The “LEARNing with LILI” LearnScope project gave librarians an opportunity to retool an existing Website. The site was LILI (LEARN Information Literacy Initiative), http://www.tafe.sa.edu.au/lili/ . “LEARN” is the name of the network of library staff working in SA TAFE. The network launched the site in mid-2002 and soon realised that the generic skills it presented could be customised for specific teaching programs.
Claire White and Stephen Barnett (Torrens Valley Institute of TAFE) and Ros Gill (Adelaide Institute) won LearnScope 2002 project funding. The project set out to:
- provide LEARN staff … with a range of training options to help them further develop the IT skills that will enable them to support information literacy delivery online
- provide the leadership and initiative skills to cater for online learners within the local environment …
- provide a model of a communication link to an online library environment …
- align and value-add our information literacy skills in online delivery with students’ access to the Student Hub http://www.tafestudents.com
Fourteen librarians participated – representing every TAFE Institute in South Australia plus Thebarton Senior College (Adelaide).
As LILI’s Project Officer, I was keen to have my colleagues select sections they found particularly useful and then refine those sections for specific student and lecturer cohorts. At the same time, I was a bit “wild” that I wouldn’t be able to help them take a project “to completion”.
Our first workshop featured a Q&A session with two of the online developers from CALS (Centre for Applied Learning Systems) – the group who transformed my 360+ page Word document into a Website. They generously recommended that all LILI customisations be submitted to them in the same format I’d used. Their considerable skill pool would then have minimum difficulty interpreting what we intended. Results: savings in their time and our money as well as an all ‘round, positive staff development experience!
As at July 2003, two products were completed:
This article describes the development of the Research Basics Tutorial.
Getting Started
Cheryl Walton (Murray Institute), Sandra Harman-Smith (Spencer Institute), Anne Veitch and Gaby Kuhlmann (Thebarton Senior), and I (Regency Institute) formed a team. A few minutes’ conversation revealed that each of us taught in the Women’s Education Certificate program on our campuses.
I don’t remember any difficulty in deciding the focus of our customisation: “getting started in research” was our working title.
At that first workshop, I distributed a sample “before-and-after” Webpage. One side of an A4 contained a draft page in Word document format; on the reverse was a screen dump of that same page after it had been coded and uploaded.
The Word document side contained:
- header – name of Website, module number, file name
- footer – footnotes with copyright attributions, text preferences, word bites to appear in pop-up boxes, hyperlinks
- body – text and graphics in desired locations.
My intention was that this Word document layout give LearnScope participants confidence to draw on their educational backgrounds. All of us had written major research papers. I explained that developing a Website and writing each of its component pages was a lot like doing a research paper. From the appearance of the Word document sample, they could see this was true. And there was a team from CALS declaring that a Web-writing novice – me! – had submitted work in the format they were going to use as the “standard” for all draft documentation from clients.
The fact that LILI had just become a finalist in the SA Training Initiative Awards 2002 also was a confidence-booster. (LILI went on to win.) Apparently, you didn’t need training in Webpage design or plotting in order to develop a quality site.
BUT you did need to know what you were talking about AND you needed to know how to convey that to the online developer.
Teamwork
Co-ordination
I became team co-ordinator, given my experience with LILI and CALS and given that our Research Basics Tutorial team members were located in an inner-metro, a suburban, and two country locations. This required that I:
- be the clearinghouse for e-mails and brainstorming sessions
- enforce deadlines for submitting drafts
- agree with as many ideas as possible
- finalise the tutorial’s generic version
- undertake all liaison with CALS.
Drafting
Drawing on our experience and on consultation with Women’s Education lecturers, we quickly sorted out the contents of our mini-Website:
- different types of research material
- core print materials
- use of keywords
- community contacts
- recommended Websites
- where to get help
- set of downloadable, helpful handouts (PDF files).
Individual members took responsibility for drafting each page/section, conforming to my sample Word document from LILI. Final versions were achieved through consensus. Result: a generic version which formed the basis for campus-specific customisations of the Tutorial.
Graphics
We received copyright clearance from Trevor Jones, a government secondary school teacher, to use some of his cartoons from LILI. The homepage was re-designed from LILI’s.
Online Development
A real bonus here! Terry Dean (the CALS staffer who made LILI a reality) decided to practice building a W3C-compliant site. W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) intends, in part, to make the Web accessible to all, regardless of their physical limitations. This was CALS’ first such attempt. Result: a “standard” plus an “alternative text” version. The latter can be interpreted by a JAWS reader (through a software speech synthesizer and computer sound card, information from the screen is read aloud).
Achievements
- Librarians working across Institutes and educational sectors created an e-Tutorial needed by the Women’s Education program
- That e-Tutorial has generated interest in further customisations for Community Services courses in two of our Institutes
- Team member Sandra is conducting a LILI customisation workshop for LEARNers, based on this Tutorial
- Terry is building an integrated, W3C-compliant Website for yet another Institute.
Susan Brunner
Librarian, Elizabeth Campus
Regency Institute of TAFE
