Friday, August 16, 2013

Refining information literacy online: library search smart quiz #wlic

My final liveblog this morning from the IFLA satellite conference in Singapore is on Refining information literacy online: library search smart quiz by Beth Prior and Peggy Brooksby.
They were describing a review of a library quiz at Flinders University, Australia. The quiz is generic, is incorporated into the Learning Management System and is formally assessed by several courses. They decided they needed to formally review it as the university was implementing a new LMS, moving from Blackboard to Moodle, and also there was a new discovery tool for library content being adopted. They did a survey of students using the old quiz on the old platform in 2011 and of the quiz on the new platform in 2012.
The first survey had a 17% response rate (over 400 responses). Feedback included highlighting that it could be slow and was not visually interesting. Starting the review they decided to stay with the quiz tool, but there were features in Moodle they could add e.g. a library forum and a glossary, links to specific parts of the tutorial and the Moodle question bank. In the new Captivate videos they added a student guide (a comely girl in a red dress).
Respondents to both surveys were mostly (78%) female and on campus. Looking at the results of the survey on the new quiz, more students were completing the tutorial. The quiz was found more helpful in learning how to learn about the new discovery tool than the old one had been in helping to use the library catalogue. Lessons include: videos should be shorter and preferably include other guidance; embedding in LMS is a good idea, it makes the quiz visible; students wanted more help in keyword selection and search strategy; and it would be desirable to make the quiz compulsory!
I always like to add a link: so this is a page on the Flinders University website that describes the quiz's value in the context of graduate attributes http://www.flinders.edu.au/teaching/teaching-strategies/graduate-qualities/case-study-6.cfm
Photo by Sheila Webber: the speakers looking at the amazing view from "pod" earlier today

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