ASL: “See the World” Service semester abroad
From Distance Access to Global access
NEEDS ASSESSMENT
ARCHITECTURE Collaboration
CONTENT with IT, Faculty
TECHNOLOGY students, and
TEST core committees
ASSESS
Online Resources:
From Distance Access to Global access
NEEDS
ARCHITECTURE
CONTENT
TECHNOLOGY
TEST
ASSESS
Online Resources:
Creation
Distribution
Impact
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content: NEEDS
Student access to virtual library support
– Student Location • Time zones• War/disaster zones
– Student Access to technology • computers part of tuition for most (not all)• Infrastructure (power and communication)
– Tech support– Bandwidth issues
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content: NEEDS
Student access/barriers to local library support
– Physical – Distance– Psychological– Cultural
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content: NEEDS
Communication to enhance “community”
– Students peers– Students Faculty– Students Librarian
• Synchronous / Asynchronous• Formal / Informal
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content: NEEDS
Academic Literacy Issues
– Language– Cultural– Information – Visual – Technology
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content: NEEDS
Social Justice Concerns
– Costs of materials/software – provided but also looking for open source alternatives that can be used even after graduation
– Cultural integrity -- solutions to local problems may require local resources
– Learning from students – recognition of experience/expertise in their own area
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content:
ARCHITECTURE: For site, tutorials, projects – What is most basic—what can be added later– build framework that is expandable
CONTENT: For site, tutorials, sample projects– What do we have that already meets these
needs?• repurpose/update
– What do we need to create? • Long-term / short term / on-the-fly
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content:
APPLY the TECHNOLOGY that FITS the NEEDS/CONTENT
Keep it simple, consider: – Consider student bandwidth– Learning curve of users– future maintenance
use technologies that allow for: – flexible access, at point-of-need
(non-linear, can jump to sections)– peer and faculty assessment, grading and portfolio
(for higher-order IL skills)– easy maintenance
From Distance Access to Global access
Creation of Online Content:
Tutorials Captivate
Podcasts Audacity
Blog WordPress
Wiki PBWiki, WikiPM
Enhancing distribution / communication
RSS & RefWorks
Skype
Del.icio.us tagging & RefWorks
Portal Group / Courseware
Tutorials: Overview
Tutorial Benefits:
• Provides visual instruction and allows repetition of lesson for individual user (especially helpful for ESL and less technologically-savvy users)
• Makes better use of librarian instruction time
– either all online with follow-up ref questions
– “just-in-time” learning to allow for higher level IL instruction
• Rough Statistics: Can put “counters” into the html of the tutorial to get rough statistics of hits and IP locations
Tutorial Pitfalls:• Maintenance (general and interface changes)
• Keeping track lots of authors, lots of locations
Podcasts: Overview
Podcast benefits:
• repetition for difficult content/material & for listeners who have difficulty with English and allows multitasking (e.g.: commuting or exercising).
• increased “frequency and depth” of learner interaction, especially in language & music -- inspired creation of podcasts – allows for “just-in-time” learning with subsequent in-depth discussion
• increased communication between students & faculty (voice connection), but also between library and IT departments; led to improved collaboration and planning, both within & among institutions.
Duke Report, 2004 – 2005 and SJU feedback 2005-2007
Podcast Pitfalls • Creating/editing takes time
• Keeping them manageable size/length• Troubleshooting user error
Blog: Overview
Blog benefits:
• Push technology brings instruction to subscribed student in an easy way
• Good way to get timely instruction out fast, yet if written with longevity in mind, archived, categorized and searchable entries make old entries salient.
• Good way to get students to write/journal as part of e-portfolio
• Comment feature is a good way to get informal feedback
Blog Pitfalls• Creating/editing takes time
• Keeping them timely and interesting as well as instructional
• Spam on comments – to prevent must have users register
Wiki: Overview
Wiki benefits:
• Low technology learning curve, makes participation more likely
• Good way to collaborate, for short term project, for long-term document, for a resource that builds over time (past the semester!)
• Comment feature is a good way to get informal feedback
• accessible for good for rubric grading and portfolio evaluation
Wiki Pitfalls• Creating/editing takes time
• must have users register to prevent “vandalism”
RSS: Overview
RSS syndication/distribution:
• Podcasts, blogs and wikis are “digi-born” and they can be accessed like webpages or syndicated/distributed through RSS feeds
• You can use RSS can facilitate communicating your content quickly
• you can also create RSS “libraries” (of internal or external content) for your constituents, but know that at this point, not everyone knows about RSS so:– you may need to “pre-feed” rss into courseware pages/portal– have RSS feed appear on your subject pages– or teach folks about RSS readers (RefWorks/Personal Google)
Skype: Overview
Skype benefits:
• Low technology learning curve, makes participation outstanding!
• Alternate formal communication channel, for when courseware is malfunctioning but also acts as an informal communication channel: IM service but also allow voice-in-real time for free
• History feature saves “chats” and serves as a good way to capture informal and formal feedback and a way to track requests over time; allows sending tutorial links at point of need, later accessible for rubric grading
• Allows attachments for documents and pictures – helps in troubleshooting
Skype Pitfalls• Unsolicited “callers” on SkypeMe mode – to prevent
this, users register and must be accepted as a contact
Delicious/RefWorks: Overview
Delicious & RefWorks benefits:
• Allows web access to favorite research/resources from anywhere, Allows “sharing” of resources with collaborators anywhere – also allows a librarian to generate a constantly updating pathfinder on a topic.
• increased communication between students & faculty and between scholars both within & among institutions.
• Natural segue for talking about Citing Sources & Avoiding Plagiarism
Delicious & RefWorks pitfalls • Delicious is mainly for websites, RefWorks for databases and
catalogues. They don’t “communicate” well.
• RefWorks is proprietary, have to pay after graduation
• Both are potentially unwieldy if organizing tools not used
Testing: Overview
Testing Mantra: Library 2.0 is always in Beta
All of these content-creation and content-delivery technologies are “in Beta,” especially given that we are always getting feedback and always tweaking/expanding/instructing
Title III and CTL faculty, and students/faculty in the core courses and the Global Masters’ programs (as well as our very energetic early-adopter faculty and students in DLIS) are our Beta-testers
Assessment: Overview
ASSESSMENT
Tied to Objectives – with the understanding that not all assessment is able to be captured in numbers/statistics; To be meaningful, must collaborate with faculty, and ultimately have the faculty member integrate lessons and IL in assignments; To be manageable – assign several people
• Barbara Walvoord
– keep a positive attitude, start small
– keep the “stakeholders” informed – library newsletter, annual report, or “individualized” reports if necessary for funding
• Barbara Fister
– keep a “big picture” outlook, start small
– although we need accreditation statistics, don’t let that
put a stranglehold on library instruction assessment
Assessment: Overview
ASSESSMENT
Feedback: From students
From faculty (several)
From focus group
From informal chats
Pre-post Tests for IL tutorials (IL)
Comments features (IL)
Surveys in-class: high/low survey (Instructors)
LibQual: (Ann)
Statistics popular page hits, tutorial counters (e-services)
OPAC data captures – (IL & e-services)
Rubrics wiki/blog projects & portfolios (Provost)
More information
To peek at some of the technologies talked about in this presentation, visit this del.icio.us account page:
http://del.icio.us/kgshaughnessy/MetroGlobal
Contact information:
Kathryn Shaughnessy
St. John’s University Libraries