bye bye bibliography
DESCRIPTION
Presented at LOEX Conference 2008Students love Wikipedia, but often don't understand wikis. In several sections of our for-credit IL courses at Wake Forest University, we have replaced the Annotated Bibliography with a wiki as the final project. We have found that this encourages collaboration among students, increases the engagement with the material and fosters a deeper understanding of the concepts of wikis and their place in the information landscape. This session will outline how we implemented wikis, how they worked, how they were received by students and what lessons we learned along the way.TRANSCRIPT
Bye Bye Bibliography
Changing how we think about for-credit information literacy
Rosalind TedfordInformation Literacy LibrarianWake Forest [email protected]
Wake Forest University & Z. Smith Reynolds Library
• Winston-Salem, NC• 4200 undergraduates• ZSR Library is main library for undergraduates and Arts and
Sciences graduate schools• 52 full-time staff members• 22 Librarians; 30 Support Staff
LIB100
• 1 Credit Hour elective LIB100 Course• Average 14 class sessions • Most are half-semester 2x a week • Began in Spring 2003 with 4 sections • Now 12 sections a semester taught by 23 librarians and staff
members (many in teams) • Adding LIB200 in the Fall for Social Sciences and Sciences • Extremely popular among our students
Development of LIB100 Curriculum
• Original syllabus developed for whole Ref. dept (plus some) to teach together
• Final Project (and 90% of final grade) was an annotated bibliography on a topic of their choosing
• Soon teams of instructors broke away to teach their own sections
• Most kept Annotated Bib but many changed the value it had in the overall grade
2004 - 2005 The Template Begins
• Formal Information Literacy position filled (ME!) • Built template based on how I taught the class• Still used the Annotated Bibliography as the final
project (40% of final grade) • Provided my syllabus, handouts, PPT presentations,
Agendas for each class to all instructors • Most adopted it pretty readily • Some adopted wholesale, others just pieces• Some teaching teams are more experimental
So Why Change?
• Not sure that writing an annotation is a desired learning outcome - is it a necessary skill?????
• Students didn't have to actually produce research - just find the sources for a hypothetical research paper
• Students didn't really 'get' good sources vs. 'bad' sources for their topics unless they were actually writing on it
• Distinct advantage for students who were actually writing a paper on their topic
• LOTS of grading time was spent on individual final projects
• Started looking into Wikis to solve some of these problems
So What is a Wiki?A "wiki" is a type of Web site that allows users to easily add, remove, or edit content. The idea is that this kind of "open editing" allows for easy interaction between users and/or groups and is effective in collaborative authoring.
In the industry, "wiki" is said to be "the simplest online database that could possibly work." It is a server software and its main advantages are ease-of-use, global access, and low cost. Like blogging, it allows anyone the ability to publish their writing directly on the Web, however, this kind of free expression comes with a caveat: DBEYR. The term wiki originates from the Hawaiian word for "quick."
Definition from NetLingo: http://www.netlingo.com
Incorporating Wikis into LIB100
• ZSR Wiki server (Mediawiki) Fall of 2006 • ZSR Web Librarian was beginning to use WIKIs for
some Library Web Pages (student handbooks, etc.) • One LIB100 instruction team decided to use them for
final project in the Spring 2007 semester. • Used group topics (information issues) and had each
group submit assignments and final project in Wiki format.
• I adopted it for my classes in Spring 2007 as well. • Required students to actually write a report for the final
project (and some classes do class presentations, too)• Our Wiki Setup
Benefits of Wiki model for LIB100
• Collaborative• Allowed an easier transition to group projects• Versioning lets you see who edited what when • All online - no need for MS Word, etc.• Group assignments and final projects reduce the
grading • Can use the format to show students the nature
of Wikis and to encourage discussion of Wikipedia
Drawbacks of Wikis
• Some setup required for instructors• Some learning curve for wiki editing formatting• Adds another place for course content • Some students had technology problems • Some students not a fan of group projects (but
that's not the wiki's fault)
Innovative Use of Wikis
• One of our teams (the first to use Wikis) took their class into Facebook for Spring 2008
• Used the Mediawiki application for Facebook to have all student work done from within the Facebook interface
• Mediawiki not as powerful in the Facebook app
Another Option: Google Docs• http://docs.google.com• 100% web based word processor, spreadsheet
application and presentation software • Access can be controlled to any document• Documents are shared to email addresses• Versioning automatic (saves every 5 seconds or on
demand) • Commenting is easy • Easily published to the web with a permanent URL or
can remain unpublished (default) • Can be used as a communication device, too (emails are
built in when a document is shared)
Google Docs in LIB100
• Fall 2008 another experimental team began using this for their final project
• Spring 2008 I adopted it for my 2 sections• Kept the group format and established template docs for
each team• Almost no learning curve• Formatting is very similar to MSWord (unlike the wiki) • Most students had Google accounts anyway • Our Google Docs implementation
Final Thoughts
• Annotated Bibliographies have their defenders and perhaps their place
• We did not get rid of the concept entirely• Is writing an annotation really a learning
outcome for you? • Creation of good research is becoming our goal • Group work has good and bad elements• Google Docs is the future of collaboration