Here are my responses to the first set of questions in Fink’s Guide.
Situational Factors
1. One of my goals is to help design online learning modules that can be used across the Harvard libraries. This poses a challenge in assessing the learning context, because the modules will ideally be used by undergraduate, graduate, and professional students across the various colleges and schools. For the sake of this class, however, I will focus on an introductory research skills module aimed at freshmen. The module would be available online, to be used as a supplement to face-to-face library instruction, for students who missed an in-person overview, or for students who want to refresh their memories. Faculty would also be encouraged to embed the module in their course sites.
2. In general, the expectations are that this module will help freshmen develop a basic understanding of the type of research they will be expected to do at Harvard. The other main expectation is that students will have at least a basic understanding of the resources available to them at the Harvard libraries, and will know how to start their research. These learning goals will be further developed in collaboration with Harvard research librarians.
3. This is definitely a practical, applied subject. One of the challenges we face is that Harvard has just launched a new online catalog interface, but the old interface is still active (and they do different things). The other main challenge is that there are over 70 libraries at Harvard, and there are multiple portals to accessing library resources. This means that it will be a challenge to decide what to include and what to exclude in an online learning module.
4. As freshmen, the target students are bright and motivated. However, they are likely to have had similar experiences as other freshmen in terms of their high school research experiences. They likely have not used many resources beyond Google, and may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of options they have available to them. I expect to be able to add more to this question as I spend more time talking to research librarians and their experiences.
5. In the context of online learning, assessing the characteristics of the teacher is an interesting question. For the particular module I have in mind, there will not be one “teacher,” per se. Rather, what I anticipate is that we will be revising existing materials and calling upon the expertise of multiple librarians in order to shape the design of this module. The module will most likely be designed to be delivered asynchronously, and it may feature the voices and/or faces of multiple librarians. But all of that could change depending on the actual design.
Just as an aside to Part 1, I think this list is extremely useful, but possibly somewhat limited in its focus on course-based instruction. I think perhaps this list presupposes a familiarity with the learning situation that somebody new to a particular institution or learning environment might not have. So actually a first step before the design process could be a data gathering process. These might be questions that need to be discussed with colleagues, for example.
I absolutely agree with your aside. Readings on instructional design are heavily weighted towards course-based instruction, where most librarians are limited to one-shot or standalone module development, as you are. Data gathering and conducting needs assessments are essential. Great post!
I think some kind of needs assessment could be useful for traditional faculty, too. Even with course-based instruction, student needs and background vary A LOT based on the institution, and I have frequently seen faculty new to an institution flail a bit as they discover that their new students are not like their old students. Even informal data gathering can help, I think.