Moving to online-only IL instruction for first year business undergraduates

Jack Hyland, Dublin City University Library

BLA conference 2015, Liverpool

First year UG training: Before

• Fragmented, with gaps in coverage:– Face-to-face for lots of smaller programmes– Blended for about 250 students* in Skills for

Success module• Lecture - 30 minutes• Staggered 20 min. workshops in library training rooms• Online quiz assessment (5% of host module)

* Meehan, David (2009) Optimising information literacy delivery to large classes: the contact or the online approach? In: AISHE International Conference Series 2009: Valuing Complexity: Celebrating Diverse Approaches to Teaching & Learning, 27-28 August 2009, NUI Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland.

Then

• Changes to Skills for Success led to further fragmentation and gaps

• Struggle to find training opportunities:– Core and optional modules– Overlaps between programmes, schools and years

of study

Does online instruction work?

• I was convinced by improvements in:– Tech– “E-pedagogy” (my own and community’s)– Best practice

Benefits of online instruction

• For lecturer:– Outside of class time

• For student:– Can control of pace of learning– Available at time of need– Immediate feedback

• For librarian:– Scalable– Flexibility of teaching formats: text, video, activities etc.– New gadgets to play with

2014-2015

• Strong support from School’s Associate Dean for T&L for embedded online instruction

• Embedded with to Introduction to Marketing core module (5% of marks)

• Online-only training for nearly all first year business students in Dublin (500) and 150 students in Riyadh

The plan

• ~2 hour asynchronous tutorial:– Finding books, journals– Business info. sources – Searching databases– Evaluating sources– Plagiarism

• ~40 minute assessment quiz• Students given two weeks to complete it

Created with Articulate StorylineHosted on Moodle

Formative quizzes, building on my in-class experience with:

Summative quiz in Moodle

Problems

• Module delivered between semesters 1 and 2• Enrolment issues• Display problems with:– Chrome browser– Moodle

Feedback

• Positive (but limited) feedback immediately after tutorial and assessment:

– “I really loved the tutorial, it is so useful and I gained a lot of important information that are very helpful to me as a student. The tutorial is so clear and gave me an overview about everything I need to know.”

GradesOnline - 2014 Blended – 2013

Total students 658 194

Total completed assessment 601 187

% completed assessment 91% 96%

Avg. mark 85% 72%

• Good demonstration of understanding key concepts

• No evidence of “gaming” quiz

End of year survey

Responses from 102 students

End of year survey

Improvements needed

• Avoid tech glitches• More quizzing and activities• Need to know more on UX (surveying? focus

group?)• Further demonstration of impact?

2015-2016

• Common basic library skills for all first year business students (moving to Intro to Economics module)

• 700-800 DCU students, 150 Riyadh