User Education for the Internet:
Report and Recommendations
Prepared by The Association of College and Research Libraries
Bibliographic Instruction Section
Emerging Technologies in Instruction Committee
June 1994
Contributors:
- Stephen Hupp
- Daniel Lee
- Barbara MacAdam
- Keith Morgan
- Deborah Tenofsky
- Terry Taylor
Contact:
Barbara MacAdam (Committee Chair)
Head, Undergraduate Library
The University of Michigan 48109-1185
bmacadam@umich.edu
(313)763-5084
I. Background
In January 1993 as part of ACRL President Elect Tom Kirk's presidential
theme of networking and supported by a $4000 grant to ACRL from the
Coalition for Networked Information, the Emerging Technologies in
Instruction Committee of BIS was asked to undertake the following
project: To identify the most appropriate and effective means for
librarians to design and disseminate instruction materials for teaching
the academic and research community about information seeking
information sharing, and information evaluation in the networked
environment presented by the Internet. In June 1993 the Emerging
Technologies in Instruction Committee, on behalf of the
Bibliographic Instruction Section, began work on this project to foster
effective strategies for instructing users in the networked information
environment.
First Steps
In the first phase of this project, the committee solicited and received considerable input from academic librarians through listservs and BIS meetings on current
instructional activities and both current and future needs. Preliminary analysis of responses indicated three general areas of concern: Direct instructional support, connectivity and collaboration, and institutional support.
Expressed needs included the following:
- Knowing how other libraries have approached Internet instruction
- Identifying mechanisms for teaching large number of faculty and
students
- Identifying a variety of teaching modes for different levels of users
- Making current instructional materials available
- Incorporating critical thinking and evaluation approaches to teach
the Internet
- Documentation
- Models for teaching collaboration between librarians and
computing/systems staff
- Identifying resource people experienced in teaching the Internet
- Connectivity amongst groups connected with teaching the Internet,
whether within institutions,
within the library profession or across professional groups
- Ways to foster greater understanding and support from
administration
- Better training for staff
- Models for integrating the teaching function with the reference
function
In addition, the Coalition for Networked Information expressed specific
interest in finding ways to
explore use of the network itself to provide both instruction on the
actual use of the Internet and
other curriculum, and measurement and evaluation of Internet resources
and services.
Three Basic Themes
The Bibliographic Instruction Section proposed concentrating on three
areas to address the concerns of the professional community: Identifying
practical instruction methodologies which
could be used by librarians and the academic community; fostering
greater connectivity among
groups within ALA and with organizations such as CNI and EDUCOM in
instructional efforts; identifying models of instructional collaboration
within institutions between libraries and systems departments.
Action Plan
The Committee laid out an action plan concentrating activity in each of
these three areas and established several working subcommittees charged
with completing the task of soliciting and
assembling materials and drafting a set of preliminary
recommendations based on the material collected. The groups
included
- Instructional models - to gather syllabi, lesson plans, instructional
objectives and working models for Internet instruction
- Undergraduate credit courses - to identify actual courses designed
to teach the Internet being offered as part of an undergraduate
curriculum
- Intra-institutional partnerships - to identify models of
instructional collaboration being used within a variety of institutions to
bring together a variety of expertise to teach users in the
networked information environment
- Instructional materials - to identify materials and resources which
could be used in actual Internet instruction
- Internet-related groups - to assemble a list of groups engaged in
Internet instructional activities and summarize the specific activities in
which each was currently engaged
- Instructional "holes" - to identify unmet needs in current
instructional model
Activity To Date
Strategies for soliciting information, fostering a shared understanding
of the issues at hand, and increasing connectivity among organizations
included
- a discussion forum held by the Emerging Technologies Committee
at ALA Annual conference 1993 in New Orleans on "Instruction in the
Networked Environment"
- a discussion forum chaired by Tom Kirk (ACRL President) and
Barbara MacAdam (Chair, Emerging Technologies) at EDUCOM 1993 on the
role of networked information in undergraduate education
- a series of listserv announcements to solicit teaching models and
related information and materials
- contact with a variety of ALA and other organization groups to
identify relevant activities and information
Responses and Recommendations
Not surprisingly, the Committee received hundreds of responses to its
requests for information and material. The real challenge then was to
evaluate and synthesize this wealth of input into a set of meaningful
recommendations useful to librarians and other educators teaching in the
Internet environment. Several factors became apparent:
- Virtually everyone is engaged in some kind of instructional activity
related to the Internet
- There is a enormous amount of material being created and, even
leaving quality aside, most of the material is being reinvented at
institution after institution
- Similarly, discussion forums, conferences and workshops, both
national and regional proliferate, but much of this activity is duplicative
in effort and is not available at time of immediate need for practitioners
- Listservs from BI-L to Nettrain provide a wealth of information but
that information is
often fragmented and overwhelming to the novice instructor and
fragmented even to the experienced teacher
- People consistently indicated their basic need was to have
immediate access to good instructional materials, representing a variety
of institutional settings and instructional contexts, they could draw upon
in their own instructional efforts
RECOMMENDATION:
That BIS establish an ongoing mechanism to identify excellent
instructional programs and materials for teaching in the networked
environment and work within ALA/ACRL and with CNI to maintain a
suitable electronic resource of such information.
II. Instructional Models
Instructional Guides
The following are examples of instructional guides for teaching the
Internet that the subcommittee on instructional models considered to be
excellent representatives of the various guides assembled. While they by
no means represent the only good materials being used in the
learning community, they do serve as models representative of a
variety of institutional settings, but whose utility is by no means limited
to that setting. Consequently there is one from a small college library,
another from a library school course, one from a special library, one from
a major university, and finally one from the law library of a university.
Guide: "Access to the Internet"
Producer: Yolanda P. Jones, Reference Librarian
Institution: University of Miami Law Library
Used for: Internet training sessions for faculty/legal
researchers
Guide: "Introduction to the Internet"
Producers: Gary Gustafson, Rebecca Harner, Cynthia Childrey,
Kevin Ketchner
Institution: Northern Arizona University, Cline Library
Used for: Basic instruction for students/faculty
Guide: "Internet Tutorials"
Producer: Robert Burgin, Associate Professor
Institution: North Carolina Central University, School of Library and
Information Sciences
Used for: self-paced tutorials for library/information science
students
Guide: "The Internet"
Producer: Andrew W. Ragland, Office Systems Assistant
Institution: Meharry Medical College
Used for: introductory Internet instruction for Medical school
students
Guide: "A TRALINET Guide to the Internet"
Producer: Ed Burgess
Institution: TRADOC Library and Information Network
Used for: TRADOC action officers
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Solicit permission from the producers and mount on the Internet
either the ALA or CNI gopher or some alternative method ensuring ready
accessibility and ease of retrieval.
- Work with CNI to secure resources and establish ongoing support for
digitizing, scanning or other data storage as appropriate.
- Establish ongoing mechanism to identify, secure permission, and
make available on the network emerging instructional materials likely to
serve as models of good instruction
Undergraduate Courses
The following are two courses which serve as excellent prototypes for
semester-long credit courses designed to introduce undergraduates to the
Internet. Teaching not only the basic structure and use of the Internet,
they also attempt to establish conceptual frameworks and the critical
thinking necessary for study and learning in the networked information
environment:
Course: LIS 340 An Introduction to the Internet Resources and
Services
Instructor: Mary Lynn Rice-Lively, Librarian and Adjunct Faculty
Institution: University of Texas at Austin, General Libraries and
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Course: LIS 2937
Instructor: Andrew M. (Drew) Smith
Institution: University of South Florida, Division of Library and
Information Science
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Solicit permission from the instructors to mount and maintain
syllabi on the Internet
- Establish an ongoing mechanism to solicit syllabi for courses either
teaching the Internet or integrating the Internet as a significant
portion of other courses and make materials available on the
network
Instruction via the Network
The network itself represents enormous instructional potential. There
are already a number of "classics" in instruction including "The Internet
Cruise" and Rick Gates "Scavenger Hunt." The following is an excellent and
innovative program to teach Internet basics online.
Instructional program: Internet Basics Online
Instructor: Abbie Basile
Institution: State University of New York at Buffalo,
Oscar Silverman
Undergraduate Library
Designed for: Beginning Internet users, series of workshops conducted
via electronic mail
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Identify and mount a self-paced Internet instruction package on the
Internet.
- Establish an ongoing mechanism to identify, mount and update one
or more such self-paced instructional modules on the Net.
III. Cooperative Instructional Arrangements for Networked
Information
Part of the committee's duties was to determine the current level of
cooperative instruction conducted by academic librarians, campus
computer center staff, and faculty. Requests for such information posted
on BI-L, LIBREF, COLLIB-BL and NETTRAIN as well as Veronica and
literature searches on Library Literature and ERIC produced only a few
such collaborations. Further, the Coalition for Networked
Information's NETTRAIN archives, in particular the survey of INTERNET
training programs conducted by Christopher W. Cockrott, did not indicate
use of any type of cooperative instructional arrangement outside the
library. The following then are models of what appear to be true programs
in cooperative instruction:
Institution: Coastal Carolina University, Kimbel Library, Conway SC
29526
Contact: Margaret Fain, Library Instruction Coordinator
(803) 349-2402,
R201039@univscum.csd.scarolina.edu
Institution: Macalester College, St. Paul, MN 35105
Contact: Terri Fishel, Head of Reference
(612) 696-6343, fishel@macalstr.edu
Institution: Medical College of Ohio
Contact: Karen Torok
(419) 381-5446, torok@cutter.sco.edu
Institution: Columbia University
Contact:Joseph Brennan, User Services Consultant
brennan@columbia.edu
Dan Caldano, User Support Specialist
caldano@columbia.edu
Charles Greenberg, Media Services Librarian,
Health Sciences Library, greenber@columbia.edu
David Magier, Head, Area Studies
magier@columbia.edu
Cathy Thomas, User Services Librarian
thomas@columbia.edu
Inshtution: Kenyon College
Contact:Bill Quimbey, Manager of Library Automation
quimby@kenyon. edu
Institution: Augustana College
Contact: Jon Clauss, Math/Computer Science Department
maclauss@augustana.edu
A significant effort in identifying models for curriculum-integrated
instruction involving true collaborative teams of faculty, librarians and
other campus units is underway via the "New Learning Communities
Conference" sponsored by Association of Research Libraries, Coalition
for Networked Information, and Association of College and Research
Libraries, and EDUCOM. Designed to identify teams who are
collaborating on projects which strive to develop new learning
communities through the integration of networking and networked
information into undergraduate teaching and learning, the conference is
scheduled for Phoenix Arizona, July 31 and August 1, 1994.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
-
Establish a portion of the CNI or ALA gopher designated for
descriptions of collaborative/team efforts in instruction both on and
within the networked information environment.
- Develop and ongoing mechanism to solicit, evaluate and identify
significant models of such curricular and instruction cooperative
programs.
III. Instructional Materials
Books and materials on the Internet abound. Only a handful, however, are
specifically designed for use by instructors as texts or materials to
support, accompany, or provide Internet instruction.
Several titles emerged over and over again as the choice of librarians
and other professionals teaching in and about the Internet:
Books Specifically Designed for Use with Workshops
- Beyond the Walls: The World of Networked Information Instructional
Workshop Package. Syracuse University, 1991.
- Crossing the Internet Threshold: an instructional handbook - Roy
Tennant, John Ober, and Anne G. Lipow. Library Solutions Press, 1993.
(Additional volumes in series are planned)
(Additional resources are listed in Appendix A)
Note: This material is not included with the electronic version of the
report.
These materials are likely to continue to be commercially published and
at the same time perhaps too lengthy for networked access, nevertheless,
networked licensing possibilities should be explored.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Provide a list of core texts/teaching materials with a description
of appropriate instructional use on the ALA or CNl gopher
- Explore networking and licensing possibilities with special
authors and publishers to make model materials available via the
Network.
- Establish an ongoing mechanism to identify commercial materials
of instructional utility in Internet or Internet-related curricula.
IV. ALA and Other Organizations
Appendix B is a listing of organizational groups and their current
interest and efforts related to network information instruction
Note: This material is not available for the electronic version of this
report.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Provide a file on the ALA or CNI gopher for ALA committees and
other organizations/working groups to provide updated information and
contact people about their Internet-related instructional activities.
V. "Instructional Holes "
The single largest missing piece of the instructional picture is that of
assessment. While the committee did not make a concerted effort to
identify formal measurement of instructional effective in the networked
information environment, or any comparative measurement of the
current resources and services on the Internet, this is a critical area
for research.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Establish or designate a task force to identify research studies
related to instruction in the networked information environment.
- Explore mechanisms to foster such assessment.
HTML version of this report prepared by Keith Morgan, December 19,
1995.
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