Beyond books and articles: designing digital capabilities for the future #RBE2019

More liveblogging (so, instant impressions) from the Research-Based Education conference at the University of Adelaide. Fiona Mariner (University of Adelaide, Digital Learning Coordinator in the library) talked about Beyond books and articles: designing digital capabilities for the future. They had taken a face to face course in the Faculty of Arts, and turned it into an online module. It was a colaborative effort with the library, the course coordinators and the Learning Enhancement and Innovation team.
It "started as a problem of numbers" with not enough librarian-hours available, but also there seemed to be opportunities when going online. The team wanted to do more in terms of developing digital capabilities, and an online module gave a more flexible format. The university has developed a digital capabilities model (based on JISC's work). The underpinning concepts were metaliteracy (as mentioned before at various times on this blog, developed by Jacobson and Mackey); transferable skills in terms of scaling up, or transfering from one context to another (important on the Arts foundation course that this was targeted at); learner-centred design.
The students themselves are diverse, since it includes mature students, distance and oncampus students, and students from different faculties. The team aimed at backwards design, and identified a variety of learning outcomes. Based on those, they developed an assessment sheet, which aimed to encourage scaffold students progress towards carrying out a research/essay assignment and also get them to reflect on their progress and activities. The learning material included videos, activities and supporting material.
The topics covered went from finding and discovering existing knowledge, through critically evaluating, referencing and presenting in different ways. Although there was positive feedback from academics, the online module did not get systematically integrated into the class.
They have got some feedback from a separate group of students. There was positive feedback on a number of aspects, but the team got useful feedback e.g. that the students didn't navigate in the way expected, and they wanted more activities. Next time, they will involve students in the process a lot earlier. They also want to offer more support and liaison with academics. They would like to work more closely e.g. with the writing centre. They also feel they may need to have two online modules: one to be integrated into class, and the other self-paced.
Photo by Sheila Webber: catching thr tram from Glenelg this morning (apologies, I wasn't in a good place to take photos during the session)