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

shaughnk@stjohns.edu