‘dospuntocero’ Archives
Author: Alison Hicks Published: April 1st, 2012
What do REM and impact factors have in common?! To a few of you, the answer may be something to do with sleep. But to my mind, the movement to reconsider the place of traditional measures of scholarly publishing (aka alt-metrics) is fast becoming the new alternative rock, a challenge to the scholarly status quo. Yep, that’s a pretty tortuous metaphor- and not being an alternative rock fan, my knowledge is based on the trusty Wikipedia article, but either way, alt-metrics is becoming visible and more widespread. And just as REM went on to fame and fortune, librarians too need to be aware of where this may lead.
Alt-metrics (or Alternative Metrics) aims to track scholarly impact on the social web. It is an approach that attempts to supplement traditional citation measures of quality by taking into account how researchers work on the open web in the 21st century. The idea of quality has always been important in academia, not least for the promotion system, funding agencies and for the development of personal reputation. Within the traditional, limited print publication system, peer review, citation counting and journal impact factors have formed the backbone of these measures of academic excellence. In the web 2.0 world, however, these systems of measurement have started to be seen as too limiting. Detractors pointed out that reviewers are not held accountable, that context and impact outside academia are ignored, and that it is relatively easy to game the system. Furthermore, information, knowledge and learning have changed. Knowledge is no longer confined to journal output, especially in the still far too closed world of academic publishing. Scholarship is becoming far more diverse, and information, data and evidence of learning can be found in social citation tools or through self publishing such as blogs or social media. By looking at readership or re-use statistics as well as citation statistics, a richer picture of the influence of a piece of work can be formed.
Crucially, alt-metrics do not claim to provide a complete new system to measure impact. They are designed to be used in conjunction with more traditional tools. And with the glacial rate of change in the academy, it is clear that new measures of impact may take a while to develop. However, as the success of the Open Access movement in Latin America shows, it is also evident that for us as subject specialists, we need to be even more aware of the potential for change in our area of expertise.
Tools to measure impact:
Total Impact: Measures readership and re-use across several sites such as Mendeley, Slideshare, Delicious, Wikipedia and Twitter, among others. Ability to search by DOI, URL or Mendeley library means that it’s one of the most complete tools around. It gives numbers of mentions/tool.
ReaderMeter: Designed to provide more real-time impact, Readermeter has adapted the H and G index to measure readership (bookmarks) instead of citations. It relies quite heavily on Mendeley data.
For other tools (particularly for the sciences) see the AltMetrics tools.
Tools to establish authority:
As digital scholarship practices become more established, scholars should establish an online presence to establish authority and cement a digital reputation. The following tools can help:
Google Scholar Citations: When people search by author on Google Scholar, scholar profiles that show personal details and citation information will be displayed. This also provides basic and more traditional citation metrics such as the H index and i10 index.
Mendeley: Public profiles, which are indexed on Google provide personal details as well as relevant article statistics. Mendeley provides readership statistics by cumulative total, as well as readership statistics per article (including readership by discipline, academic status, and country.)
Tags: Alison Hicks, digital scholarship, impact, mendeley
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: February 7th, 2012
Google +: Facebook slayer or privacy exploiter? Yet another log in, or the dawn of a new age? Asset? Liability? Plus? Minus?! Launched to great fanfare in September 2011, commentators pounced gleefully on Google +, Google’s latest attempt to join the social media bandwagon. For the uninitiated, Google +, (also known as G+) is technically a social network that integrates Facebook style personal profiles, status updates and friendships with Twitter style information sharing, within a familiar, easy to use Google format. It claimed to fix many of the privacy problems associated with Facebook, which, at 7 years old, is now the grandmother of social media.
The jury is still out on the success of Google +. While it integrates many useful features, many users did not think it was worth migrating to a new social media service. However, while much commentary has focused on Google + as a social network, there has been much less focus on Google +’s other features which, in my opinion, make it a serious rival to many VOIP (eg Skype), IM and other educational services. While I’m the first to admit that I haven’t fully engaged with Google + yet, my dislike for Facebook remains thinly veiled (the future’s Twitter shaped- just sayin’…) and I think it’s worthwhile to highlight a few uses of Google + within academia.
Firstly, a couple of the greatest advantages of Google + are the “hangout” and “circle” features. A “hangout” is Google’s equivalent of a Skype call on steroids. Not only can you video chat with up to 10 people (for free!), hangouts can also integrate with Google Docs, meaning that a group can collaboratively edit documents or share screens while video chatting. The “circle” is a way to categorise your contacts into friends, acquaintances or colleagues. While this may sound a little utilitarian, even the hardened facebook fans among you must admit that the ability to share your favourite “i can haz cheezburger” clips among just your closest friends would have been an advantage. Lastly, (and unsurprisingly!) Google + is searchable, meaning that it is an awful lot easier to find that information that you vaguely recall someone posted about.
The benefits to libraries are also obvious. The “circle” means that privacy in Google + is much improved. While it could be difficult to separate information shared between students, administrators and colleagues on Facebook, people can be categorised into different groups on Google +, meaning that information can be tailored to each group. Useful if you’re liaison to different departments, or want to share different information between grad students, undergrads and faculty. The hangouts is the feature that I’m most excited about though- imagine being able to see the student’s screen while you chat or IM. No longer will you have to write out essays about how to get from the catalog to the database, or wonder why they can’t see that blindingly obvious button. Coming up with some great search strategies? Add them to a shared document while you work, and the student can refer back to them later. You could hold virtual office hours in Google +; or what about a book club or review session when papers are due? Google + gives a lot of flexibility, which could work well as student schedules become more elastic.
There are many ways in which Google + can be frustrating. Users need a Google account to participate- and this could raise questions about how personal data is used to filter/change your web experience in the future. A small download is needed for the hangouts, and the more public nature of Google + means that many may worry about sharing private information. Lastly, because it is so new, there are fairly frequent changes, which can get frustrating.
Ultimately, though, Google is an information processing giant, and Google + provides an easy way for people to find and talk about new information, and for companies to market themselves and to reach out to users. If libraries want to remain in the business of knowledge creation, then Google + provides an interesting glimpse of the future. Furthermore, as Google Apps for Education starts to integrate Google + features into academia, students are only going to become more accustomed to working with this functionality. Google + probably isn’t a Facebook killer (boo!) However, as a communication and information tool, it is a great addition (geddit?!) to the web 2.0 world.
Tags: Alison Hicks, google
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: December 2nd, 2011
It’s that time of semester again when most reference questions I get seem to have something to do with punctuation, a DOI, or placement of footnotes. Yep, happy citation season, to one and all! Despite running workshops and creating webpages on citation formatting, it’s often hard to get even graduate students interested in citation management programs. And up till now, finicky was a polite way to describe most of the existing software. But the spread of web 2.0 is such that it has even caught up with the MLA and the APA- and has created a new class of, dare I say it, fun and user friendly tools.
One of the most exciting new kids on the block is Mendeley (http://www.mendeley.com). While fulfilling most regular requirements of a citation management program (stores citations, cite in MS Word, web and desktop access) it also stores and organizes PDFs as well as allowing PDF annotation and provides easy importing into Mendeley, including a genius “watched folder” function for automatic importing. And that’s not all! One of the best features is the online research catalog that it maintains, allowing users to track article citations, follow experts, find recommendations for articles and more. By hooking up with the inherent citation networks in academic publishing, Mendeley is taking advantage of the interconnectedness of the web- instead of trying to smush all results haphazardly into one search box, the development du jour in many libraries today. I know which is more helpful for me, as a librarian… Oh and did I mention that a basic account is free? And it has a mobile app?!
Colwiz (http://www.colwiz.com) is another similar program. Although it is not as widely known as Mendeley, it provides many excellent features, particularly for group work. It may be worth pointing out that both excellent programs were designed in the UK. (Note nationality of columnist and draw appropriate conclusions!)
Longer standing citation management programs are trying to keep up. Refworks (http://www.refworks.com) has released its 2.0 version- as well as a mobile app for citations on the go. Endnote (https://www.myendnoteweb.com) also has a new web version and an app. Zotero, (http://www.zotero.org) which was king of the free citation programs for so long, is responding by releasing a version that does not rely on the Firefox browser, as well as a mobile app. Zotero still manages to deal with web pages better than Mendeley so with these new developments, the citation “lucha libre” may get even more exciting.
Another final class of new citation programs include apps for smart phones that allow users to scan materials from their phone in order to generate a citation. Quick cite (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quick-cite/id405796616?mt=8) is one such program, although it is obviously limited to book citing.
In the craziness of the end of semester these programs won’t help panicked students. But reaction has been so positive to these tools that it may be worth mentioning them next semester as honors projects and Masters theses wrap up. All that I have tried so far seem to work well with foreign characters too, so there is no excuse 
It looks like in 2012, citing = sexy again- who would have thought it!
Alison Hicks
alison.hicks @ colorado.edu
Tags: Alison Hicks, citation
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: October 3rd, 2011
What’s short and yellow and also known as a web application hybrid? Yes, you’ve got it- a mashup! Also known as remixes or meshes, a mashup is “a web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services”. In other words, a mash up is the digital equivalent of a pancake; flour, eggs and milk are pretty good on their own, but combined they make something even better…
So why mash up? To start with, lots of useful data is being produced and displayed online. Crime data, weather data, voting data; while this data on its own is obviously useful, it can sometimes be a little dry, out of context and hard to understand. Mashups, however, can transform this (slightly boring) data by adding back the context, making it more meaningful and valuable. An example of this would be plotting crime data on a map of your town; crime data can be hard to interpret, but when you can look at a local map and see where crimes are being committed, it immediately makes more sense.
What do mashups have to do with libraries? Well, libraries also have a lot of data. Catalog data is a big one, but circulation data and research data are other examples that might be found in a library. Catalog data in particular is extremely rich- but also hard to interpret at times (sorry, catalogers…) So library mashups try and provide alternative display features and extract even more value from our tools. Some of the most popular or useful mashups for SALALM include the following:
Catalog mashups
Repository 66.org is a map which plots repositories round the world. It allows direct searching of repositories, as well as information on growth and platform used. MapFast is from OCLC and it makes local subject headings visible. It enables searching of books in Worldcat or Google Books by location, as well as revealing nearby locations. Integrating tagging, bookcovers or a recommendation system into the catalog are also mashups- as well as adding catalog data to external search programs, such as Bookburro, which enables users to search for library books from Amazon’s webpage. Finally, using the analogy of a car dashboard, Brown University, amongst others, is trying to make their circulation and usage data more visible by displaying check outs and statistics on digital signage.
Photos
Mashups can also display other library artifacts such as digital photos, or objects. Flickr Photomap enables you to plot flickr photos on a map. So if a library had digitized images or taken photos of holdings they could be accessed by map as well as through the catalog. Similarly, Historypin enables communities to plot historic photos on a map of the world; another great pace to make local collections come to life. Finally Google mapmaker enables you to make your own map- whether it’s a literary map, a government document map or a historic events map.
Research
Mashups are also being developed for a wide variety of interesting research tools. Need to find a church or Mass in Spain? Try misas.org; you’ll never miss Mass again. Want to compare gas prices in Brazil? Try Preco dos Combustiveis. Trendsmap plots tweets from round the world, while Bing and Twitter have signed a deal to enable Bing Social, which will plot tweets by location down to a fine detail.
This just a snapshot of what is available- search the Programable Web to find other awesome mashups!
Alison Hicks
University of Colorado, Boulder
*Sausage and mashed potato for the non-British amongst us!
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: August 25th, 2011
Twitter! Oh, that’s disappointing. That’s the place where you tell people about your lunch, right? Isn’t it a bit 2007? Well yes, Twitter has been around since 2007. And yes, there are a lot of lunch tweets. But Twitter just keeps getting better and better- and the uses of Twitter for research, outreach, analytics and more keeps growing. So this column will provide a quick recap of Twitter before exploring how Twitter is a major tool for librarians.
In a nutshell, Twitter is a program that allows you to send, read and receive short messages of 140 characters. Using Twitter, you can stay updated on new information from a variety of sources, as well as tracking opinions, trends and moods. And, with more and more people ditching blogs and RSS feeds in favour of Twitter, you can even just use Twitter to receive information without having to actually tweet messages yourself. Since being the biggest RSS evangelist in SALALM, I’m now almost 100% converted to the superior power of Twitter. For me, the benefits of being able to search real time information, as well as easy subscription and deleting of feeds and the sense of community quickly outweighed the occasional lunch posts, making this one of my professional tools of choice.
Outreach is one of the most obvious ways that libraries are using Twitter. Event promotion, resource promotion, service promotion; all great ways to share your message through another channel. Tie in promotion with news- when a book prize winner is announced, let patrons know they can check that work out from your library, for example. Twitter is a two way street though- and it’s an easy way to start engaging more with patrons too. Want feedback on furniture, events or student interest? Try polls.tw to launch a quick poll of your followers. Want to introduce yourself (or new study areas etc) to students? Upload a photo/video and blurb to Twitpic.com and tweet it to your followers. Want to know what people are saying about your library? Set up a search on your library’s name, or use the advanced search to set up a search for the word “library” near your town’s name. Reply to positive and negative comments about your library and start building the online community. It’s another great feedback mechanism too- last year my library gathered all the negative comments and used them to push for more study tables. Not enough time in the day to tweet? Try Twuffer.com to schedule your tweets in advance.
Twitter can be used for collection development too; many publishers are also on Twitter- and messages tend to be less annoying than the ones that clutter up inboxes. Try @DUKEpress, @EBSCOPublishing, @JSTOR and @LNAcademic for a start. Twitter can also be used as a great way to circumvent the big publishers too; use the powerful search to find small or independent publishers in fields you are interested in. A couple of hours research will enable you to embed yourself in the world of key people who are writing on a topic within Twitter- look at who they follow, the links they send out and join in the conversation- it’s amazing what you can find. You can also set up Twitter alerts on keywords that you are interested in using Tweetbeep or grab the RSS feed of a Twitter search to embed in a Libguide box: simply replace the word feminism here with they keyword you want to search on: http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=feminism
Finally, don’t forget uses for research. Twitter is almost synonymous with keeping up with current news, but Hashtags, Icerocket and Monitter will allow you to search the Twitter archive for historical tweets. The Twitter advanced search will allow you to track tweets between people while We follow and Twellow allow you to search for the most influential/popular people on Twitter related to a keyword eg Argentina, Cartonera. Trendsmap will allow you to search by country for news, trends and people. These tools are perfect for following or researching topics related to public health, politics, sports, and sociology among others, as well as for getting to know key tweeters on a topic and then following links that way.
Twitter is awesome! You can still use most of these tools without an account so give it a go, whether it’s lunchtime or not…
Tags: Alison Hicks, dospuntocero, Twitter
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: August 19th, 2011
I will be posting a new post here soon- guess what the topic is?!
Tags: Alison Hicks, dospuntocero
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: July 5th, 2011
How many of you have a phone that accesses the Internet? And if you do have a smartphone, how many of you have left that phone further than 5 feet/meters away from you right now? I’m guessing that if any of you answered yes to that second question, you are now patting pockets and enduring mild panic attack symptoms as you try and remember where on earth you left it. Smartphones are small, portable, have instant connectivity and are always close at hand. This is a super advantage that libraries and librarians are well positioned to make the most of.
For example, mobile phones can help us provide situated information spaces by linking the physical and the virtual. It would be hard to provide library help at all times in all your campus’ buildings, departments, dorms and study areas. Smartphones can provide this point of need help; help when the user actually needs it rather than just-in-case help. These are not new ideas but have been made scalable and achievable by the advent of smartphones, and in particular Augmented Reality, Geo-location tools, and QR codes, which I will cover in this issue.
QR Codes, also known as quick response codes or barcodes, are small 2D barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone and link to webpages, videos, contact details, maps and more. Most new smartphones have built-in QR code readers or scanners, but it is also easy to download QR code apps. Similarly, many programs allow easy creation of QR codes; try Kaywa. So what can you link to? Try the following for size:
Wayfinding: Put QR codes in hard to navigate areas. Patrons can link to a map that shows people how to get to the circulation desk, or a map of the stacks, which can then be carried around and bookmarked.
Help: QR codes can link to phone numbers (i.e., the Research Desk) or contact details (i.e., a librarian’s e-mail address) in the stacks or mobile friendly chat reference windows.
Advertising: Posters with QR codes could link to promotional videos, mobile calendars, the library’s twitter feed, mobile web/catalog, and mobile databases; one click and the user is at the webpage without having to type in the long URL.
Outreach: Provide a link to your contact details or your departmental office hour information. Include a vcard QR code on all your outreach posters and users can save your contact details as a contact in their phone.
Collections: Link to digital copies (or records of the microfilm) of periodicals and newspapers in your reading room, online versions of reference materials, or reviews/recommendations of new books. Link to digital exhibits or videos around campus or in the library.
QR Codes are flexible, easy to use, and do a great job of providing more return on investment from our electronic and physical resources. If you bear in mind obvious accessibility issues, such as non-smartphone users and disabled patrons, as well as planning for user education, it is easy to create effective, enhanced links between your building and community.
Alison Hicks
University of Colorado, Boulder
alison.hicks@colorado.edu
Tags: Alison Hicks, QR codes
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Daisy Dominguez Published: April 14th, 2011
If you’ve been following mobile web developments, you’re probably sick of hearing all the statistics about smartphone adoption rates: 49% of small businesses, 27% of cellphone users, blah, blah, blah. Overall, the number of U.S. smartphone subscribers is pretty small; according to Mashable, it’s only about 17%. However, beyond the hype, it’s important to realize that between phones and tablets such as the iPad, mobile adoption is growing.
Database vendors and popular web page developers have jumped on board, and there are currently two major ways to access the mobile web: basic mobile webpages and “apps.” Mobile webpages are smaller or redesigned versions of full webpages; you access them through a browser on your phone and they can be bookmarked. An app is a small, specific program or application that you download onto your phone. It’s normally prepackaged to do a specific task; for example, to provide weather information or to store e-books. There are advantages to using both. Because apps are downloaded to a phone, they are always available and provide instant access to content. A mobile webpage has to be searched for through a browser, so it doesn’t have the same one-click access. However, developers are starting to enable their full websites to be automatically recognized by mobile devices, which often works well for libraries because users don’t need to remember a new web address.
For the remainder of this column, guest authors Marisol Ramos (University of Connecticut) and Daisy V. Domínguez (The City College of New York) will provide quick reviews of a few apps and mobile sites that you or your patrons may find useful. Try them out!
Alison Hicks
University of Colorado at Boulder
Alison.Hicks@Colorado.EDU
Dropbox (http://www.dropbox.com/) is a free service that allows you to store (“drop”) files from your desktop or laptop onto a cloud environment. You can retrieve your files for later viewing using any smartphone or device connected to the Web. Create an account on the Dropbox website and download the application onto your desktop/laptop. A folder will appear where you can move PDF, Word, photos and movie files. If using an iPad or iPhone, add the app and voila! You can start reading or watching whatever files you have added to the Dropbox folder. This is an easy to use and very versatile app perfect for the green-conscious librarian on the go.
iBooks (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibooks/id364709193?mt=8) is a free app from iTunes and probably one of the nicest e-readers out there. It is an Apple product so it only works on Apple products (iPhone, iPad, iTouch). When I tested it on our library’s iPad, I really enjoyed using it because of the flexibility it provides. I was able to change fonts, color, and light settings to get the best reading experience. The new update allows you to create notes (annotate) on books and PDF files that you can add to your “library” using the bookmark feature. The only downside about using iBooks and many free e-readers is that the selection of books may not be as current as some would prefer. But, I think this is something that will improve with time.
Marisol Ramos
University of Connecticut
marisol.ramos@uconn.edu
JSTOR Mobile Beta is a mobile webpage (http://mobile.jstor.org/) that has been tested and works on iOS, Android, and Blackberry devices. Its simple main screen offers the capability to browse by discipline and journal title or to conduct an advanced search. Once your search is conducted, you will get a clean listing of the results whereupon you can click on an article and see a miniature illegible version of it. If you try to access the entire article, you will get a notice about full-text access being limited to participating libraries and you will be led to a listing of institutions whereupon you will be led to your library database page for logging on. Needless to say, reading full text JSTOR articles on this mobile site is cumbersome. I found the JSTOR mobile webpage’s most useful features to be the ones that JSTOR focused on: the possibility to do preliminary searching on-the-go and the option to e-mail and save citations. So, give it a try and let them know what you think (there is a survey)!
To log onto RefMobile (http://www.refworks.com/mobile/), the RefWorks mobile site, you will need your school’s group code and your username and password. The main screen allows you to conduct a basic search for your citations and includes links to your folders, your entire RefWorks database, and a “Smart Add” feature which allows you to search the Web for new references (although it is not clear to me how you scroll to the second and subsequent pages of the results list). You can add comments to the “Notes” field of individual records and move references to different existing or new folders without having to sync your phone or PDA to your computer or laptop. You can also e-mail RefWorks support from the main screen. RefMobile is not as sleek as JSTOR (and there’s no survey), but it gets the basics done when you’re on the move.
Daisy V. Domínguez
The City College of New York
ddominguez@ccny.cuny.edu
Tags: Alison Hicks, apps, Daisy V. Domínguez, Marisol Ramos, reviews
Category dospuntocero |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: February 21st, 2011
If you google my name, you will discover that I am a writer of romantic fiction. And a tennis pro who was flung into jail by Joe Arpaio, America’s toughest sheriff. And a medical librarian in the UK. Or not… Sadly for me, there are in fact several Alison Hicks who are either far more famous than me, or who have sponsored a lot of links about themselves. For those of you who have unusual names or who are secretly quite pleased about your new Googlified-self, maybe this doesn’t matter. But for many years, a search engine has been the default for finding out about people, whether this is professionally or socially. While I am neither vain enough nor rich enough to search engine optimize my name, Web 2.0 has made it much easier for me to ensure that people find more accurate information about me.
If you just want a quick, low maintenance online presence, the easiest way to get started is to sign up for a profile on a professional social networking site. Less intrusive than Facebook, these sites are ranked highly in search engines and only show snippets of information in search engine results. Linked In is the easiest, but academia.edu is growing in popularity. Google profiles is another site which enables you to claim your name and control how you appear in Google. ClaimID is one more site which allows you to have more control over your name.
But I already have 3 social network profiles, a blog and a twitter feed! A more detailed solution, which is equally easy to create, is a personal portfolio or webpage to start promoting you, your projects and your achievements. Web 2.0 personal portfolios are easy to keep up to date, involve no knowledge of html,
are hosted for free and you can link in your social media sites too. Weebly is a very easy to use drag and drop site which has a lot of customization options. Flavors.me is a slightly trendier personal portfolio site which encourages you to link your social networking personas into one place. Finally, if you can get past the narcissistic title, about.me provides an equally new and hip way to manage your online presence.
If you prefer html, have access to server space or want to make a more robust or in depth personal portfolio, there are a bunch of free templates available. WordPress.org is the version of the popular blogging software that can be used to create a webpage. Alternatively, do a search for “free web templates” to get suggestions for another easy way to create a webpage; Andreas Viklund has some cool ones.
Finally, there are some tools to track how you are represented on the web. Google Alerts is well known for tracking phrases or keywords, while Social Mention does the same for social media. You can set up searches in Twitter for any keyword, while TweetBeep claims to be the Google Alerts for Twitter.
And if this is all too typical millennial self-centered for you, all these resources would also work for groups and projects as well as people.
So go ahead, make a profile and reclaim your online identity! And in the meantime watch out for my novel that features a steamy romance between a tennis pro and a medical librarian…
Alison Hicks
http://alisonhicks.weebly.com/
University of Colorado at Boulder
Alison.Hicks @ Colorado.EDU
Category dospuntocero, SALALM Blog |
Author: Alison Hicks Published: January 12th, 2011
Instruction 2.0 theory is all well and good but I’m teaching 3 undergraduate seminars next week and need some practical examples! What follows is an introduction to in person or classroom based instruction 2.0 examples. But I’m not an instruction librarian, I hear you cry! Never fear- even if you do not teach in a classroom, instruction 2.0 principles apply to the creation of web pages, databases, the library catalog and other online interaction. In the final Instruction 2.0 column, I will give an overview of Instruction 2.0 in an online world.
To recap, instruction 2.0 embraces the changes in the way that we communicate and interact. How has student learning changed and how can libraries adapt to this? Randy Bass is a key researcher of 2.0 pedagogy who set up the Visible Knowledge Project to study learning in higher education. Through these studies, he discovered that student learning today was adaptive, embodied and socially situated. Taking this as a basis, what does this mean in a library instruction context?
Realistic or adaptive instruction enables students to learn new skills that can be transferred outside of the original context. This means that instead of teaching the intricacies of a particular database, students ideally learn lifelong skills that form the backbone of information literacy. An example would be learning evaluation skills. As realistic instruction, adaptive teaching also connects students with the information realities and the academic conversation around them, emphasising that learning, information literacy and academic research do not occur in a vacuum. An example of this is Anne Barnhart’s class, which asked students to use their information literacy training to buy material for the library in their subject area, an activity that is useful, practical and transferable.
Embodied learning means recognizing that many different elements affect student learning. This is more than looking at learning styles though- it also shows how the affective (emotions), prior knowledge and motivation all affect learning. It sounds kind of hippy-chic, but Bass’ research showed that it is not just cognition or the mental process that affects how we learn. Personal experience or the creativity involved in using non traditional media helps connect students to new concepts. An example of this would be using a variety of ways to enable learning, for example student creation of a video tutorial using screencasting software in order to supplement and deepen student understanding of a concept.
Finally, instruction 2.0 recognizes that learning is often socially situated and that students learn from their peers in communities of practice or learning communities. This means that we need to incorporate different structures into the design of our classes that facilitate student-peer conversations, as well as student-teacher conversations. An example of this would be asking small groups of students to create an evaluation schema collaboratively, which would then be shared with the rest of the class. Within the small groups, students can share prior experiences and knowledge to cement their understanding of the research process. Socially situated learning needn’t always be about the students either. Working with faculty to create a common vision of learning outcomes is also a form of socially situated learning, where the learning community is formed by librarians and teaching faculty. An example of this is Suzanne Schadl’s “guerilla” instruction, where she has incorporated multiple short instruction sessions into a semester long class. Even SALALM is a learning community- one of the original aims of La Cuna was to expand our own socially situated learning and foster online peer learning opportunities.
Bass’ three observations of learning fall neatly into the 5 Cs that characterize Web 2.0; creativity, conversation, community and collaboration. The final C is control. For instruction 2.0 to really work, librarians need to give up control so that the class is driven by student needs and dialog, rather than what the librarian assumes the students know or need to know. Personally, I think this is the hardest and scariest part, but it is vital in order for library instruction to maintain and to increase its relevancy in the 2.0 world.
Alison Hicks
University of Colorado, Boulder
alison.hicks @ colorado.edu
Tags: Alison Hicks, teaching
Category dospuntocero, SALALM Blog |
