Webpages as Courseware

WEBPAGES AS COURSEWARE: BIBLIOGRAPHIC INSTRUCTION ON THE INTERNET

Ka-Neng Au & Roberta L. Tipton
Rutgers University Libraries

Abstract: In collaboration with members of the teaching faculty, we have developed webpages that serve three functions: teaching outlines for information literacy classes; handouts for students in a range of related courses; and access guides to print, online, and Internet resources for specific research needs.

These webpages, based on course syllabi, teaching notes, and traditional library pathfinders, were initially tailored for particular classroom presentations, assignments and term papers. The interlinked webpages now enable new sets of handouts to be developed with relative ease. At the same time, these webpages are available for research guidance anytime, from any computer with access to the Web.

This paper will describe our process and practice of bibliographic instruction using the Internet, as well as discuss the concept of designing courseware and teaching tools in a collaborative manner.

1. INTRODUCTION

The John Cotton Dana Library is located at the Rutgers University campus in Newark, New Jersey. Dana is the third largest Rutgers library and the Rutgers University Libraries unit with the most diverse subject areas under one roof, serving an ethnically diverse student population of about 9,200 in an urban setting.

As in many college and university libraries, the Reference Department at Dana is being asked to do more and more with fewer people and less time. We have always had one of the busiest reference desks at Rutgers, but technology is forcing us to take on ever more instructional duties as well.

Our reference room is also a networked computer lab. Although we have student computer lab assistants to help us with routine computer-related questions for many of the reference hours during the week, the reference librarians spend considerable amounts of time showing students how to use the campus-wide information system for searching bibliographic and periodical databases Rutgers subscribes to as well as the World Wide Web.

Students simply cannot survive in the library any longer without certain computer skills as well as research concepts that are fairly sophisticated. We have always augmented our reference interactions with printed library guides and bibliographic instruction classes. Each year, the Dana reference librarians usually teach between 140 and 150 classes in bibliographic instruction and information literacy, ranging from general introductions to the campus-wide information system to classes for Ph.D. seminar students in specialized areas.

2. INTEGRATING WITH THE BUSINESS PROGRAM

Bibliographic instruction has always been an important part of our service to the Graduate School of Management and the at Rutgers-Newark. MBA students doing assignments in marketing, entrepreneurship, business policy, and interfunctional business (a consultation course using real business clients) have been our primary audience because of the research needs of these courses. Finance and portfolio management courses have in recent years become more information-intensive as well.

There is also a sizeable enrollment (20% of the undergraduate body) in the School of Management (the upper-division undergraduate school) with students majoring in accounting, finance, management, and marketing. As a result, business-related inquiries account for about half of all transactions at the reference desk. The library collection also reflects this campus emphasis; about 25 percent of the materials budget is devoted to business-related disciplines.

3. ADVANTAGES OF GOING ON THE WEB

For years, we had dreamed of a way to build a presence on the campus network for our training and teaching materials. The hope was that we could streamline reference interactions for some students by having them teach themselves some basic concepts and computer commands. We also found ourselves spending much more time in classroom training than ever before, and hoping that some of this could be eliminated or augmented by self-instruction on the part of the students.

Another reason for placing a combination teaching outline and library guide on the web is the benefit for some students of reinforcement and review. If a student is new to library research in business, as so many are, reinforcement of the messages received during a single session of bibliographic instruction can save the student time and trouble during the actual research process. This readily-available reinforcement can also save the time of reference librarians at a busy desk. Any librarian can consult the teaching outline for the course and use it to coach the student through the process.

In the past, authoring software for computer-based training was so difficult and time-consuming to use that a working reference librarian with many daily responsibilities found it impossible to learn and apply. On the other hand, programming help was scarce and expensive for libraries to obtain. Even if the time and expertise could be found once, no guarantees existed that such programming could be changed in the future so that the materials could keep pace with the changes in the information environment in our libraries. Text alone could have been uploaded, but ASCII documents are colorless and non-interactive; one can do little with layout or typography to make the lessons appealing. In the DOS environment, the Dana librarians had used a program called Dan Bricklin's Demo II to capture screen shots and provide sample searches with all the color and design features of the originals. These Demo II samples, however, could not be uploaded to the campus network in a way that was accessible to every dial-in user.

With the advent of the World Wide Web, we finally had the vehicle we had always dreamed of -- a format that was visually appealing, interactive, and available to dial-in or networked users wherever they might be located.

4. INGREDIENTS OF THE WEB PAGES

4.1 Teaching outline/process documents

For years, both of the authors had developed teaching and presentation outlines for students and outside groups, pulling together both our state of knowledge at a certain time and a method of inquiry to match the audience. Although handing a group of library school students a long list of resources may be considered an acceptable didactic approach, that method simply does not work with other groups. Students, faculty, and colleagues wish to invest their time wisely, gaining the most useful information in the most straightforward manner. Therefore, method and context must be incorporated into any discussion of sources of information.

When we sat down to design the web pages, we already had these process documents as well as years of trial and error with students and other groups to draw upon.

4.2 Library Guides

Like our teaching outlines, the library guides prepared by the business reference librarians incorporated not only resources available in the Dana Library but also approaches for using those resources in the most efficient and effective manner. For example, the print guide to company information began with a series of standard directories by which a user could discover basic ownership and organizational data. The second section dealt with locating reports on public companies, presumably after the researcher had discovered whether the target company was public, private, or a subsidiary.

We had used these library guides over a period of years as handouts and reference aids, giving us some idea of what worked well and what did not.

4.3 Syllabi

Customized web pages gave us the opportunity to incorporate specific assignments given by specific professors into our teaching process in a way that was simply impractical in the paper universe. The amount of rewriting required each semester as the professor's needs changed would have been overwhelming.

The professor's syllabus and library assignment could now form the backbone of the librarian's classroom presentation outline and the reference guide because all were integrated into one set of webpages.

4.4 Web Sites

The hypertext format of a web page allows simple integration of print, campus network, and World Wide Web resources. Our web pages are structured into thematic modules that consist of several interlocking pages. Hypertext linking among relevant pages means that a single page may be updated without the need to update the entire module.

We are utilizing student interest in the Web in order to expose the students to many relevant resources and methods of research, including print and local databases. Some business faculty are as guilty of overselling the World Wide Web as an information resource as those in the rest of the business community.

5. FEEDBACK AND DISCUSSION WITH THE PROFESSOR

Having an integrated electronic document facilitates discussions with the professor about the content of both the librarian's classroom presentation and the professor's library assignments. Some business professors have a tendency to give library assignments that surpass not only the skills and research expertise of the students, but also the resources of the Dana Library. When the professor sees suggested resources to solve problems set for the student, the professor becomes aware of what is available as well as potential research problems the students might encounter.

More discussion with the professor in advance results in a class assignment with greater clarity for both the students and the reference librarians who must guide the puzzled and confused through the assignment. A side benefit is a more informed professor who has seen the assignment from another perspective.

6. LOOKING BACK ... AND LOOKING FORWARD

Our web pages in their current incarnation (URL=http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/guides/business) are not a substitute for classroom instruction. They supplement and complement classroom presentations as well as aid the reference process after the classroom presentation is over. Of course, much more could be added to a web page. Some instructors use web page forms for pretests and posttests, for posting class assignments, or even to take the place of some kinds of classroom or one-on-one teaching. As we experiment with web pages as part of our teaching program, perhaps we will discover other uses for our pages as well.

One hot issue appears to be which kinds of instruction can be done effectively via human-machine interaction and which kinds require human-human interaction to work. Students vary considerably in their self-motivation, self-discipline, reading skills, and computer skills. A self-motivated reader with good computer skills can learn from the machine. Another student may be unable to process ideas if they are presented in machine or even printed format. The web page simply gives us another way of communicating with both professors and students. So far, we have been pleased with the results.

Bibliography

Callaway, Erin. "The Learning Web." PC Week, 53-56, December 9, 1996.

Carey, Robert. "Survival of the Fittest." Successful Meetings, Vol. 45, No. 9, 32-37, August 1996.

Fraser, AlistairB. "The Web, a Classroom Sans Walls." Syllabus, Vol. 10, No. 4, 18, November/December 1996.

Hall, Brandon. "Ten Training Mistakes to Avoid." Training & Development, Vol. 50, No. 7, 55-56, July 1996.

Polyson, Susan, Salzberg, Steven, and Godwin-Jones, Robert. "A Practical Guide to Teaching with the World Wide Web." Syllabus, Vol. 10, No. 2, 12-16, September 1996.

Rubel, Chad. "Technocompetency' Becoming a Prerequisite for Many Students." Marketing News, Vol. 30, No. 17, August 12, 1996.

Wallach, Ruth, and McCann, Linda. "Weaving the Web into Course Integrated Instruction." (URL= http://www.library.ucsb.edu/untangle/wallach.html) Accessed 12/18/96.

Warnock, John. "Exploring Education's Digital Toolkit for the 21st Century." Syllabus, Vol. 10, No. 4, 14, 16, 37, November/December 1996.

Biographical information

Ka-Neng Au and Roberta Tipton are business librarians at the John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers-Newark. Both have spoken at conferences here and abroad, Au on information technology issues and Tipton on the information industry.

Au maintains several business-related Internet resource guides for the Rutgers University Libraries, and also serves as Systems Librarian for Dana. Au has a BA in Economics and Management from the University of Guelph, and an MLS from Rutgers University. (au@andromeda.rutgers.edu)

Tipton is also the Information Literacy Coordinator for Dana. Librarians at Dana present more than 140 information literacy classes each year, including both course-based instruction and Internet workshops. Tipton has an MLS and an MBA, both from Rutgers University. (tipton@andromeda.rutgers.edu)

http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/guides/business/nom97.htm