Two almost down...

I finished the quiz for the second tutorial today. I have to admit, it's been hanging me up for the past week. I have no idea why it was giving me such trouble. That completes module two, although I still have some narration to record. I'm about half done with it but wanted to wait until I didn't sound like a croaking frog to finish.

My voice is starting to return to normal, though, so I should be able to put the finishing touches on number two and get it online, hopefully this week.

Problems still continue to plague us in getting the live version running. It loads fine and works perfectly on the test server yet when they transistion it to the live server, it currently shows a "Page not found" error message. The web team had a suggestion on how to perhaps overcome this but it involves redoing some of the html pages and I haven't gotten a chance to do that yet. That will be my first priority once I have number two up and running. I'll also be able to take advantage of their suggestions when I create the web pages for the second one, which will allow us to see if that fix works.

To prepare for module 3, which is on using Gale Virtual Reference Library, I have printed off their help and welcome screens to study. Then I'll highlight the most important features and tips, create an outline of what I want to make sure to include, and start the ball rolling on that one. I can't believe how fast time is going by.

Trials and tribulations

My former boss let me know that there were problems with viewing the tutorial now that it's live. When it first went live, I checked it and it loaded properly. Now, however, it launches a new page and the tutorial doesn't load or play. Our distance learning librarian has been tinkering with the code, trying to embed the tutorial into one of our webpages so I'm assuming that is the cause of the difficulty.

I have emailed him so that he's aware of the issue and can hopefully get it resolved and the tutorial loading and playing like it should be. These are the kinds of problems that I didn't think about and anticipate. Very frustrating.

Live!

The first tutorial is now live on the library web site! There's been no promo on it or anything yet, but it's there. The Research Tutorials link on the nav bar has now been changed to go to the new tutorials page, which links to the first one.

I have the slides done for the second tutorial and am now working on creating the quiz questions. Then I still have the narration to do and the accessibility. Still, it's come along quite nicely, I think.

I've asked my chair for feedback on the first tutorial but haven't heard anything yet. Part of me wonders if that's a bad sign...No, I'm sure it's just that she's been busy. I was pleased with how it came out. It's always hard knowing, though, if what you have in your head, that you had planned, translates into what someone else is expecting.

We shall see...

Success!

I believe that I have all of the finishing touches on the first research tutorial! I basically had it finished a day or so ago and had both my husband and son (age 9) go through it to make sure that it made sense, that there were no glaring errors, and that the quiz at the end was appropriate (9-year-old passed it with 80% so I'm feeling pretty good about that!) I made some final tweaks to it today, including attempting to enable the quiz reporting. I currently have results set to be emailed to me but I'm not sure if that feature works until the published tutorial is actually "live" online. Or how quickly those emails are sent.

I have published the tutorial and viewed it, completing the quiz myself, and am waiting to see if I get the promised quiz results. It's not "live" online, though. The publishing is just a step that is taken to create all the necessary files to put online.

I have emailed Paul to see what is needed on his end in order to put this up for live testing on the library web page. We need to create a general tutorials page (I gave him the link I needed that one to be at), which will be linked from the library home page and the completion page of all of the research tutorials. So now I shall await word from him to see what he needs me to give him.

This also coincides with my completing all of the lessons in the Essentials of Adobe Captivate book. This book was invaluable in figuring things out and I'm sure I'll continue to refer to it time and again to refresh myself on how to do things. I'm going to look at my other Captivate book to see if it gives me any insight in having those quiz results emailed, as well.

I can't believe how wonderful it feels to have completed this first module! Hopefully, the others won't be disappointed!

Accessibility

I've been learning about accessiblity this week and how to make my Captivate tutorials Section 508 compliant. I have the tutorial part of the first tutorial essentially completed, although now I need to go back in and add close captioning, even though the audio pretty much matches the text that's on the screen anyway. Still, better safe than sorry. Next, I plan on jumping into the information on adding the quiz/assessment portions of the tutorial. It's shaping up nicely, if coming along slower than I had anticipated for this first one.

Exciting!

I'm so excited! I came up with a unifying "theme" for these tutorials: Info To Go. I wanted something that could go on each initial screen that would tie them together. I think that Info To Go sums up what these are all about: research help that's available when students need it. This will go on the first slide of every tutorial, along with the library logo, and a module title.

This gives an indication of what that initial screen will look like. As you may have noticed, I've altered the order I'll be creating tutorials in once again. I'm going to approach them like a research project and go through and create them in a logical sequence. Therefore, it makes sense that the general introduction to the research process (selecting your keywords, gaining a working knowledge of your topic with reference books, narrowing down, using books, periodicals, and the internet) should come first. A logical second tutorial, then, will be the one on Gale Virtual Reference Library, followed by the Boolean searching one third. I'm much happier with this sequence and approach.

I'm now working through the lesson on creating simulations, which have greater interactivity, rather than mere demonstrations. Suddenly, things are starting to fall into place!

Lesson learned

I can't believe how much more I know and how much more comfortable I am with Captivate after accomplishing just a handful of lessons. While it's possible to cobble something together, I truly believe the finished products will be much more sophisticated and user-friendly after having taken the time to do my research first and actually *learn* about the software rather than just jumping in willy nilly. This is a difficult thing for me to admit, because I'm impatient and typically want to just get on with things, hence my previous approach and unsatisfactory results.

I am thrilled to actually be *learning* the software before I create my first official tutorial. Lesson learned.

Books!

I was thrilled to find my new Adobe Captivate books waiting for me when we got back home this week. I am especially pleased with Essentials of Adobe Captivate 3, which is, in a sense, a student workbook. While we were travelling, I was trying to struggle through creating slides for the first tutorial but was not at all happy with the results. I have since scrapped that initial project and am working through the first, basic lessons in this book first. This is allowing me to get a much better feel for how Captivate works, all it's possibilities, and how to best lay out a project *before* one starts to attempt to record it.

The downside to this is that I had expected to have a completed project done by this time, ready for testing. Although I had completed the project, it was not satisfactory and I was in no way satisfied with it. Since the program itself isn't difficult to operate, I have high hopes that once I have this additional "learning curve" out of the way (I hadn't thought to see if there was anyway to set preferences and I had obviously recorded things at the wrong screen resolution and recording area, which then caused problems in trying to view things.) Obviously, it's best to begin at the beginning and actually get some education on the program before jumping in in order to get the best results, which is what I want.

It's the frustration I was feeling in trying to get things to turn out the way I wanted (and they weren't) that has led to the lack of updates on this blog recently. Things are moving forward nicely again now, albeit in not quite the way I'd anticipated at this juncture, so I'm looking forward to lots more positive updates!

Boolean searching outcomes

It's been a while since I've posted but that doesn't mean I haven't been working. It just means I haven't had a whole lot of reliable Internet access and I keep forgetting to update here.

I've been working on organizing information for the tutorial on Boolean searching. Naturally, the first step of this was to come up with some measurable objectives. I'm in a quandry on this one because I really feel like the ACRL outcome, I.1.e. "Identifies key concepts and terms that describe the information need" should be included, because students must have those key concepts and terms in order to do a successful Boolean search. However, it seems like focusing on the skills they need for that outcome/objective is really beyond the scope of this particular tutorial. I fear that adding that piece into this tutorial will make it too long. Perhaps there should be a short tutorial on identifying keywords and concepts for searching first.

The main objective/outcome for this tutorial will tie in to ACRL standard 2.2.d "Constructs a search strategy using appropriate commands for the information retrieval system selected (e.g. Boolean operators, truncation, and proximity for search engines, internal organizers such as indexes for books)".

Measurable objective for this tutorial: Upon completing this tutorial, students will be able to use Boolean operators (and, or, not) to refine a search.

Standards

I've been working on identifying standards to build measurable objectives around but haven't had access to Internet to post things. One of the joys of being on sabbatical is being able to do your work anywhere and the beauty of Yosemite National Parks makes a wonderful backdrop for reading in! Notes from the past couple of days follow.

Today I reviewed the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. I identified several general standards, performance indicators, and outcomes which may end up being useful to build outcomes for the tutorials around. The standards themselves, of which there are only five, are fairly broad. The performance indicators break these standards down into smaller chunks and the outcomes are the most useful.

There are several performance indicators and outcomes under standard one, “The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.” Performance indicator 1 (1.1) gets to the base of research, stating “The information literate student defines and articulates the need for information.” The specific outcomes for this indicator which will be useful are 1.1.d., “Defines or modifies the information need to achieve a manageable focus" and 1.1.e., "Identifies key concepts and terms that describe the information need". These are core since students must be able to do this to proceed with any research.

I've also identified the following performance indicators and outcomes under standard one:

• 1.2. "The information literate student identifies a variety of types and formats of potential sources for information."
• 1.2.c. "Identifies the value and differences of potential resources in a variety of formats (e.g. multimedia, database, website, data set, audio/visual, book.)

Standard Two states "The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently", which again is at the core of teaching successful research skills. Of particular value are the following performance indicators and outcomes under standard two:

• 2.2. "The information literate student constructs and implements effectively-designed search strategies."
• 2.2.b. "Identifies keywords, synonyms and related terms for the information needed."
• 2.2.c. "Selects controlled vocabulary specific to the discipline or information retrieval source."
• 2.2.d. "Constructs a search strategy using appropriate commands for the information retrieval system selected (e.g. Boolean operators, truncation, and proximity for search engines; internal organizers such as indexes for books."
• 2.2.e. "Implements the search strategy in various information retrievalsystems using different user interfaces and search engines, with different command languages, protocols, and search parameters."
• 2.3. "The information literate student retrieves information online or in person using a variety of methods."
• 2.3.b. "Uses various classification schemes and other systems (e.g. call number systems or indexes) to locate information resources within the library or to identify specific sitesfor physical exploration."
• 2.5. "The information literate student extracts, records, andmanages the information and its sources."
• 2.5.c. "Differentiates between the types of sources cited and understands the elements and correct syntax of a citation for a wide range of resources."

Standard Three states, "The information literate student evaluates information and itssources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system." The relevant points under this standard are as follows:

• 3.2. "The information literate student articulates and applies initial criteria for evaluating both the information and its sources."
• 3.2.a. "Examines and compares information from various sources in order to evaluate reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness, and point of view or bias."

I also read the following article, which I found rather disappointing. They dealt a lot with their methodology while I was hoping for a lot more on their conclusions and ideas for what to make sure to include in tutorials.

Lindsay, Elizabeth Blakesley, et al. "If You Build It, Will They Learn? Assessing Online Information Literacy." College & Research Libraries 67.5 (2006): 429-45.

Research begins

Amidst getting our air conditioning running again, I've been reviewing my sabbatical timeline and looking at beginnings. Turns out that one of the books I thought I'd ordered, I hadn't so I popped onto Amazon to order Essentials of Adobe Captivate 3. While there, I discovered that there is a brand new (as in July 2008) book, Adobe Captivate 3: The Definitive Guide, out so I ordered both books to be sent to me ASAP.

I also printed out a number of articles to review, on instructional design with regards to online tutorials. Also to be reviewed are the ACRL Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education, which are now printed out and ready for notes and highlighting. Obviously, I'm going to be doing a lot of reading over the next few days.

The Journey Begins

Leaving work yesterday felt a little strange, knowing I wouldn't be back for a while. It felt very final as I turned off my computer, pushed in my chair, shut off the light and closed the door. I purposely left without saying goodbye to anyone, merely enabling the Out of Office memo on my email and changing my voicemail message. I left a message on the whiteboard next to my office that said I was on sabbatical and would return July 1, 2009. Right now, that seems a very long ways away.

Today, I am in the midst of downloading Captivate onto my laptop computer. I had wanted to do this previously but Adobe was having issues and wouldn't allow any downloads without purchase until July 1, due to a glitch in the trial periods. In any case, I am now getting my laptop prepared so that I can do the bulk of my project on it.

One of the things I think is so fantastic about being on sabbatical is that you can work on your project wherever you may be. We'll be taking advantage of that flexibility and exploring a lot of national parks this summer, starting in a week or so. I figure I can get work done both while we're driving and once we stop each night. I'm a little paranoid about losing work done while on the road so I'll be backing things up on multiple drives, just in case.

Okay, it looks like Captivate finished downloading. Now to get it installed and working.

Anticipation

As July 1 gets closer, I find myself getting more and more excited about the possibilities of this sabbatical. I've been doing some work with Captivate, to try and familiarize myself with the software before the big day arrives. During the next year, I'll be creating tutorials for the following topics:

• And, Or, Not: Boolean Searching
• The Research Process
• The Basics of Database Searching
• Using Gale Virtual Reference Library
• Using the Mt. SAC Library Catalog
• Using Academic Search Premier
• Using JSTOR
• Using Issues & Controversies on File
• The Importance of Evaluating Internet Resources (why)
• 5 Keys to Evaluating Internet Resources (how)
• Using Proquest Psychology Journals