CSU Instruction Wiki
Submitted by karenbradley on Mon, 2007-03-12 21:32.
I. Technology - Use wiki software in order to implement an interactive Instruction website that allows collaborative environment for faculty and students.
II. Services Provided - The Instruction Team "owns" a webpage withing the the Colorado State University Libraries website. A wiki will be beneficial for the Instruction Team in that librarians can post information for students to access and provide a collaborative infromation literate space for the students. The information on the wiki can be general information on services like the CO150 program, research guides, tutorials, and lesson plans.
III. Benefits - Benefits of an Instruction Wiki include the ability to post handouts, quickly create unique class outlines, and easily and immediately alter site content. Students and staff will have the ability to access this information anywhere. Plus, the wiki provides an opportunity to collaborate with campus faculty and a venue to implement LILAC (Leveraging Information Literacy Across the Curriculum). Library faculty would be able to collaborate with campus faculty and possibly have an opportunity for students to post a research project or other information literacy oriented project.
IV. Evidence
- Ohio University BizWiki - http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/bizwiki/. The BizWiki is the ultimate example of what a wiki can do. The BizWiki is an interactive site that is searchable and easy to navigate. Best feature: Research How-To’s.
- Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki - http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Reference_Services_and_Information_Literacy. This website has several useful links including a section on Reference Services and Information Literacy. Great examples for an Information Literacy wiki include an Information Literacy page, online tutorials link, and subject guides.
- Ohio University Second Life Learning Community Wiki - http://www.library.ohiou.edu/sllc/index.php/Main_Page. Demonstration of library collaboration. This would be a useful resource to look at for information literacy collaboration between library faculty and university faculty.
- St. Joseph County Public Library's SubjectGuides - http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page. An excellent example of easily located subject guides. For library instruction this would be a great platform for easy tips/hints, how to’s, and tutorials.
- McPherson, K. ([YEAR]). Wikis and Student Writing. Teacher Librarian, 34(2), 70-72. Retrieved Monday, March 12, 2007 from the Library Literature & Information Science database. Student group authoring is explored in this article as it relates to wikis. McPherson mentions co-authoring projects with pairs of students and larger groups and provides examples of writing projects. Co-authoring would be an interesting project for LILAC and the Instruction Wiki.
V. Potential Problems and Solutions
- Staff resistance/Buy in - Concern regarding usefulness of wiki and time invested in product. Solution: The wiki has the ability to measure how many times the wiki is viewed and which entries are more popular, thus justifying time spent.
- Faculty resistance – University faculty may not be interested in investing time and forming assignments in collaboriation with library faculty. The Instruction Team is working on LILAC and having an Instruction Wiki is another way to invest the university faculty in Information Literacy.
- Student resistance – Students may not be overly interested in a library wiki. Demonstrating the wiki during CO150 sessions will introduce the students to the Instruction Wiki. Because students rely upon Wikipedia for research, the Instruction Wiki will have a familiar interface and will introduce students to new tools while maintaining a comfortable feel.
VI. Software - Colorado State University Libraries uses MediaWiki for its staff intranet and also has a public wiki for university collaboration.
VII. Ongoing Maintenance/Policy Issues
- Who "owns" the wiki and will make changes?
- How much faculty time will be devoted to the wiki's upkeep?
- Who will be able to add/edit content? How will this content be maintained in the future?
- Will the wiki intigrate the same "look" of the rest of the library's webpages?
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Karen - great ideas in your
Karen - great ideas in your proposal as well as a lot of very important questions to consider and hopefully solve! As I think we can all see, wikis are one of the most useful and innovative tools we have learned about in this class - and an interactive instruction website where students and faculty could work and learn together and promote information literacy all at the same time and all in an easily updated format - things just couldn't get any better!
Renata Gibson, Public Services Librarian
Karen, An instructional wiki
Karen,
An instructional wiki at Colorado State University is the perfect social software tool to move students and professors in the right direction, Web2.0. They will benefit from this wealth of resources and see the potential of incorporating wikis in their own instruction. Your wiki examples are helpful. The wiki counter will provide useful statistics. Using Mediawiki which is already available on campus will help foster better faculty-librarian relationships as you begin to speak a similar language and encourage one another to build this rich resource. You are well on your way to creating an even more essential presence on campus!
Hi Karen, Interesting
Hi Karen,
Interesting questions you pose. I , too, wonder if students or faculty would feel much impetus to add/edit content. I think, though, that this is an excellent tool for opening up the conversation at any rate, and keeping library instruction relevant to the users. Too often I remember decontextualized library instruction sessions, like the seemingly ubiquitous Boolean tattooing lesson. What scholar would go to the university library to research 'tattooing?'
Karen, Do you think students
Karen,
Do you think students would not be interested in a library wiki just because it IS a library wiki and therefor not 'cool". I agree that they would have to be introduced to it. One of my colleagues sent out an email this week asking for comments to be posted on the AASL wiki. I mentioned that one reason not many people commented on the wiki could be that they simply don't know how. The formatting does not come naturally to me, either. BTW, thanks for the tutorial links. Anyway, great proposal.
Jini Errichetti
Ownership and who is
Ownership and who is responsible for adding and maintaining content are important questions that need to be resolved in this project. Otherwise your wiki may get quickly off the ground but the content may decade over time. One advantage to wikis is the fact that many people can share responsibility for creating and maintaining content. Make sure you get a good cadre of people participating and this will help keep content up to date.