ACRL webcast–So you want to create an interactive IL tutorial?

Cinthya Ippoliti of Paradise Valley Community College (part of Maricopa Community Colleges) led the ACRL webcast on creating interactive tutorials. She began with a needs assessment from faculty to determine how to structure the tutorial. A working group began the project, but then the group dwindled down to two people; as Cinthya said, “Sometimes, things don’t work better by committee.”

The group considered Acadia’s tutorial . My thoughts: while well-done and entertaining, this tutorial moves linearly, and interactive elements are limited to moving from one screen to the next, while pausing to read the text and watch the images.

Instead of building off existing tutorials, Cinthya started from scratch. She looked at over 100 tutorials and literature, and found that not much was specific to information literacy. Much of what was already available was in the fields of IT and Education, or were specifically targeted to math or other subject areas.

Interactivity means different things to different people, starting with merely clicking through one page to the next and reading text along the way. Greater interactivity was built into Maricopa’s tutorial, including elements such as free-form navigation, varying levels of difficulty, use of strategies, etc. Rollovers, drag and drop or clicking were all ways to increase engagement even during moments when students were viewing text. Passive viewing of the tutorial was not possible–students had to continually make decisions, even which tutorial piece to begin working in.

The overarching principle for the tutorial was the desire to conceptualize and boil down ACRL IL Competency Standards, to make the tutorials work toward increasing IL skills in students. The backbone of the tutorial began with storyboarding each page; a slide showed side by side images of storyboard versus the specific tutorial page. The multi-media designer (Sam) was integral in the creation of the tutorial.

The completed tutorial has 4 modules, and interactivity is slightly different in each one, depending on content of the module. Each module has the same set up–an intro blurb, a pre- and post- test (called quizzes), and, importantly, a small amount of text. Instead of text blocks, the tutorial uses lots of flash and popups. Cute analogy of Boolean terms as food choices–Boolean as ordering lunch. The tutorial stays away from using library jargon, skipping over the name Boolean but drawing the concept out for students. Hints are given for incorrect answers, instead of being told the correct answer–in this way, focus is kept on increasing skills rather than on correction.

Concerns with assessment: continued difficulty in capturing student results without a server–students need to print out their own results. No long term data was available due to this choice.

Usability study for the tutorial was conducted using 8 students. For the purpose of presenting the results, Cinthya had Institutional Review Board approval of the user testing. Afraid of researcher and tutorial bias, other people conducted the testing by observing users and asking them to talk through their thought process as they navigated the tutorial. Afterward, participants completed a post-assessment questionnaire to clarify the process. Results included the idea that more feedback is better–students desire immediate feedback, even on the pre-test. Their tendency was to focus on quiz scores as well as completing tasks. Students also did not notice they needed to scroll down to see the full page, so be aware of that when laying out tutorial slides or pages.

Assessment from the tutorial was used to change and refocus the in-person instruction given to classes during a library session; using the tutorial and gathering pre-test results could guide where more time should be spent in face to face instruction. Evaluation was the main area in her results.

The webcast matched ACRL’s description of the event. I am always hopeful that a webcast will be more like a workshop and the group can walk through a scenario of building a section of a tutorial together. I guess that is our job now.

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