Teaching Internet research skills

New directions for the

Intute: Virtual Training Suite Emma Place, IntuteILRT, University of BristolLILAC Conference, April 2009

emma.place@bristol.ac.uk

• What’s new with VTS?

• Why we decided to change

• Sneak preview of the changes

• Discussion

You are the first to know ….

The Intute: Virtual Training Suite

is launching

30 new Internet tutorials

this July

New tutorial titles …

Arts and Humanities

• Archaeologist

• Historians

• Philosopher

• Religious Studies

• Modern Languages

• Photography

• Performing Arts

Health & Life Sciences• Agriculture• Microbiology• Health & Social Care• Medicine• Midwifery • Biodiversity• Nursing• Veterinary Medicine

Science & Engineering • Aeronautical

Engineering• Civil Engineering• Chemical

Engineering• ICT• Physics• Chemistry• Environment

Social Sciences

• Business & Management

• Economics

• Education

• Lawyers

• Psychology

• Social Work

• Government & Politics

• Social Research Methods

So what’s new?

We update the service in light of:

1. Internet developments

2. User feedback

Internet developments

Intute editors have been following:

Web 2.0 developments

• blogs, podcasts, videos, social networks

Academic Web trends

• Changes in online academic publishing, library services, eBooks, eJournals, eLearning objects, Google scholar etc.

User feedback

1. Internal review of the VTS

2. Intute user-surveys

3. External market research

Research questions

• Is there a proven need/demand for VTS?

• How do users want to see VTS develop?

Methods• Analysis of User-Feedback Forms: qualitative and quantitative

analysis of the c5,000 online feedback forms received from VTS users over the last 5 years

• Analysis of Web Statistics: focusing on statistics compiled during the year 1st Jan – 31st Dec 2007, but also making use of statistics from the previous 5 years.

• Locating Examples of Use of VTS in Higher Education: examining university and library websites that link to VTS and a sample of feedback data collected via email

• Online Survey of over 100 VTS Authors and Intute Staff: to gather internal views on the way forward for VTS

• Tutorial Technology Review: comparison of different technologies available for offering online training tutorials

• Literature Review: recent evidence in the academic literature about Internet research skills in higher education

Results

There is a growing recognition of the need to teach Internet research skills to university students:

• 100% of VTS survey respondents agreed• 66% of Intute user-survey respondents felt that

a national training service like VTS was needed• Literature review reveals that Internet research

skills are now increasingly mainstream for undergraduate degrees (eg. explosion of text books in this subject)

Is there a proven demand for VTS?

• Analysis of Web statistics reveal an upward trend in use of the service from 2 million page views in 2002 to 12 million for 2007

• Market research revealed that VTS is one of the most highly used parts of the Intute service as a whole

• Peaks in use match university terms dates, suggesting the service is being used by the target audience (and 67% of our online feedback forms come from university students)

Is there evidence of VTS being used in HE courses?• Online feedback forms from students

state that they were guided to the tutorial by their lecturer/course materials

• Referrral data from the Web stats revelas 1/3 of users are coming to VTS from .ac.uk websites, and access via search engines in low

• Backlinks reveal many library websites now link to VTS tutorials, as do some course materials

Which tutorials are most popular?

• Web stats enabled us to rank tutorials from most to least used.

• Market research suggests we should focus more on HE degree subjects – with limited resources focus on those subjects with the highest student populations

What do users like/dislike about VTS?

Feedback forms from students suggested they:

Like

• Collection of links

• Links basket

• Easy to use

• Clarity and simplicity

• quizzes

Dislike

• Length of the tutorials

• Reading lots of text on screen

• Technical problems

Feedback forms from staff:

• Revealed some strong views that Web 2.0 actually increases the imperative for teaching students to Internet research skills.

• That significant changes to VTS would be unpopular, now that it was built into websites/courses

• 70% of respondents to the online survey thought VTS would be missed if it were gone

What works well, what would they change?

Works well• Use of experts from

the community to update tutorials

• Tutorial approach / tone (“friendly expert”)

• Not just spoon-feeding links but teaching search and evaluation skills

Would change• More focus on

academic Internet resources

• Help students understand the process of academic research

• More on the difference between academic publishing and Web 2.0 user-generated content

• More community engagement

Change in approach

• Target audience is now students in higher education (not staff)

• Subject coverage VTS will not grow in size but tutorial titles will be based on most popular university courses

Changes to content

• Written for HE students• To help with coursework &

assignments• Focus on academic sources online• Includes Web 2.0 but in academic

context• Much more about libraries!

Changes in design

• Brand new web design

• Easier to read online

• Shorter

• More graphics

• No technical hitches!

Questions

• Would you use a VTS online community area?

• Would you like VTS to offer a place to share methods for teaching Internet research skills in HE?

• Would you be willing to share how you teach these skills / use VTS?