Brianna Henshaw
The Library’s previous Blackboard Research Skills Tutorial has been re-created as an online, accessible Research Tutorial in a LibGuide format. The tutorial includes new activities and additional modules, and can be shared with a wider audience
AUTHORING TOOL(S) USED
H5P, LibGuides, ULTRA
WHY WAS THIS PROJECT NEEDED?
The previous Research Skills Tutorial in Blackboard had no significant updates since its creation in 2010. In 2022 Reference & Instruction Librarian Darcye Lovsin began adapting the tutorial to a new online format in response to accessibility issues.
HOW DOES THIS DEMONSTRATE INNOVATION?
The new tutorial focuses on an interactive learning style. Short activities are interspersed with content, and concepts are broken into short segments to avoid lengthy blocks of text. The tutorial is also hosted on a public website, which means any visitor to the library website can access the material and work their way through the modules. Instructors can easily add links to specific modules to their course as supplementary resources.
PROBLEMS OR CHALLENGES FACED?
As the tutorial was developed with accessibility and openness in mind, customizing the tutorial to individual courses requires a balance between instructor needs and serving the greater student body. Because the new tutorial is now seven (rather than five) modules, the module quizzes that existed in Blackboard 9 had to be changed and then re-built in ULTRA.
LESSONS LEARNED
The new format of the tutorial has made it easier for librarians to edit and update content, which was not previously possible in Blackboard 9 after the semester began. Using H5P gave us a new set of tools to create activities, although we had to get creative while turning H5P templates into relevant research activities (how do you turn a goal-setting template into a research toolkit?). While the tutorial is now complete, user testing this fall will help us determine how well the new format works for students and instructors.