DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2007.00743.

Learning and teaching in action

Learning Publishing Ltd Blackwelland teaching in action Learning and teaching in action

In the last issue of this feature, Jean McNiff described how she used an action research framework to evaluate her own teaching practice and, in doing so, contribute to the knowledge base of learning and teaching. In this feature, Eilean Craig has continued this theme with a reective analysis of her work in developing online information literacy courses to support users of the National Health Service in Scotland (NHSScotland) eLibrary.1 In this article, the author begins her action research with a concern: the need to ensure the knowledge base of the eLibrary is fully exploited throughout NHSScotland. One of the proposed solutions is to develop the online courses in information literacy. In this article, the author describes how she and her colleagues at the Knowledge Services Group planned, designed and evaluated these courses from the starting point of an iterative model of the information literacy skills process. The success of this project is apparent from the growing number of registered users on the courses and the positive feedback received. Plans for future developments include widening access to training materials and supporting training in information literacy for patients, carers and members of the public. Margaret E. S. Forrest

Developing online information literacy courses for NHSScotland

Eilean Craig Knowledge Outreach Manager, NHS Education for Scotland Knowledge Services Group, Glasgow, UK Background The Knowledge Services Group (KSG) of National Health Service Education for Scotland (NES) outlined its strategy for the effective use of information and knowledge in everyday practice,

in the publication Exploiting the Power of Knowledge in NHSScotland.2 The document identied the need for co-operative working across teams, disciplines and geographical areas. Following on from this, From Knowing to Doing3 described several practical methods by which this would be achieved. One of these was the design and implementation of a suite of tailored online training courses intended to support, reinforce and maintain the information literacy skills of all staff throughout the organisation. There was a concern within the KSG that the resources provided through the e-Library were not being exploited to their full extent, as registrations with the e-Library had failed to reach expected levels. A study commissioned by the KSG and carried out by Robert Gordon University4 revealed a number of possible explanations for this, including a lack of awareness of available resources. In training sessions, some participants had stated that they found the e-Library difcult to navigate; others believed that available resources were intended only for health care professionals, and yet others were unable to identify resources relevant to their questions. Conclusions from the study suggested that the organisation of information resources on the e-Library needed to be improved and that NHS staff required additional support to develop their information searching and management skills. Several solutions were proposed and are currently being implemented. One is to group resources in ways which support information searching and retrieval, another is to continue the development of a series of portals, each dedicated to a particular eld of interest or audience group. One further proposition was the provision of online training which would support staff, patients, carers and members of the public in acquiring or maintaining their information retrieval and management skills. The nal recommendation resulted in a decision to produce and implement a suite of online training courses.

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Preparation Before beginning work, the projects initial task, to produce a clinically focussed information literacy skills course, seemed relatively straightforward. I was condent of my own knowledge of, and abilities in, information literacy as this had been a focus of my library training. My qualications as a workplace assessor and trainer, MyersBriggs5 Personality Type Indicator practitioner, and in computing science would, I believed, support the work involved. The library course had also included action learning and reective practice techniques and had required their application on two occasions, when unfamiliar software packages were supplied to students with the request to create a usable product. These assignments also demanded a reective practice report describing the experience of learning to use the packages, the methods used to create the product and comprehensive evaluations of the software used. However, as the detailed requirements for the courses began to emerge, they gradually became more complex. The brief included the directions that: courses should be self-directed and self-paced; participants should be able to pick up from where they left off; it should be possible to complete each module of a course in approximately 1015 minutes; completion of an entire course should require no more than 90 minutes to 2 hours; each course should be designed around one or two scenarios, relevant to the intended audience; Flash technology should not be used as there are areas of the NHSScotland network which are technically incapable of running such software. Literature review As part of the planning process, a literature review of information literacy resources was carried out. One of the reasons for this was to develop an accessible, working denition of the term information literacy, which would be meaningful to individuals beyond the information professions. A selection of the literature consulted in the review is included in the References section of this article.612 An additional step was to reconsider and revise my notes and texts from the MyersBriggs and

trainer courses. This prompted a further literature review, in the eld of phenomenography. Phenomenography is qualitative research which aims at description, analysis, and understanding of experiences; that is, research which is directed towards experiential description.13 Phenomenography1418 is concerned with the different ways in which individuals experience or think about the world around them. This has been applied in educational situations where researchers have studied learning from the point of view of the learner rather than from that of the course provider or conductor. Aware of several techniques which can be used to make training sessions and courses attractive to potential participants, and to address differing learning styles, the intention was to include in the courses as many facets of learning preferences as possible to facilitate learning and stimulate course participants. Having conducted the initial information survey and read and digested as many articles from around the world as possible, my attention turned to the differences between face-to-face and online training. I had experience of the former but not the latter and needed to nd as many tips as possible from those with more experience in the area.1926 An obvious rst reference was Jakob Nielsens website19 to update my knowledge about the usability of websites. Devising the shape of the course The information literacy (IL) sources were reviewed for common denitions or part denitions and information about the IL process. As a library student with Queensland University of Technology, I had learned information about literacy through 10 steps: 1 Recognising and acknowledging the need for information. 2 Dening the type of information required. 3 Formulating a question. 4 Identifying potential information sources (electronic, paper based, people). 5 Accessing information sources. 6 Implementing the search strategy with the identied sources. 7 Evaluating and ltering recovered information. 8 Synthesising retained information with existing body of knowledge.

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9 Sharing retained information/revised body of knowledge. 10 Applying revised and expanded body of knowledge.27 However, several sources identied only seven basic steps.10,12 These appear to have assumed the rst two of the 10-step process above and combined steps ve and six. Based on this nding, a seven-stage model of the IL process was devised and an image created which could be used to describe and promote the online courses and associated IL resources. The initial version of the image was unsatisfactory as its rectangular shape implied that a single journey through the steps was all that was required to become information literate and to have acquired information literacy skills. The image was redesigned as a circular process and this has evolved into the illustration shown in Fig. 1. The illustration is shown in its most basic form, omitting the iterative activity necessary at various points in the process. Following the literature review and the development of a new model of the IL process, a storyboard was produced to demonstrate the proposed organisation and outline content of the course. Microsoft PowerPoint software was used to do this, as it allows some animation which would support and display a little of the interactivity incorporated into the course. The course was to be

structured so that each module was dedicated to an individual step in the Information Literacy Skills (ILS) process. Testing the content The content for the rst module of the clinical course was developed and two groups were invited to test it. The groups were drawn from, and represented, the intended audience. During the test sessions, it very quickly became apparent that I had assumed a greater level of competence and comfort with the required technology and electronic tools than many of the participants had. A number had only point-and-click mouse skills, others had limited understanding of the functionality of Internet browsers, while others had little knowledge of basic windows functionality. This meant that the online course would have to be expanded to address these issues. Web searches were carried out to identify existing and accessible tutorials, and supportive online resources were found, which I felt would help build the condence of more hesitant and less experienced IL course participants. The course structure was then altered to include an additional introductory module encompassing mouse skills, an introduction to browsers and an introduction to the Internet. This has been met with approval by subsequent course participants. Implementation in the software At the same time as the storyboard was being produced and the content developed, an investigation of potential software packages for online presentation of the course was carried out. The software selected was Moodle,28 an open-source package. This package was chosen because it is free to download, it is widely used in educational environments in the UK and overseas and it had been developed to a point where it was relatively stable in IT terms. While the main advantage of the software is that it is available free of charge, the main disadvantage is that there was little in the way of support or documentation. A few investigative test sessions on the Moodle organisations server suggested that the package was more user-friendly than proved to be the case when the software was

Figure 1 NES Knowledge Services Information Literacy Skills Process Model

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Figure 2 Navigation aids

installed on the NES server. However, through trial and error and the use of the Moodle user forums, it was possible to customise the software to produce courses in the required format. I had assumed initially that anyone with a reasonable level of experience with computing packages would be able to use the programme to produce online training but this proved to be incorrectat the very least, Moodle-users would need a basic level of HTML knowledge and applicable skills. One difculty experienced with the implementation of the course is that the Moodle programme restricts access to certain resources to users registered with the site. Discovering how to allow access for all visitors to the courses took some time and a question logged with the user forum. The solution involved altering the programming behind the user interfacedifcult when none of the Knowledge Services Team has PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) programming skills. However, using our combined knowledge of other programming languages, we implemented an alteration which enabled the required functionality. Additional navigational facilities were incorporated as the programme provides back and forward movement only through links at the tops of pages. These are the hyperlinked Breadcrumbs trail and the Jump to menu shown in Fig. 2. While these are useful, it seemed more natural to have a means of

moving forward through the course, following the textual content of the page. To meet this intuitive need, a continue button, hyperlinked to the following page of the course, was inserted after the page content. It was intended that the quizzes and tutorials within the courses would provide feedback on participants answers to questions, whether these are correct or incorrect. For incorrect answers, hyperlinks to supportive resources were incorporated and these reinforce the point(s) made in the course. Throughout the course, hyperlinks direct participants to resources which expand on particular pointseach of these opening in a new, reducedsize browser window. The smaller window allows course participants to keep their current course browser window open and to close the additional resource window when they are nished with it. Piloting the course After testing with a reference group, the interactive online IL course for clinical staff was made available in pilot form in 2006, and participants were invited to submit comments, observations and suggested improvements, by way of clickable links, and many did so. Three changes made as a result of the information received were to alter some of the questions in the tutorials to avoid using free-text short answers.

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Unreliable feedback produced by the Moodle software had been confusing participants, informing them that they had made mistakes when in fact they had answered questions correctly. As there appeared to be no clear solution to the software problem (apparently a Moodle-related programming bug), free-text type questions were removed from the courses and replaced with multiplechoice questions. Second, changes were made to the font size on pages in the courses. The original font size was considered to be too large and it was felt that a smaller font would allow more of the content to appear on screen, with less need for scrolling. I had experienced difculties with page layout when using the programmes default settings, including sizing the margins around page content. Reducing the font size would have no detrimental effect on users as it is still possible to alter text-size using browser controls. Finally, the absence of dates on the certicates of completion was corrected by incorporating an automatically updating date eld. A second course, designed for administrative, clerical and support services staff, was launched recently, again with clickable links to enable the submission of comments and suggestions. The content of the course is focussed around the information interests of a hospital chef and of a clerical ofcer. To date, the feedback received for this course has been positive. There are currently 284 users registered with the ILS site who, according to the site logs, are actively pursuing the courses. Future developments It is expected that the information literacy courses will continue to evolve in response to the suggestions and observations made by users and as a result of further learning and reective practice on the part of the course developer. A further course for patients, carers and members of the public is planned for development later in the year. This will require the creation of new scenarios and alteration of the language used to describe information-related concepts, among other changes. It is intended that a reference group is established whose members are drawn from organisations supporting members of the target audience in their information searches, to guide the development of the course.

An Information Literacy Competency Framework for application throughout NHSScotland and linked to the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework29 is currently under development and is expected to be available by the middle of 2008. A further portal is being produced for inclusion in the e-Library website. The intention is that the IL Help and Training portal will incorporate links to downloadable training resources, to online training and support for information users and for those concerned with guiding others in their information literacy learning.

References
1 NHSScotland. eLibrary. Available from: http://www.elib.scot.nhs.uk (accessed 30 August 2007). 2 NES. Exploiting the Power of Knowledge in NHSScotland: A National Strategy. Glasgow: NHS Education for Scotland, 2004. 3 NES. From Knowing to Doing: Transforming Knowledge Into Practice in NHSScotland. Glasgow: NHS Education for Scotland, 2006. 4 Burnett, S., Webster, L. & Williams, D. Access to the Knowledge Base to Support Interdisciplinary Models of Healthcare Delivery. Aberdeen: Robert Gordon University, 2003. 5 Myers, I. B. with Myers, P. B. Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black Publishing, 1980. (The MyersBriggs Personality Type Indicator is an inventory designed to collect information about individual preferences which enables interpretation and prediction of a persons behaviour. It also has application in identifying learning styles.) 6 American. Library Association. Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. 2002. Available from: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/ standards.pdf (accessed 30 August 2007). 7 Big6 Associates. Information Literacy for the Information Age: What Is the Big6? 20012005. Available from: http://www.big6.com/ (accessed 30 August 2007). 8 Boon, S. UK Academics Conceptions of Information Literacy. Shefeld: University of Shefeld, 2004. Available from: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/literacy/project (accessed 30 August 2007). 9 Bundy, A. One essential direction: information literacy, information technology uency. Paper Presented at eLit 2003: Second International Conference on Information and IT Literacy, Glasgow Caledonian University, 1113 June 2003. Available from http://www.library.unisa.edu.au/ about/papers/abpapers.asp (accessed 30 August 2007). 10 Bruce, C. Seven Faces of Information Literacy in Higher Education. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology, 1997. Available from: http://sky.t.qut.edu.au/ ~bruce/init/faces/faces1.php (accessed 30 August 2007).

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11 Bruce, C. Seven faces of information literacy: towards inviting students into new experiences. Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates 2003 Annual Conference, 30 August 2003. Available from: http://crm.hct.ac.ae/ events/archive/2003/speakers/bruce.pdf (accessed 30 August 2007). 12 SCONUL. The Seven Pillars of Information Literacy. London: Society of College, National and University Libraries, 1999. Available from: http://www.sconul.ac.uk/ groups/information_literacy/papers/Seven_pillars2.pdf (accessed 30 August 2007). 13 Marton, F. Phenomenography: describing conceptions of the world around us. Instructional Science 1981, 10, 177200. 14 Booth, S. On phenomenography, learning and teaching. Higher Education Research and Development 1997, 16, 135 58. 15 Limberg, L. Phenomenography: a relational approach to research on information needs, seeking and use. New Review of Information Behaviour Research 2000, 1, 5167. 16 Lupton, M. The Learning Connection: Information Literacy and the Student Experience. Adelaide: Auslib Press, 2004. 17 Richardson, John, T. E. The concepts and methods of phenomenographic research. Review of Educational Research 1999, 69, 5382. 18 Webb, G. Deconstructing deep and surface: towards a critique of phenomenography for staff developers. Different approaches: theory and practice in higher education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996, Perth, Western Australia, 812 July 1996. Available from: http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/webb.html (accessed 30 August 2007). 19 Nielsen, J. Useit.Com: Jakob Nielsens Website. Available from: http://www.useit.com/ (accessed 30 August 2007). 20 Walker, C. The cutting edge of e-learninglessons learned. Information Specialists Group of the Australian Library and Information Association, 11th Information Online Conference and Exhibition in Sydney, January 2003. Available from: http://conferences.alia.org.au/online2003/ papers/walker.html (accessed 30 August 2007). 21 Brown, A. R. & Voltz, B. D. Elements of effective e-learning design. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 2005, 6. Available from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/ 300 (accessed 30 August 2007). 22 Clark, R. Six principles of effective e-learning: what works and why. Learning Solutions Emagazine, 2002. Available from: http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/2/091002DESH.pdf (accessed 30 August 2007). 23 Frydenberg. J. Quality standards in e-learning: a matrix of analysis. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 2002, 3. Available from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/ 300 (accessed 30 August 2007). 24 Horton, W. E-Learning by Design. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer, 2006. 25 Maxwell, I., Doherty, I. & Jones, N. eLearning: learning led and technology enabled. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on eLearning for Knowledge-Based Society, August 47, 2005, Bangkok, Thailand. International Journal of The Computer, the Internet and Management. Special issue. Available from: http://www.elearningap.com/eLAP2005/Proceeding/ PP19.pdf (accessed 30 August 2007). 26 Motschnig-Pitrik, R. & Derntl, M. Student-Centered eLearning (SCeL): Concept and Application in a Students Project on Supporting Learning, 2002. Available from: http://www.cs.univie.ac.at/upload/publications/ 00000.ICL-SCeL02.pdf (accessed 30 August 2007). 27 Queensland University of Technology. Lecture Notes: ITP328Information Sources. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology, 1997. 28 Moodle. Welcome to Moodle. Available from: http://moodle.org (accessed 30 August 2007). 29 Department of Health. The NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (NHS KSF) and the Development Review Process, NHS Agenda for Change Project Team. October 2004. Available from: http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/idcplg?IdcService =GET_FILE&dID=13159&Rendition=Web (accessed 30 August 2007).

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