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!

Captivate vs. Camtasia: Captivate Wins

I wrote a post awhile back attempting to compare these two software products that can be used for creating interactive screencapturing videos. I spent months learning the ins and outs of Camtasia, creating a number of videos that are now being used in the library. Now we have Captivate keyserved, so I finally have it on my computer and have had a chance to spend time with it and get to know it a little better. Conclusion? Captivate is much easier, cleaner, dynamic, and creates a nicer final product than Camtasia.

We had a training open to all library staff earlier this week on Captivate. Here is what we have determined:

• Captivate projects are easier to edit: you can copy and paste slides, delete and add sections, & extend time frames in a much easier manner than in Camtasia. In Camtasia you can screen draw and select mouse options before and during the recording phase, but cannot change this in editing mode. You have to start over. Captivate lets you play with these options afterward. So if you mess up during recording, you don’t have to start all over again.
• Captivate saves you time: this is a smart software, and can actually add captions for you based on what you’re doing on the screen (like “click X,” “you are now on X page”). These are easy to alter or delete if you like, but if you want them this will save you a lot of time.
• Captivate quizzes are pretty: well, prettier than Camtasia’s. And you can actually preview them without publishing the project.
• Captivate allows interactivity: this is a big one, and one I mentioned in my previous post. You can select an area on the screen and the user has to click it to continue, or take them somewhere. Allows a lot more customization than Camtasia’s “hot spots.” There’s also a new feature in Captivate 3 called “branching,” where you can make your product even more dynamic as users go to different places and discover different things.

This doesn’t mean to say I’m writing Camtasia off completely. I do like it’s easy ability to record audio with powerpoints, and I like it’s preview screen which Captivate is lacking (have to select “preview” to see what the project looks like in motion and any changes you’ve made). That said, an intern at the library this summer spent 2 months messing with Camtasia trying to make a tutorial on searching for newspapers using Access World News. She was very frustrated, particularly with the screen drawing and audio quality. She spend less than a week with Captivate and made a nice, clean, professional product: http://www.library.arizona.edu/help/tutorials/courses/jour/accessworldnews/Tutorial.htm. That’s enough to convince me in the Captivate vs. Camtasia debate: Captivate Wins.

Utilizing Technologies for Engaged Instruction

I presented this to the library on Friday so thought I’d share it here:

How to Narrow a Research Topic

I’ve just finished revamping the second module of the new online info lit class, “The Skillful Researcher,” a collaboration between the library and University College. The module is on “Narrowing Your Topic.” The students are writing a hypothetical research paper; they are doing all the research and creating an annotating bibliography as their final project. The second module is very important, since it’s where they pick their topic for research, and create a few potential research questions.

The students have already selected one of 5 broad topics we give them – education, food, human rights, music, or sports. For the assignment and discussion posting, they have to come up with 2-3 research questions that are appropriate for writing a hypothetical 8-12 page research paper.

Here are the techniques we’re teaching them:

1) Brainstorming. We have them complete a worksheet where they can talk about what they already know about a topic, what interests them about it, and what they would like to know more about.

2) Concept Mapping. I found this really cool YouTube video demonstrating how to do this:

3) Reviewing What’s Out There. We have them select an article from a list on various aspects of their broad topics. All the articles are from CQ Researcher, which is great for topic overviews and includes nice bibliographies. I created a Camtasia video on how to use CQ Researcher, and directions are presented in an Articulate template.

4) Defining Certain Aspects. A tutorial created using Articulate demonstrates how they can narrow a broad topic by looking at thing such as certain time frames, geographical locations, types of people, and/or aspects (sociological, economical, legal, etc.).

Since it’s only a one-credit class, and this module only lasts one week, we can’t teach much more than this. Another technique that I would like to teach (possibly if we create a “Skillful Researcher 2″) is how to review what’s out there by looking in library catalogs and databases. This gets a little more complicated but is a great skill for students to learn.

If anyone has other methods they teach students, I’d be interested to hear what they are! I’m hoping these 4 will be a good foundation for them, but any feedback would be appreciated as well.

“What Research Libraries Will Be”

On Monday this week I had the opportunity to experience the UC Merced Library. It’s the University of California (UC)’s newest campus, and the first American research university of the 21st century. The library is visionary. They’re motto is “Not what other research libraries are, what they will be.”

They’re crossing boundaries other libraries only dream of, and they’re situated in such a way that makes this possible.

Being the 10th UC campus, they have access to the impressive California Digital Library (CDL) – 20,000 full text electronic journals – as well as quick access the extensive print collection throughout the system. While their own print holdings are minimal, the loan system among the UC Libraries is fast and very active, getting all local materials to library users within 48 hours of request. Their acquisition philosophy is “tell us what you want” – meaning they primarily (if not only) buy what is specifically asked for by students, faculty & staff. That is their priority and built into their budget.

The library building has only a handful of desktop computers, but they have about 200 laptops being circulated at any given time. Their first year circulation stats showed that laptops were checked-out far more often than print materials.

There is one service point in the 4 story library, and it is staffed primarily by student workers. That’s right. While other libraries are struggling to make the case for pulling librarians from the desk, UC Merced isn’t even scheduling staff members let alone professional librarians.

Donald Barclay, the Deputy Director, wants to get rid of 4 things in libraries – reference, instruction, the OPAC, and the website. Say what? While this freaks people out (and for good reason as this sounds like the core of many of our jobs!), the idea is to not ask “how do I do X” but to ask the bigger question, “what do you want to do?” This can open your eyes to the bigger picture of what services we’re ultimately trying to provide, and exploring the most effective means of doing so.

So is this the example of what research libraries will be in the future? Could be. If nothing else, perhaps this library can inspire us to take those risks, ask those tough questions, and move forward with passion, creativity, and vision.

Info Lit Class Approved!

This week the course I’ve been helping develop was officially approved to pilot this summer!  It will be open to the entire undergrad campus, but aimed at first-year students in University College (undecided majors), and based in that department (UNVR 195a).  It’s called “The Skillful Researcher” and is a one-credit, web-based course, that will run for 5 weeks, one module per week.

We based the course on the ACRL standards, and the development of the content has been a collaboration between a number of us within the library’s Undergraduate Services Team and one of the academic advisors & instructors in University College.  It will introduce students to library resources and how to define a research topic, and teach them about searching strategies, evaluation methods, and the ethics of information use. Initially this summer, we will probably have 50-100 students in 2 different sections of the course.  The goal is to end up with about 500 students per semester – and ideally to make this course required for all undecided university freshman (or perhaps all freshman, period).

Experienced instructional design librarian, Leslie, will be teaching this summer, along with Keith from University College.  In the fall I will probably teach a section or two, and we’re hoping down the line that we can have SIRLS grad students teaching the course as part of a graduate assistantship.  We’re designing the course in such a way that it will require minimal amounts of time & grading on the part of the instructor, and we are using interactive tutorials and quizzes, videos & virtual lectures, etc. to keep the course engaging while making it scalable for use across a variety of library instruction initiatives.  We’ve been using Articulate a lot recently to develop the modules and it’s been working very well.

It was very exciting to get the approval this week, and by the end of the month we hope to have the course completely developed and ready to go!

Captivate vs. Camtasia – It’s Anybody’s Game

UPDATE: See newer post – Captivate Wins!

I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past few weeks exploring all the many features of Camtasia. Later today I’m holding a training for all library staff on the use of this recently-purchased software. You can see the demo I created online here (the one titled “Camtasia demo”: http://intranet.library.arizona.edu/learn/docs.html.

Camtasia can create a really nice Flash file; it’s relatively easy to use and understand, although it does take some playing around with at first.

Jing Project and CamStudio are great because they are open source (absolutely free) and very simple to use. BUT they are very limited in features and have next to no editing functions.

Captivate I haven’t had as much experience with, but we did use it in the Materials Access Team for training our student workers on circulation functions. One primary advantage to Captivate is that it allows for interactivity, i.e. you can ask the user to click somewhere on the page and respond with a “correct” or “incorrect” pop-up. Camtasia, on the other hand, primarily is for demonstrations. It does allow you to input a “hot spot” which the user is required to click prior to continuing (you can also move them somewhere else in the video; take them to a website, etc.), but this is more for the purpose of giving the user control over where they are in the video than testing them on how to perform a function.

Camtasia has the advantage of being able to be key served, so that everyone in the library can have it installed on their computer. Captivate does not allow for this, and so currently less than 5 computers in the library have it.

I’ve also heard of ViewletBuilder but have never used it.

Many libraries have used Captivate for creating tutorials, including UCDHSC Library, which has a large number of these. The University of British Columbia Library, on the other hand, has created a number of tutorials through Camtasia.

I have reviewed a couple articles which also have some insight on this debate:

Clark, J. & Quinghua, K. (2008). Captivate/Camtasia. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 96(1), 75-78.

Murley, D. (2007). Tools for creating video tutorials. Law Library Journal, 99(4), 857-861.

I also recently discovered a Screencasting & Libraries blog which is a great resource, and even includes a page of academic library examples. That said, if anyone is out there who has experienced these different softwares and has advice on which one is better – and for what purposes – please share.

Meebo for Chat Reference

We’ve been having discussions in the library lately about replacing our Docutek VRLplus software that we currently use for chat reference.  Theoretically it’s a great software because in addition to the instant messaging, it has the ability to co-browse, or capture the screen so that you can demonstrate to the user what they need to do (on the website, in a database, etc).  Unfortunately, when I first started working the reference desk and asked about this feature it turns out no one uses it.  Because it breaks down and doesn’t work.  This really is a shame because it would be so helpful.  I spent 10 minutes the other day explaining to a student through chat how to find an article through a library database, step by step.  Having a visual demo would have made things much easier.

In addition, this software requires the library user go through several steps then fill out a form to connect.  The chat service is used regularly, but I wonder if it were much simpler to use if it would be used much more.  There is definitely a demand from our customers to keep things simple.

I’ve been familiar with Meebo for a couple years now, and finally today created an account so that I could embed the widget on this blog (see it, to the right?).  The webmaster for LSO placed one on their blog as well as their website over a year ago and it works well because it’s so very easy to use.  It doesn’t require creating any sort of account or filling out any kind of form, you can be anonymous if you like or type in your name.

Libraries throughout the United States and in Canada have started using Meebo as an alternative to other software: the University of Iowa, Florida Atlantic University, University of Calgary,  Eastern Michigan University, University of Waterloo, and American University Library, just to name a few.  See the LIS Wiki for a comprehensive list of libraries using chat service and the types of chat services they’re using.

There are disadvantages to using Meebo.  For one, when you’re just using the widget (“Meebo Me“), the links aren’t live, you have to copy and paste.  I’ve also heard rumblings of privacy issues but I’m not sure what exactly those are; definitely something to consider.And of course, you won’t have high level features such as saving and e-mailing conversations, keeping statistics, etc.  But I found out today that you can actually send files through Meebo, which I thought was very cool and could come in handy.
I do think it’s definitely worth exploring, since a whole lot of libraries have found it to be successful.  It’s fast, simple, and absolutely free, so why not give it a shot?

New Year’s Resolutions for Libraries & Librarians

This week we embark another new year.  The world of libraries is always talking about change and moving forward, so what are your library’s new year’s resolutions?  Below are some of my ideas for resolutions for libraries & librarianship as we enter 2008:

1. Continuous Learning & Sharing of Knowledge. Just think, if each librarian at your institution learned about one new gadget or piece of technology per day we would always be surrounded by creative ideas and solutions.  Think of all the open source software that’s out there that isn’t being utilized in libraries.  All the Firefox add-ons (screen grab has pretty  much changed my life) that none of us even know about.  Let’s all commit to taking a few minutes every day to find something new, experiment with it, and when we find something useful – share what we find with our colleagues.  Props to those that are already doing exactly this.
2. Marketing, Library-Style.  Marketing appears to be a relatively new concept in libraries, but with the constant budget cuts and fighting for support we really need to take it seriously.  To be honest, my initial reaction when I saw the word “marketing” in a SIRLS class was pretty negative.  It sounds business, corporate, and equivalent to “advertising” which makes me think of deceiving people into buying something they don’t need.  But in reality, there is much more to marketing than public relations and advertising.  Creating a marketing plan for your library requires assessment, analysis, and refinement of vision, mission & objectives.  A marketing plan can increase a library’s worth and its visibility in your community, and in the world of academic libraries it can ultimately increase student success.  So maybe it’s not so bad.  Maybe it’s necessary to move libraries forward in the right direction; to keep us relevant and responsive to our users.  So resolution number two for libraries: create a marketing plan.  For librarians: listen to your customers, and use marketing tools to increase the visibility of your library and its services.
3. Emerging Technologies.  I’m not going to say “library 2.0″ because that phrase has become so overused that it’s starting to lose all meaning.  But I will throw these nuggets out there:  educational technology, collaborative technology, technology for assessment, open source technology.  It’s all over, and has the power to transform libraries into thriving educational environments that inspire learning, discovery, and creativity – both physically and virtually.  Third resolution: utilize these technologies (wisely, of course) to improve your library both within your organization internally and externally with what you library has to offer its users.
4. Usability.  Libraries are coming to realize that navigating their websites, and their OPACs particularly, are not intuitive to users.  If you have any say whatsoever in your own library’s website, make reading Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think first on your list if you haven’t done so already.  Hold usability testing to see what library users actually have trouble with when searching for library services & materials.  Advocate for better information architecture in databases your library subscribes to.  Don’t jeopardize the friendliness of your library by having a poor web presence.  So as a final resolution: make sure your library users can easily use your library’s services.  Make sure they are not afraid of it, or frustrated by it, and if they are – fix it.

These resolutions are pretty broad but they are intended to be, and in reality I don’t think they are difficult to achieve.  And I’m thinking they will be well worth it, so I will try to hold myself to them.