Online tutorials #lianza11 #rs2

Fiona Salisbury La Trobe University
More than a quiz: a new approach for empowering first year university students to navigate scholarly information

Curriculum renewal 2009-2012 organised around undergrad curriculum design (integrating into every subject), defining assessment standards (early feedback for students), curriculum mapping, coordinating first-year services.

Created two learning objects for information literacy.
#1 inquiry/research quiz (designed to be delivered in LMS) with videos, questions - if they get it wrong the avatar explains the answer and links to more information. Each question addresses a learning outcome based on NZ standards.

8 subjects trialed the quiz - all different approaches, but all completed in first weeks and then revisited later. Sometimes voluntary; sometimes integrated as a hurdle; sometimes the mark was recorded and low marks would go on to an Academic Skills workshop. 3000 students completed it with final results of 80-90%. (Multiple tries were allowed.) Where voluntary, completion rate was 30-60%.

For many, trial and error without guidance is a frustrating and negative experience.

Very good feedback from students (eg going back to re-view videos when stuck searching) and academics (re student learning outcomes, quality of referencing). Has let library break complex skills down into manageable chunks for first-year students. No dictating to academics exactly how they do it, and no academics asking them for endless customised courses. Time student spends depends on their prior knowledge (15min - 5 hours, mostly 1 hour).

Want to continue developing learning objects to support infolit outcomes. Role would be less about customised classes for first year and more supporting staff.

Meg Cordes
Elements in common? Antipodean online tutorials and overseas’ literature

Online tutorials - usually interactive teaching tools delivered over the internet. Can be flash, video, text-based (older)... Universities moving towards screencapture and interactive and away from text-based.

Gap Hypothesis - that published literature not used by tutorial developers - specifically researching the hypothesis that there was no significant difference in features being used in tutorials developed based on literature.

Most common content: assistance ('help', where else you can go), audio, interactivity, modularity, navigation aids. Considered the principle of least effort - does modularity have an effect on how easy a tutorial is to use?

Frequency of elements in the literature - eg interactivity comes up over 70% of the time, modularity and navigability over 60%. Frequency in tutorial sample is 40%, 30% and 90% respectively. However didn't reach statistical significance of literature, and had limited search to library journals. Mostly studied uni libraries (not polytech libraries).