Real Challenges in a virtual world

Philippa Sheail gave a fascinating insight into the challenges of information provision in the virtual world as a part-time (16 hours a week outside work) student on the postgraduate MSc in E-Learning at the University of Edinburgh.

The course is taught completely online and she is particularly interested in the debate surrounding ‘e-learning’. Because it’s a huge variety of different things, there needs to be further discussion about what e-learning is and isn’t, she said, and referred to the 2007 and 2009 JISC reports on the subject.

Philippa talked about the different interfaces she uses (VLEs; online discussion boards, Second Life etc) and talked the audience through how she (and fellow students) use them. Students can see who else is online when they need help at any give time, which is useful as students are based globally and work in different time zones. Discussion boards can be a bit intimidating to students not confidence with their level of subject knowledge but can be really useful. For some modules on the course students have to keep a blog which is assessed. Tutorials and virtual corridor chat is via SKYPE and Second Life. Students really appreciate the feeling of being together virtually even when not together in the ‘real’ world. Different University Schools (Management, Education etc) have buildings in Second Life and Graduation ceremonies take place in Second Life and real life simultaneously with the latter filmed and streamed into the virtual environment. Students can talk to each in Second Life with microphones but prefer to send text messages as easier to refer back to earlier ‘conversations’ and keep track of online discussion.

On one particular module of the course, ‘E-Learning and Digital Cultures’ public Twitter feeds are used and generally students are increasingly following academics ‘live’ as a way of developing a greater awareness of the subject and discovering what the academics are particularly interested in. The trail can lead to other academics in the subject area and creates a wider teaching group to students. Zotero is used to see what others are reading too…both peers and tutors.

Advice from the library is to ‘use the advanced search on Google’ at the least but Philippa says she uses Google for cross search all the time (sometimes Google Scholar) and interestingly said that sometimes Google Scholar doesn’t take her to the article she wants but Google will via a link on the author’s blog for example as a ‘free to download’ pdf from their book. She complained that it can be problematic to access journal content sometimes as she needs to remember to log in first or think about where she is trying to access it from first. Is the content in a journal or a database; is an abstract enough of does she need the full article? Often she just needs to get to the full text quickly and doesn’t care how.

‘I love e-books’ she said and highlighted Dawsons and NetLibrary in particular and said that she uses Amazon all the time as a quick and easy interface for finding what exists before going to library to do further research.

All in all, Philippa’s session was very interesting…so much so that I asked her if she would come and visit us at SAGE. I’m sure others would be interested to hear her views too.

E-book readers in a mobile-friendly library

Breakout Session B: E-book readers in a mobile-friendly library / Alison Brock, Open University

Although e-books have hit critical mass amongst consumers in terms of awareness and increasing interest libraries are yet to progress their e-book agendas due to hardware limitations and licensing restrictions.

Alison Brock reported on the joint Open University and Cranfield University e-reader project. The main aim was to explore students working practice of using e-readers and to see what kinds of content was available to them and to see how this could inform the development of library services.

6 participants from undergraduate to PhD level were chosen at both institutions using 4 Sony PRS-505 and 2 iPod Touch (8GB) devices. Students were given the devices for 3 months starting from August 2009. The devices were not preloaded with content. Since the study the Kindle is now available in the UK and the UK launch of the iPad imminent.

Prior to the survey less than half the group had used e-readers.

Usability
Students found the devices easy to use and easy to read although no specific testing was carried out with visually impaired students. They also liked the portability and lightweight feel of the devices. The colour screen of the iPod Touch and its multipurpose functionality was appreciated, although it’s highly reliant on wi-fi access.

Barriers
The weaknesses predictably centred on difficulties in finding and uploading content to the devices and the single-purpose nature of the Sony. Most participants would not buy either model tested even if they would consider an e-reader. Presumably different answers would be received in a post iPad landscape. The main barriers for use were formatting issues, navigation, the inability to annotate or interact with text and how tiring they are to use. There is also no way to link between books or link out to other content.

Similar studies undertaken in the United States and the UK found similar results. The business model for e-readers is still aimed at single users purchasing individual titles for their devices. Although ePub is the most common format it is not used on all devices - Amazon’s Kindle for example. Users cannot transfer purchases from one device to another. Licensing restricts libraries and library users from downloading e-books to mobile devices. Obviously cost is a factor. If e-readers were priced at a more competitive £50 or below £100 it would encourage more rapid take-up and experimentation among libraries to see how they can best be used for educational purposes.

Most of all it is an area of constant flux. Other manufacturers and consumers are waiting to see how the Apple iPad performs in the market. Google has announced a new tablet device and other companies are following suit. Until the hardware develops and is able to meet the study needs of learners and licensing terms change, academic libraries are unlikely to heavily invest in e-readers on a huge scale for the foreseeable future until it is clearer how they will impact the development of library services.

Breakout Session B (22) Knowing Your Users: Research You Can Do - Judi Briden, Digital Librarian for Public Services, University of Rochester, NY

Although the project described today took place at a (campus based) academic institution Judi Briden began the session explaining that they can be applied to users in any institution.

Background:

• IMLS grant 2003-2004 to study facility work practices - there was an institutional repositories in place (GSpace) but it wasn't being used properly/enough
• Libraries hired an anthropologist - this was a very useful move. After studying staff they began studying (the around 5000) undergraduates as it had been so valuable.

What do students really do when they write research papers was the key question but generally they wanted a better understanding of students and how their library facilities, web pages etc. can work better for them. Plans were originally submitted to the research board and the libraries have been very very careful about protecting data and respecting privacy. Consent forms and the right to leave the study were both used.

Retrospective interviews

• Recently Completed Papers - wanted a concrete example with details
• From receiving the assignment to turning it in (step by step questions through the process)
• Each step illustrated on a poster (students would draw in the step as well as describing it)
• Interviews video recorded and transcribed.

Judi showed an example poster of the processes of writing an assignment. Students did not ever write in a step about talking to librarians though they did include use of the library website/services. Various stages of outline and feedback etc. described and informative for libraries. Some students consulted with teaching staff, some consulted with family (a revelation to the librarians). Students included information about the stage where they got distracted and why, what spaces are better for studying.

Judi showed a senior student's honours paper process poster - a complex poster covering several years. His process much more closely resembled a graduate student.

The next step, after collecting the data, was to look at the data. Research team and librarian staff co-viewed videos, transcripts and drawings in viewings with discussion and brainstorming. The process engendered widespread staff participation and was used at every stage of the project.

What did they learn?
That students:

• Work on their papers in chunks, with days or weeks in between
• Asked family and friends for help choosing a topic or editing their papers (one student said her dad had edited all her papers since the 3rd grade!)
• Some students assumed that if they did a Google search it included the library resources (so they didn't go back and look at the library stuff afterwards) - so services must be better but also resources must be on Google!
• Did evaluate resources - just not in the ways that librarians recommend (e.g. find and print out articles but don't read for a few days and then discard some)
• Don't remember who gave their library session

Another technique used were photo surveys - this allows you to investigate environments you would not normally be able to see. When you look at photos with interviewees you learn more than you would be just talking to them. They gave students a disposable camera and a list of photos they should take (the places they study, what they always have with them, how they keep track of time etc.) as well as a few "free" pictures they could use. All images were developed and put on CD and then a session to discuss was scheduled.

Judi showed a students photo (from 2004): mobile phone is present (and almost all students on campus had cell phones). Dorm room pictures were rich in detail that research team would never have thought to ask about otherwise. The things that students take to class photo revealed that no students were taking their laptop to lectures. Once alerted to this the team knew they needed to ask about. An image of a colour coded diary shows the one thing a student couldn't be without. The team found that students were highly and complexly scheduled with work and activities but no days looking the same.

The team also gave students a map of campus and asked students (for one day) to write down where they went and when. It was very very easy to do but very informative and again gave information that was not being given in any other way. Example map Judi shows covers 8am to 12am the next day and covers a complex pattern over the campus covering 2.5 miles (on a fairly compact campus). Students are out all day and take all their stuff around all day. This explains the laptop issue - they didn't want to lug it round all day but would use it when sat in one place for a long time, usually the library at night.

The team also looked at the website design with Design Workshops

• Create a device that did everything that students wanted it to do and yet could still be small and light
• They also had to redesign the library webpage and, in another session, marked up a version of the current library homepage with any changes they would make if they could.

Judi explained that even the warm up session devices was informative in terms of the concerns of students.

The marking up of homepages was very valuable and they repeated this exercise with faculty and graduate students later on.

Another study focused on library space. There was an area they wanted to make into a collaborative work space so students input on what should be there was sought. Trying to get participation was tough. In the end recruited on the day with posters, pizza and small payment for taking part in a design workshop. This walk in workshop asked students to imagine that the library has a big new empty space that they can design to be their space in the library, it's build and you love it... what does it look like?

Students were asked for 20 minutes of their time but many stayed for over an hour and got very into the design process. Many pictures go into lots of details. Comfort, daylight, wifi, bookshelves etc. all important to different students. Quiet but not silent seemed to recur as an idea. Talking all the ideas and analysing them they cover five key areas:

• flexibility to meet variety of needs (need to be able to move things in the space/do several things in same space
• comfort with family room feel and attention to environment (natural light etc)
• technology - computers, printers, scanners, whiteboards, "mini Kinkos" (copy centre machine), chargers (phone and ipod) etc.
• Staff support from checking things to "making a killer latte!"
• resources - books, dvds etc.

Additional student interviews took place in the student union at a time of year when papers were being worked on - student worker at the library (same age as students) recruited participants. Interviews were done by recent anthropology student who'd just graduated. By using young research team the libraries expected to get more honest answers to questions. They asked if students felt they had enough time for papers, if it mattered and who they have asked for help (and they were prompted as to whether they'd asked a librarian), also when had they last worked on their paper and when would they next work on it.

The results showed that most students had used library resources and had been able to find what they wanted. They also felt they had enough time. They didn't feel that organizing and writing (especially narrowing topic) was going as well. Professors and TAs are subject experts (specifically professors) but saw librarians as experts on finding specific books. All students expected to do well or as well as needed (many were prioritizing several papers).

Faculty study had included interviews in offices which had proved valuable. For studying undergrads it seemed important to go to their dorm rooms. It was felt this could be tricky but students were extremely welcoming and open (putting onus on researchers to be responsible with what they do with data). 2 Dorms were studied and the anthropologists went out between 11pm and 1am as other research showed that students worked at that time of night. Only went to rooms where explicit permission and asked students to do what they normally would do (students did this!) as team observed them. What was interesting was students use of technology, particularly use of computer desktops. Judi showed a video of a student using his computer (a mac with lots of items on dashboard - conversion tables, sticky notes - with reminders, quotes etc (mostly not assignments)). Judi said that you can see from this how little physical space was being taken up by assignments (one paper sticky note on monitor) - assignments are not so large in students general sphere of activity as librarians expected. Librarians have a better sense of proportion about discussing papers as a result.

Dorm observations
- Lots of distractions - music, video games, people, IMs, Facebook, NOT a lot of reading
- My room is your room culture - sort of communal - people wander in and pop through. Lots of sharing going on
- Freshman much more active vs. Upperclassman dorms (busy but less chaotic) - makes sense but seeing that made librarians realise that the library is a refuge and it's a place where students count on a lack of distractions to get things done when they need to.


What are they doing differently?

• Gleason Library - 24/7 collaborative space - when architect selected they had to incorporate ideas of students, architects willing and excited to do that. Work went on during summer when students not on campus else they would have been included. However members of research team worked with the architects about what students wanted though discomfort about properly consulting students. When it came to final layout students were returning to campus so were asked to place drawings of furniture around as they would like. Consistently the students did 2 unexpected things: the space had a new wall of windows and architects had put comfy chairs there but students wanted natural light for work tables so that actual work rather than relaxation could take place there; demanded quiet study areas not just open space (no doors but divisions to separate noisier from quieter areas. The students love the place. Judi showed images of the room - it's busy and popular all the time, the furniture moves all the time. Judi walks through the area to get to her office and it always changes. There are some frosted glass cubicle areas where the glass walls are whiteboards - they are always being used and prove really really useful. Flipcharts asking about what students thought of the space also asked for even more whiteboards so they are there. Students multitask (image of one knitting and reading!)
• Night owl reference at paper crunch-time - Judi showed a "Whooo's working late" promoting help with assignment papers (at key times in the year) until 11pm several nights a week when students were busiest. Proved useful and it's now been fine tuned and happens every semester around crunch time to accomodate students needs.
• Parents breakfast at orientation - given importance of parents to learning process the library now hosts the orientation breakfast and listen to concerns, talk about process and then they tell parents that every single class has a librarian who knows about that class and about resources for that class - so parents can refer kids back to library later on.
• Experimenting with webpage redesign - will go live in the fall and the new design based on student ideas. Widgets are being used making it customisable and/or rearrangable for specific sessions. This will make pages more attractive but they will also be able to learn from what students choose to include/exclude.
• Changing the way that library sessions are tought - now feel much more comfortable with experimenting with students, one librarian is now a writing instructor, sessions include discussion of what's going on. We understand how confident and competant students feel - pairs of students are given a resource that they can play with and must present to group about what it does, how to search, when you find something you like how do you get it and finally if you find something you like what are two many ways to get it. Librarians add extra info as needed but just facilitate, students lead and share and it works really well.

Long term benefits

• understand how our undergraduates live and work on campus - this 2 and a half year project has been fascinating and really fun. We like and know our students a whole lot better and we are feeling motivated to make the library better for them
• Understand their use of library
• High staff engagement and participation - librarians now have a more personal perspective and communicative with students
• Greater comfort and lower overhead for trying new ideas - major change
• Continuing this type of research

All students and users are different so you need to find out about yours. You don't need an anthropologist. You can do great things with low tech low cost small programmes. Get a small team of interested staff together and build it from there, staff will become interested and it will be fun and find great results!

Q & A

Q: what was the sample size?
A: varied. space designs formed from 19 drawings, 8 students did photo project, 20 students in interview etc.

We've written a book, Studying Students, which is available for free download and have a project website with lots more info:
http://www.tinyurl.com/f63dj

Q: Are you reviewing this process?
A: All the time. We know students love the library and we are listening to them. It's granular and hard to add up. Over time we're looking for more interaction though and writing and library classes very much following that and much more participative. No metrics yet though.

Breakout Session B (30): Implementing Library Learning 2.0 - Bobbi Newman, Robin Hastings, Missourri River Regional Library

Bobbi and Robin began by explaining the background to an innovative training scheme undertaken at Missourri River Regional Library based on the 23 Things programme created by Helene Blower for Charlotte-Mecklenburg County libraries. Missourri were the first in US, and only the second in the world to implement 23 Things (though they actually did 29 things!)

Tools used were:

• gmail (entire staff got one to get blogger access)
• blogger
• bloglines (this was pre google reader)
• del.icio.us (all links from all classes and bundled by class no.)
• Odeo (website that allows production of podcasts)
• Email (staff were not completely technologically savvy)

Added:

• Myspace (it was clear that users were there)
• Gmail
• Map of Visited States (from Steven Abrahams 42 things)
• Search Engines (remind folks that Google isn't the only player!)
• Google Labs (some things in Google Labs

Subtracted:

• Life time Learners (just went ahead and skipped that part - that was probably a mistake!)

How the programme worked for them
Lessons went out on the blog, weekly emails sent to staff (fit with normal use of email) and added incentives. Everyone who completed the original programme got an MP3 player and they would give candy, certificates etc as they went. Incentives included public acknowledgement at staff meetings, little candy, oranges, toys, pens etc. on desks - peer pressure in a nice way! And a little mp3 player was given at close of course.

Staff demands
We took the ideas from Charlotte Meklanberg and applied directly but that just didn't work for them. It took staff longer to complete (4-5 hours/week) so divided out lessons a little. The proximity of peers and distractions tricky so a dedicated computer space was set up by Bobbi's office so they could ask questions (though suppossed to be self-sufficient programme). The team are also running advanced workshops (e.g. Flickr, MySpace and tagging).

Staff reactions
Good responses, helpful for keeping up with users and the method and self-led style worked well for some. Meanwhile Bobbi and Robin thought it worked amazingly and wondered why they hadn't thought of it themselves!

Lessons Learned

• Be flexible (so depending on your library, workload, other issues etc you need to flex to make it work)
• Incentives work (the mp3 players were great but even the silly incentives still entertained and pleased people - even cheesy cards etc!)
• Don't reinvent the wheel, steal away:
• http://mrrllearning.blogspot.com
• http://del.icio.us/hblowers/learning2.0Libraries

• Find out what works for you
• Find out what works for your staff

Now what?

• Library Learning 2.1 next - didn't want to just be done with this programme. In fact Charlotte Meklanberg did the same thing too. We have taken what we learned from round . Each lesson goes up one at a time, and all are 1 hour micro lessons. All about interesting things if not all 100% work focused.
• Public classes - Facebook class at end of April
• The library goes 2.0 - library now on facebook, flicr and myspace etc. and also manage the blog (now a pool of writers though). So now we continue with it.

Demo:

Library Learning 2.0
Week by week lessons (which look super!) which staff had to blog on each week.

Library Learning 2.1
Is similar but each week is a new tool - staff only have to comment on each lesson to show participation

del.icio.us shown - wide variety of libraries doing this programme and many many libraries are involved (as shown on the originating website: http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/)

Q&A

Q: In Library Learning 2.1 do you intend to encourage choice in other blogging software for instance
A: We encourage staff to ask what they want to learn. Sort of wish we'd done Wordpress this time. But we use same platforms to track use for Incentives again - mp3 player again and a prize draw for a digital camera. Doing step by step instruction is harder across multiple platforms. Our staff weren't very tech savvy so telling them to go get a blog would not have worked well. Most of our staff were probably around 1 on a scale to 1 to 10 on a tech-savvy scale. Most had not heard about what they were teaching about. Some attitudes about MySpace dangers etc. changed when they actually learned about tools. Patrons were coming up and asking questions about how to, for example, block someone on MySpace but the staff in the computing centre could not answer those questions so the staff really need to know what's going on.

Library 2.1 is going really really well. Incentives from the dollar store are still appreciatted and it's working really well!

Q: you are doing technical training, what about cultural training?
A: yup we're talking about personal identity safety, instant messaging etc. We talk about it a lot face to face as well. In the original programme al lot of the younger staff didn't take part, some of the older ladies jumped on and adapted really well and went for it. Online privacy is the second lesson in Library Learning 2.1 - including ad that gives a good idea of the risks. Once somethings online its there. The ad sparked some fascinating discussions online about this.

Q: In terms of mobile the first reaction is to ban and shut out of our systems. Younger people adopt regardless of that approach but as adults we should facilitate new environments anf you must take risks and learn to use tools and environments.

A: We spent a lot of time talking with someone whose library had blocked Myspace (in us myspace scare stories all over the place). Robin's son wanted a myspace page and she took him through a compromise set up - they set up a cat page for a neighbours cat and chatted through privacy etc. in the process of creating. Bobbi has had a personal and professional Flickr account - when she put a foot picture up though all kinds of weird types appeared out the woodback

Q: Increasingly our identity is online so management of that will have to be really important. Child identity issues etc. can be raised.
A (Bobbie): I really want to teach a class on that but its hard to know where to go with that as its all very very new. And you can't teach your kids/users about online safety without knowing about it yourself

Q: we have an it department to pick a single platform so one blogging software for instance, very difficult.
A: we're very lucky that our director buys into this and Robin is our IT manager so we are in a good position. You may just have to pick one and start with something. \

Q: we get students complaining about other students using Facebook etc on institutional PCs and we have to say that they may be doing work
A: you do hear about places where VLEs have worked badly so moving to Facebook, Ning, Myspace etc. Loads of really creative work going on that are definitely educational - eg math equation son myspace. The more staff that know and understand this stuff, the easier it is to build defence.


This slideshow on Google Docs:
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dgfkzkp5_267mznj5rdd