Resources
Requested
Stipend
1 AY: 1,400.00; Maria
Posteraro
Stipend 2 AY: 1,400.00; Edgar
Bailey
Stipend
3 AY: 1,400.00; Constance
Cameron
Audio/Video
Editing/Capture Software: $139.00
Equipment:
$30.00
Training
and Materials: $100.00
Total: $3,069.00
Project
Info
Start
Date: September 1, 2003
End Date: June 30, 2004
Deliverables
Angel
or Course-Related: We feel these tutorials
will support and enhance our current Bibliographic
Instruction program. By having the tutorials
posted on angel they will be accessible to students
attending specific classroom sessions as well
as other interested students.
Enhancement
to Professional Practices: These tutorials
will allow us to reach a broader audience than
we would by just relying on scheduled classes
and individual sessions with students.
Paper
or Article: We hope to eventually submit
an article to the journal Research Strategies which
is the leading publication in the field of library
instruction.
Professional
Presentation: If successful, we would
like to present our project at a NELIG (New England
Libraries Instruction Group) meeting, and/or LOEX
(the Library Orientation Exchange) annual conference
which occurs every May.
Primary
Objective
Our
primary objective is to develop online tutorials to
teach library research techniques in selected disciplines.
Each year the three members of the library reference
staff who are submitting this proposal do over one
hundred presentations on library resources and research
methodology for students in courses where a research
assignment is required. Typically, these presentations
consist of a demonstration of the use of relevant
resources, both print and electronic, as well
as opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience
in using them. Among the departments for which
the staff does demonstrations most frequently
are: Education, Political Science, English and Business
(particularly Management).
The
three project collaborators propose to develop online
self-instructional tutorials for these disciplines.
Utilizing PowerPoint and Camtasia, these tutorials
would introduce students to research skills in their
fields of study as well as demonstrate the use of major
resources. Because they could include more information
than can normally be covered in a single class, they
could serve as either a supplement to or a
replacement for the class presentations. In some cases,
students might be assigned to complete the tutorial
prior to attending a class, in which case the class
would be primarily an opportunity for students to
practice what they have learned with a librarian present
to answer questions. For those students who
do not have the benefit of attending one of our
instruction sessions or are enrolled in distance
learning courses, this may be their only exposure to
research methods and resources in their fields.
It
is anticipated that links to the tutorials could
be placed on the Angel home page as well as within
relevant individual course pages. There would also
be links from the library web site. We hope to reach a
broader audience by having multiple access points to
the information.
As
noted in the section on instructional technology experience,
the three project collaborators have a combination
of skills and experience which makes then the best
qualified staff to successfully complete the project.
Maria has
considerable technical expertise and prior experience
with a previous version of PowerPoint. She is eager
to explore the capabilities of the newer edition
of PowerPoint as well as the new software program we
will using (Camtasia).
Ed has
over 25 years of experience teaching library research
skills and is very interested in finding new ways to
impart this knowledge to students. Thanks to her years
of work in the Bryant College library,
Connie has
an extensive knowledge of business resources.
Although Connie now holds an administrative rather
than a faculty position on the library staff, her responsibilities
are identical to those she performed as a faculty
member. Her status was changed solely because,
as an adjunct, she could only have worked at PC for
six years and the library wanted to keep her.
Assessment
Since
the primary purpose of the proposed tutorials is to
enhance students' library research skills and to improve
the quality of research in assigned course papers,
the most useful assessment would seek to determine
whether such improvement actually occurs. This would
involve cooperation with faculty in evaluating the
quality of research paper bibliographies. Other types
of assessment would include evaluation forms to be
filled out by students after completing the tutorial
as well as pre- and post-tests designed to demonstrate
student learning. It may also be possible in the future
to incorporate interactive quizzes into the tutorials
themselves to help students evaluate how well they
have absorbed the material presented.
We
would also like to determine, through some of the same
assessment techniques, which form of instruction is
most effective, the tutorial, a class or a combination
of both.
