Assessing Learning 2.0 in an Academic Library

CARL Conference Presentation, April 2008  Susan Chesley Perry, Digital Initiatives Librarian  Kerry Scott, Collection Planning Librarian University of California, Santa Cruz

What is Library 2.0? Concepts: Constant change, permanent beta Feedback & user participation Be where the user is

The UCSC Learning 2.0 Program OR, “23 Things” Based on Helene Blowers' Learning 2.0 Program, first implemented at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. Blowers

The UCSC Learning Things Program The Vision: University Librarian Ginny Steel's Vision: Externally, strengthen the UCSC Library's relationship with the Santa Cruz Public Library Internally, inspire a culture of learning and encourage guilt-free play

UCSC’s 23 Things Program The team: Ann Hubble, Electronic Resources Librarian Ken Lyons, Reference Librarian Danielle Kane, Library Instruction Coordinator Sue Perry, Digital Initiatives Librarian Kerry Scott, Collection Planning Librarian

A Few of the 23 Things

The Incentive $50 gift certificate to the campus bookstore

The Timing Participants were given 13 weeks to complete the exercises 6 week extension Weekly drop-in sessions (Office hours with the team for help)

Participation Statistics In the summer of 2007, UCSC Library employed 27 full- time librarians and 73 staff. 21 librarians and 39 staff signed up and created a blog:

By the end of the program: More than half of the 60 participants had stopped blogging Most of those participants stopped before thing 5 (RSS feeds)

Final Numbers 30 people completed the program 8 librarians 22 staff

Feedback: What did you like? Positive whole library experience, everyone learned at the same time yet it was self-paced “I got to work with people I’ve never worked with before [in drop-in sessions]” Learned the 2.0 vocabulary, felt better informed in discussions with colleagues Google docs, Del.ici.ous, LibraryThing, mentioned specifically as "things" people liked most Full list of questions and responses available on the blog:

What didn’t you like? Spent too much time creating accounts Too many passwords to remember Discomfort with the public nature of the blogs and assignments The exercises took too long

Why didn’t you finish?  Lack of time  Technical requirements were too difficult, overwhelming  Too much time spent exploring, not enough blogging

What should the team have done differently? Reorder the things, start with easier things and move up to more complicated items (RSS and Flickr specifically) Present smaller sets of things at a time Make the drop-in sessions more like instruction sessions, more formal help with the things Immediate implementation of services after the program was done, when the momentum was high

Did you have enough time to finish? Suggestions: Give people a better sense of how long each thing would take to do or learn about. Announce extensions in advance.

How is UCSC using the “things” now? Wiki for research-intensive course Blogs as subject guides IM for internal communication (desk to desk, desk to supervisor) Google calendar for desk scheduling LibX Firefox extension Examples of 2.0 in practice at UCSC

Future Plans? Blog for student communication in circulation, reserves, and ILL Wiki for student manual Del.ici.ous for ready reference links? Instant Messaging reference assistance in the Information Commons

Lessons Learned Consider the order of the things (start with easier items) Consider the time needed to complete things & share estimates with participants

Fewer things/Learning styles Consider releasing the things in smaller chunks, to encourage completion (2 to 3 things over a select period of time) Consider learning styles and serve as many as you can

Expert(s)/Relevant/Feedback Establish the expertise of the team before you begin (point person/point blog) Make it (clearly) relevant (to the work of the participants) Give participants feedback, often (harder than you think)

Collaborate/Reward/Choose Make the program truly collaborative (group/team blogs) Offer an incentive to complete the program (it works) If technologies are similar, pick one and explain why you chose it over the other OR explain the key differences between the two

Drop-ins/Range of Options Provide workshops or drop-in sessions to help explain the things and their applications. Provide easy and more complex exercises and allow the participants to select which exercise they want to tackle

Technical note Make sure exercises open in a new tab or window so participants can toggle back and forth between explanation of thing and exercise

Stats/Expectations/Flexibility Put a statistics counter on your blog (Google Analytics) Set expectations for participants about what to include in their blog posts. Set guidelines for proper communication and blog style - i.e. no flaming. Be reasonably flexible with your deadline or cut-off date

Momentum Involve your IT staff throughout and beyond the program - be poised to implement Act immediately after the program ends - pick some easy/quick things and do them fast Consider keeping the program going, one new thing a month or a quarter/semester

Important URLs UCSC Learning 2.0 Blog Blog for Assessing the Program (this presentation) The slides for this presentation: brb_103qs8kctd9 Quick Start Guide is available on Google DocsGoogle Docs

Next Things? Twitter Doodle Jott Zotero/Endnote Web ZoteroEndnote Web

Conclusions

Questions?