LOEX Presentation: Developing an Online Credit-bearing Information Fluency Course: Lessons Learned

Last Friday, I presented at the LOEX Annual Conference with colleagues Leslie Sult and Yvonne Mery. The title of our talk was, “Developing an Online Credit-bearing Information Fluency Course: Lessons Learned.” We reviewed how we developed, implemented, and evaluated the undergraduate Skillful Researcher (UNVR195a) course. To get some backgound, you can take a look at my post from last April when the class was first approved.

We had a good turnout, and the audience actively participated by asking questions and sharing their own experiences. It seemed like a very timely topic, as many other instruction librarians are going towards both online teaching and credit-bearing courses.

Here is our powerpoint to give you an idea of what we talked about, I hope others find this helpful and share any comments:

We also had a handout with a list of things to Try and to Avoid in online instruction, which I’ll share here:

Try It	Avoid It
Establishing and following course objectives	Designing as you go
Keeping tutorials short	Trying to put everything in one tutorial
Keeping text to a minimum	Overusing text
Using smart graphics	Using images that are purely decorative
Including audio	Overusing PowerPoint
Using provocative discussion questions	Making assignments the discussion questions
Including self-assessments	Depending only on quizzes for students’ assessment
Participating in discussions	Assuming students will participate in  discussions on their own
Grading discussions	Having optional discussions
Writing clear directions	Assuming students will know what to do
Paying close attention to course navigation	Over-depending on the navigation in the CMS
Responding to students promptly	Assuming that students do not need immediate feedback
Listening to feedback	Ever thinking you’re “done”
Preparing for a significant time commitment	Assuming teaching will be less work because it’s online

What Librarians Can Learn from E-Learning Professionals

Last week I attended the E-Learning Guild Annual Conference in Orlando, FL. It was something a colleague had run across a couple of months ago and thought would be appropriate to attend, as we are in the process of creating another online course.

It was absolutely enlightening! There is a whole world of E-Learning professionals out there that I didn’t even know existed. Primarily those that attended the conference were instructional designers (IDs) that either work for a corporation or non-profit or are consultants. They receive content from subject matter experts (SMEs) that they are then to make into an online learning object, and distributed across the country (or world) to the company’s employees. It’s for training purposes, mostly.

These E-Learning professionals have been doing this sort of thing for years, becoming experts in the fields of displaying online content, designing for online learners, and assessment through online mechanisms.

I can’t possibly share everything that I learned, but I will share some key points that are important to us as librarians.

1. Rapid e-learning tools are fantastic, and there are plenty of them out there. You don’t need to learn Flash or XML. At my library we already have Articulate, which is a big one, but I learned about other options such as Adobe Presenter, FlyPaper, Raptivity, and Lectora. There’ s also programs like CodeBaby where you can create animated characters who speak to each other. Very cool. They can be expensive, but these companies often offer academic discounts, and you can usually get a trial to test it out and see if it’s worth the money. Why is this a big deal? By taking advantage of these tools, librarians will no longer have to go to their software programmers or try to learn programming skills to create this stuff. These tools can usually be self-taught and require little technology-savviness. And they have great help forums.
2. Designing instruction for online learning is far different than designing it for face-to-face sessions. But fortunately, there is a lot of research and a ton of books out there on how to design effective online instruction. Check out Empowering Online Learning, Making Sense of Online Learning, the Online Learning Idea Book, and the E-Learning Handbook (which are all now on my Goodreads “to read” list). Here are some tips I picked up:

• Don’t make them read. Construct your use of text very carefully. Use tables and graphics and images where appropriate. Always set a context for the learner. Always make the experience a conversation between teacher (or computer) and learner. Read Letting Go of the Words (the author, Ginny Redish, was a conference speaker on this topic and was fantastic).
• Take a lesson or two from infomercials. Find ways to draw your student in by telling them what this will do for them, and why it’s worth their time. Keep it simple, but incorporate stories, and use testimonials and quotes from experts to further convince them that this instructional tutorial is worth their time.
• Aesthetics matter, so remember a few simple rules. Use just one font type in one section, reserving any alternate font for important messages you want to get the students attention. Use different font sizes to distinguish headers from main points from supporting points. Don’t use decorative fonts, ever. And be consistent. Use good color schemes – Adobe Kuler is a great resource for selecting attractive color schemes.

I believe as instructional librarians are getting more pressure to produce online tutorials, classes, and other content – we should reach out to those that are experts in exactly that.

If you are involved in building online instruction or tutorials, I highly recommend attending a conference geared towards e-learning professionals. In addition to the E-Learning Guild conference, there is DevCon and DevLearn both happening this year. I have to say it’s possibly the most worthwhile and practical conference I’ve been to since becoming a librarian!

Living the Future – We Did It!

Last week the Living the Future 7 conference took place, and it was fantastic! Much of my time was dedicated to logistics, staffing the registration table, coordinating the volunteers, and communicating with the hotel reps, but I did get to squeeze in some great sessions and have some inspiring conversations with participants from around the world (yes – we had attendees from Canada, Hawaii, and Africa!).

First I’d like to share the key points I walked away with:

• From Peter Senge’s keynote speech: Aspiration, Vision, and Purpose. Sustainability. We are born to learn. We need to spread knowledge.
• From the CoLAB Planning Session: we share commonalities, we share ideas; if we make connections and take the time to learn about one another’s assets, we can make true collaborative projects successful.
• From the receptions: librarians are fun and inspiring (as if there was any doubt).
• From the breakout sessions: virtual presentations can be successful! But more importantly… we need to work closer with our faculty. And form closer relationship with our students and campus partners. We need to get out there in our campus community. Successful partnerships are the key to our future.
• From the closing session: talk with each other, and then go back and do something.

As far as the planning goes, we received a lot of positive feedback from participants, speakers, and former members of the planning group. So that’s a very good thing, especially with all us newbies. Here’s a review:

• Only one member of the planning group had done this before, all the rest of us were brand new to the experience. Yet we had more participants registered than in any year past!
• We had a world-renowned keynote speaker, Dr. Peter Senge, who is very difficult to get. We had about 40 people register just to see him speak. He was inspiring.
• We coordinated the first “virtual presentation” to be held at Living the Future – John Shank presented through Elluminate from his office at Penn State. Despite a small audio glitch half-way through, it went smoothly.
• The conference was dedicated to Shelley Phipps, our recently-retired Associate Dean who participated in all previous planning groups to make this happen. She was surprised to see her face on our welcome poster!
• At closing we specially recognized Liz Bezanson, who has also worked on all previous LTF conferences, including this one. She retires at the end of this month and it was a pleasure to work with her. She will be missed throughout our organization.

Yesterday we set up a Google Group to faciliatate continued discussions now the conference has ended. I hope you join us: http://groups.google.com/group/living-the-future.

Living the Future – Registration Open!

Glorious day! Registration has opened up for the UA Library’s Living the Future conference. The theme this year is Transforming Libraries through Collaboration, which I think is very timely and appropriate. Successful collaborations play an essential role in libraries these days, and the sessions for this conference all focus around how collaborations are helping move libraries forward. I’m a member of the planning committee & am coordinating the programming for this event, along with some fantastic and dedicated other members of the library staff and SIRLS. I have never been involved in the planning of a national conference before so it’s pretty exciting, as stressful as it all is.

We have some wonderful speakers lined up, including keynote speaker Peter Senge who we’re very excited to have join us. Also Arizona State Librarian Gladys Ann Wells, Emory University’s Richard Luce, and Brigham Young University’s Ernie Nielsen. Some more are pending, but you can see all the speakers we have so far here.

It’s certainly not over yet for the programming group, though. We’re diligently working to confirm our final speakers and get them registered. After ALA Midwinter we’re going to start working on invitations for the poster session, and placing speakers in the appropriate slots. We’re also working with Blended Librarian co-founder John Shank on what will be a web-based virtual session, which is something we’ve never done before. But I was involved somewhat in the virtual session at the Symposium last year (we had a student presenting from Oman!), and using Adobe Connect (formerly Macromedia Breeze) to faciliate this. I’ve used that software enough that I would feel comfortable using it for this purpose, but there’s also Elluminate which might be what we end up going with since it seems to cause less problems. (See article here).

With registration opening it does feel like an important milestone has been passed. Conference planning can be one of the most hectic & stressful experiences and it requires a whole lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun. Collaborating with the planning group, which consists of staff members across the library & faculty from SIRLS, is great fun; and learning all about the process of putting together a program has been very rewarding so far. Hopefully it will be smooth sailing over the next few months as we continue putting this event together. And we will certainly be celebrating once this is all over, and once it’s a huge success

What I took away from AzLA

I went to the annual AzLA conference this week held in Mesa, AZ. I was really impressed with a number of presentations I was able to attend. Here are a few highlights:

• Who Is Driving the Higher Education Train? Including the Academic Library in the Assessment Process
  • Presented by Trevor Smith, my former Intro to Information Technology (IRLS571) professor, & his colleague Gail Staples. This was a discussion of assessment of information literacy at the program level; librarians at Cochise College developed an assessment plan based on the college’s structure assessment process that involved looking at the bibliographies found in student research papers.
  • Results showed use of overwhelmingly poor information resources. Steps were taken to improve library instruction and over the past few years results of the assessment have shown significant improvement.
  • Key lessons learned: assessment can be done using few resources if we partner with faculty to assess assignments that have already been created and/or graded; a key way to improve the effectiveness of information literacy initiatives is to create a structured assessment plan; assessment has the benefits of increasing the visibility of the library’s role on campus, enhancing faculty support of library instruction in classes at all levels, and building stronger relationships with faculty and how information literacy can be incorporated into the curriculum.
• Library Magic: Getting and Keeping Your Students’ Attention during Instruction
  • Presented by Mary Evangeliste & Leslie Sult, my two favorite UA Librarians (see my other recent post on their presentation at SIRLS). They discussed how to utilize classroom management, incorporate different learning styles into your instructional strategies, and use modeling and demonstration to improve student learning outcomes. They covered a number of things. Some key points are – don’t overload your students; when you only have an hour or even less be sure to just pick two or three things you want them to walk away with. Also, don’t just teach content; teach your students how to apply that content by allowing them to practice.
  • Key Lessons Learned: remember why you got into librarianship in the first place, know why you are teaching the students & and have a passion for doing what you’re doing; read The First Days of School and The 11 Commandments of Good Teaching.

  
  

• Podcasting 101/InfoTech Interest Group Meeting
  • This presentation by ASU’s Tammy Allgood & Matthew Harp demonstrated how ASU has created podcasts for a number of purposes for distribution through its Library Channel, including virtual tours of the libraries, exhibit information, and interviews with librarians and other players on campus.
  • Key Lessons Learned: podcasting is really very simple and requires minimal equipment and technical skills; placing podcasts on a blog as ASU has done is an effective way to enable their syndication; podcasting ought to be utilized as a technology for marketing the library’s resources and events; it has the ability to improve the library’s image as a fun and relevant place for its users.

The Symposium

This past Saturday was the 3rd Annual SIRLS Graduate Student Symposium.  After months of planning, organizing, and waking up in the middle of the night thinking about it, it all came together.  And I think it went fantastically.  We had one presenter cancel at the last minute due to illness, but other than that everything went smoothly.  The technology worked, the presentations were great, and we stayed on schedule.  I saw a presentation on searching behavior of avatars in Second Life, Learner-Centered vs. Teacher-Centered Instruction, and Learning Styles in Library Instruction.  They were all wonderful and I was very impressed with the quality of content presented by these students.  I delivered my own presentation on Access to Information in the Czech Republic and received positive feedback, although unforunately it ran a little long leaving little time for discussion.  I probably should have gone for the 50-minute slot, after all.  You can see more details on the day’s presentations online here.

We had 5 posters at the poster session and there were some great discussions surrounding virtual searching, library environments, and the library needs of young children.  The only real negative feedback we got for the event was that the room we held this in was too small.  It doesn’t surprise me, since I found it to be crowded myself, so lesson learned for next time.  I was very excited to have a poster session for the first time; we had attempted this last year but to no avail.

Chris Dodge delivered the keynote presentation and discussed inconsistencies between ALA’s core values and the practice of librarians, including equal access, diversity, and intellectual freedom.  I found it quite fascinating.

Unfortunately people seemed to dwindle a little bit near the end.  While we had approximately 60 attendees at the Symposium overall, there were only 42 at the closing keynote and probably 20 people at the reception that followed.  It is always a hard thing to judge.  Overall, though, I was very happy with the turnout and it was the largest that we’ve seen at the annual Symposium.  So that’s a very good sign.

A number of faculty from SIRLS were in attendance, including director Jana Bradley; also attending was Nancy Ledeboer, director of the Pima County Public Library.  Three university librarians came as well as a number of library staff and student workers.  I heard a lot of positive feedback on the organization of the event and the program.  The three student presenters that flew in from Maryland also said they were impressed with the event, which was great to hear. 

It’s finally over so that I can stop worrying about what may or may not happen.  I do believe that all the hard work was worth it.  The students got a lot out of it, and it increases the visibility of the SIRLS program & its students within the library community.

Just for fun, here are a few quotes from attendees:

“The Symposium was a spectacular success!” – Jana Bradley, SIRLS Director

“This conference was way better than any ALA program I have ever attended.  The subject matter was rich and the participants were enthusiastic.” – Mary Evangeliste, University of Arizona Librarian (you can see her whole blog post on the event here). 

“This is an event that will stay in my memory for the rest of my career, and I’m pleased and proud to have been part of it.” – Liz Danforth, SIRLS Student and Symposium Presenter

“Kudos to the committee and the presenters for the wonderful job they did on the SIRLS Graduate Symposium which happened this Saturday. I think the presentations I attended were great and had the largest audiences I have seen at the Symposiums!!!” – Carrie Larson, UA Library Information Associate

LIS Students Learning From One Another

I am co-chairing the planning committee for the 3rd Annual Graduate Student Symposium to be held in November, and this year we decided to reach out beyond our local Library & Information Science (LIS) program for presenters. The symposium in the past has consisted of only current students in our local SIRLS program. A few months back, the planning committee thought hey, why not invite graduate students from other departments, and LIS students from other schools entirely? So we did. Collaboration and working with one another is such an important element in the professional world today so this seemed appropriate. We anticipated maybe getting a couple students from outside departments to submit their abstracts but thought there was little chance of getting a response from other schools. At least, if nothing else, we thought this would make other programs aware of what we are doing, and maybe set a foundation for future symposiums becoming national events.

Our deadline for receiving submissions is tomorrow. We have yet to receive one from another graduate department, unfortunately. We were hoping some students in law, journalism, english, or sociology would participate; library issues are so cross-disciplinary and we though someone outside LIS might be interested in discussing information policy & law, freedom of information, preservation of the written word, or the digital divide. While the non-response from around campus was a bit of a disappointment, we have actually received two submissions from students outside of our school, from LIS students in Maryland! One presentation and one poster session submission. If accepted, this means several students will be flying out to the desert from the east coast to share their research with us Tucsonans. We are thrilled at the possibility.

Why am I sharing all this? I think it illustrates that there are opportunities for graduate students across the country to connect and learn from one another, and it’s a fantastic feeling to know you are helping facilitate this connection. I wish there were more opportunities like this. While travel money can be an issue for students, there are plenty of scholarships and travel grants available out there; graduate student councils often offer these to make such opportunities possible. I think there should be better communication between ALA Student Chapters so that we can create more opportunities to come together and learn from one another. If you are in a graduate LIS program and planning a professional development event that other students might want to be involved in, communicate with your peer institutions to open the door to that possibility! Maybe all us students could come together to plan a national event where just students are presenting their research? ALA’s New Members Round Table (NMRT) might be interested in helping coordinate this. It can be difficult for students to get experience presenting in a professional setting prior to graduation, and what a great thing to make these opportunities available. It’s also a great way to allow students to network, collaborate and learn from one another.

P.S. There is still a day to submit your abstract to present at the symposium, please submit online here!

Two Days of ALA Madness – Day Two

• Sunday I slept through the 8am PR Forum, which is a shame because that was something I was really looking forward to. Sleep was probably a better option for me in the long run, though. So the first session of the day was 10:30am.
• Titled Partnerships Produce Successful Cultural Programs, put on by the ALA Public Programs Office. This was a great presentation about PPO’s collaboration with the National Library of Medicine in creating travelling exhibitions. The exhibitions Frankenstein and The Changing Face of Medicine have been to academic, public, and school libraries around the country. I thought it was a fantastic idea for collaboration. Listening to the librarians talk about the success of the exhibits, which were displayed for eight weeks along with library-sponsored lectures, discussion groups, and film viewings, was inspiring. I also found it interesting that this was something taking place in large academic libraries as well as public libraries. It seems that academic libraries have the opportunity to be cultural centers on campus, and to offer extended educational programs to their students and the greater community. Most academic libraries don’t seem to take advantage of this; much of it could be due to the time constraints and budget cuts – creating these sorts of programs is not a priority. But it could be well worth the time; it could gain the library greater prominence on campus as well as increase campus support.
• Went to lunch with co-worker Brenna and fellow student Paula at an Irish Pub. good food but took a very long time to be served.
• Headed over to program Crossing the K-12/College Divide. Picked up the handouts and the presentation was interesting, talking about ways the Maricopa Community College district has reached out to highschools and their students. But I only made it through 20 minutes before getting extremely tired and not feeling so good, so I headed back to the hotel for a nap. Knowing I had a long night ahead of me I really appreciated that 2 hours of sleep.
• Woke up and got ready, then went with Brenna for a glass of wine at the hotel bar before walking over to the NMRT reception. Ran a few minutes late, and I blame Bush because 5 blocks were closed because he was at the Ford Theater and we had to take the long way to the Hyatt. Got to the reception and heard people from different ALA affiliations, then – Hooray! – LSO was presented with our Student Chapter of the Year Award. A big group of LSO Officers from 06-07 got up there and NMRT’s Terry Buckner presented our award. It was very cool to be recognized for all our hard work.

• Leslie Kent Kunkel, SIRLS Assistant Director, very generously treated us all to drinks at the Hyatt’s Martini Lounge. We then went back downstairs for the NMRT/3M Reception where free food and drinks were enjoyed as well as some dancing. I also got to see two friends I’d met in Prague, Emily from UNC and Kim from D.C. A very fun celebratory evening.

• Soon after 11pm most people had to leave to catch the Sunday metro. I went back to the hotel bar where I met one of my roommates, then Paula joined us and later Marissa (Illinois) and Xima (Santa Barbara) who were SIRLS grads and some of their friends. Another very late night, but it was great seeing people I don’t otherwise get a chance to see.

Overall a good conference experience. I squeezed in some good programs as well as networking opportunities. Don’t know if I’d want to do the conference in two days again, but if it’s that or nothing it’s well worth it.

Quick notes on the woes of travel the next day:
Woke up Monday, went to breakfast with my roomies at the Waffle Shop, then took the Metro to Union Station where I had to wait around for an hour but caught the train to BWI. Big mess at the airport with confusion over my ticket, and made my flight by with just 5 minutes to spare. Then sat on the runway for an hour and half before take-off, watching the ridiculously awful film Wild Hogs. Landed in Dallas at 5:25, the moment the flight back to Tucson was supposed to take-off. Fortunately, I thought at the time at least, it was delayed an hour. Then it was delayed another hour. Delayed until almost 9 then it’s announced the flight is cancelled. Luckily Shelley and Pat from my library were on the same boat as me. We got on standby for the next flight out – 75 people on standby we didn’t stand a chance. That flight gets delayed until 10:45. In the meantime we got some guacamole and drinks at an airport restaurant. Didn’t get on the next flight, of course. Transferred to standby for another flight and actually made it – wahoo! We were very close to staying overnight in the hotel and leaving at the 1pm flight the next day. Made it back to Tucson but our luggage didn’t (fortunately it arrived the next day). Finally got home in bed 2am and boy did I sleep well.

Two Days of ALA Madness – Day One

I just came back from ALA Annual in Washington, D.C. Monday night. Due to limitations at my work I was only able to take Monday off, so I arrived in D.C. Saturday morning at 7:30AM and headed back yesterday in the late morning. Here’s how it went, starting with Saturday:

• I didn’t sleep on the redeye flight, but got two hours of sleep Saturday morning before heading off and starting my day. Amazingly the tiredness didn’t hit me until late afternoon. I trugged along with the goal of doing as much as possible without completely overdoing it.
• I went to the EBSCO Academic Luncheon, meeting a friend from UNC who I had met on the recent Prague seminar. Got a great free lunch and learned about the new EBSCO packages and interfaces. Also got a free CD to play around with and literature on their new products.
• Went to a session titled Transforming Your Library, and Your Library’s Future, with Technology. It was a panel session; the panelists discussed technologies including automation (central sorting systems, automatic retrieval systems, compact shelving, self check-out/in, etc.), new methods of delivery (North Carolina State delivers books by segway!) and evolved OPACs with features such as reviews, RSS feeds, etc. There is even a library that has links to Amazon from its OPAC, something that could be controversial. It was good and I took some notes on libraries that are doing this sort of innovation to keep an eye on them.  Ones mentioned by the speakers were Plymouth State’s new beta site and Cook Memorial Library for its allowing comments and interaction between users and library staff (although on quick glance I wasn’t able to find this feature…).

• Went to the ALA Membership Forum, where the topic was “Should ALA Take a Stance on the Iraq War and other ‘non-library’ issues?” Anyone was able to speak at the “pro” or “con” mic, but nearly everyone that did was an ALA Councilor or someone holding office in ALA already. I noticed this and found it interesting today when I read John Berry’s column in Library Journal and found him questioning the same thing. It would be nice to hear more outside voices that don’t get much of another chance to speak out. Granted, I was there as a student and didn’t speak out, but to be honest I haven’t clearly defined my opinion on the issue and didn’t want to take a stance just yet. My intuition tells me yes, ALA should take a stance. While the war is considered non-library issue, think of all the libraries, librarians and information workers it’s affecting in the middle east. All the librarians and families of librarians it’s affecting here in the states. The huge war expenditures that affect federal budgets and so indirectly affect financial support of libraries. And it seems from what I gathered that historically, ALA has taken a stance on these issues.  But the opposing arguments made some good points. We don’t want to alienate library users who may have a different stance on the war. We also have military libraries and have to think about the troops headed out to war; we certainly don’t want ALA’s stance to become a barrier between the information users and the information providers. One of our roles is to keep the public informed. We should carry literature on the atrocities and war crimes associated with the Bush administration, but as far as ALA taking an official opinion I have to say I really don’t know…
• Stayed for the ALA Membership Meeting. The non-library issue topic continued. Other topics raised were school libraries and how the No Child Left Behind Act is causing big issues for school librarians. Also how libraries can serve those troops coming home from Iraq. One thing I thought about bringing up but didn’t (standing up in front of ALA bigwigs is something I’m just not ready for) is the closure of military libraries. Fort Huachuca, close to home, was the first in what will be a trend. I know ALA President Leslie Burger has written an official letter of concern regarding this but is there anything else ALA can do? This could be something to address in the day of library advocacy on Capitol Hill, which I will be missing unfortunately.
• Went to the opening session where honorary members were presented, Leslie Burger gave a welcome, followed by speakers Vartan Gregorian and Bill Bradley.  I met up with former classmate Coni and co-worker Wendy.  The session was decent but the sleepiness was hitting me at this point, as well as being hungry.
• Met up with some other students for dinner.  Followed by some drinks.  At the restaurant/bar we had a good group of about 8 students, and met some other librarians in the courtyard including Jennifer from Princeton and Ken from Boston College.  Both are now my MySpace and FaceBook friends, respectively.
• Although the party was continuing, I headed back for the hotel just before 2am to try to catch up on some sleep.
  

Presentation of LSO’s Student Chapter of the Year Award!