DARTS4 - Research Support Conference (par excellence!)

(This is a very belated publishing of a post! Better late than never...)

One of the amazing trees in the churchyard at Dartington Hall

In June I was lucky enough to go to the ARLG SW DARTS4 Conference at the lovely Dartington Hall near Totnes. The program looked excellent and I came home with a head full of information and ideas. There wasn't a duff session and the whole spectrum of research support was covered. Whilst I'm not a Research Librarian, it is one of our key priorities and part of my role. Things I was hoping for before I went:

• How to support our researchers better - to understand their needs and find better ways to communicate with them
• To get up to speed with Open Access - I am probably half way up to speed but it's a complex and fast-changing area at the moment
• To get up to speed with Research Data management - I have a very basic knowledge as a starting point!
• To pick up some ideas of new things to do or new ways of doing old things

Quick overview of the sessions:

Sheila Corrall (University of Pittsburg) - "From Reading Rooms to Research Commons. Context is Critical."

Slides here and references.

This focussed on the relationship between libraries (as physical spaces) and researchers but the slides contain a whole conference worth of information on where we are with research support generally. There was some amazing US examples of research spaces which most of us could only look on with (budget) envy!

Jenni Crossley (UWE) - "Research Data Management - where are we now?"

Slides here

A useful overview of how the original research data enthusiasts from UWE's JISC project have fared since the initial event. We used clickers to survey the people in the room - it was reassuring to see that we weren't the only ones possibly at the less-engaged end of the spectrum. You can see the results in the slides - I am keen to try out the questions back at work and see how we benchmark as a starting position. 

Miggie Pickton (Northampton) - "Designing Practitioner Research for Impact"

Slides here

Slides 3-14 give a brilliant overview of the topic of Research Impact (generally) and then slides 15 onwards deal with (library) practitioner research. I felt re-enthused to try and find the time and support to do some.

Yvonne Budden (Warwick) - "Open Access at the coalface"

Slides here

I listened to this intently as we are busy revving up and promoting our institutional repository. Plenty of ideas for promotion and training and service development.

Katie Fraser and Nathan Rush (De Montford) "Communication with Research Students"

Slides here

Finding out what PhD students really do and how we can help them. Opened my eyes to the full research process involved (didn't work like that in my day...) and got me thinking where our interventions could be most effective.

Leigh Garrett (UCA) - "Stuff and Data: challenges for research data management in the visual arts"

Slides here

Is it impossible not to be interesting when talking about visual arts? Or are creative arts librarians particularly wonderful at doing talks? Probably a bit of both! We were all rapt at hearing about the kind of data generated by visual artists and had a go thinking about a pot and a chair and research processes and how you would record them.

Neil Jacobs (JISC) - "Open access: recalibrating the relationships"

Slides here

Neil gave an overview of the work JISC is currently looking at to try and simplify some of the complexities of the current open access situation. Take a look at his slide 12 to see how complex it is! His slide 3 also gave me a fleeting longing for smarties...

And there was more...we also submitted ideas / problems for discussion - these are recorded here - and the outcomes or possible solutions can be viewed here. Just talking to people informally gave a wealth of idea and also reassurance that we weren't the only place not managing to keep up with, well, everything. I reaffirmed that I am completely unable to live tweet anything but enjoyed having that back channel both before, during and after the event. 

Thinking about library inductions (Pt.1)

Here's the thing. We have at best about 45 minutes. That's 45 minutes to justify our existence with the people who matter the most. To persuade them that we're worth our wages (subsidised from their fees) for the value we can bring to their studies. To persuade them that it's in their interests to engage with us, to come back and talk to us. We need to get them interested in visiting our building and using its contents. The building may be at the centre of campus but our online spaces are completely off their information map, unless we can get them to remember to look for them. This assumes our online resources justify being looked for, can be easily found and easily used. They cost a whole lot more than our wages.

We don't have a lot to work with: a computer and a projector at the front of a big room, often full of computers they can hide behind or surf on. Then there are clickers they can vote with, voices they may or may not choose to use, phones and tablets they may prefer to focus on, friends both inside and outside the room who may distract them. If we're REALLY lucky we may have the real life* or virtual support of a tutor, telling them they need to listen to us. We have our enthusiasm, friendliness and knowledge. They may bring apathy, interest, confusion, enthusiasm, language barriers, disabilities both seen and unseen, immense talent, enormous real life problems we know nothing about...or indeed all of these in just one student. 

So that's the challenge. What the hell are we going to do about it?  

* This only happened to me once. It was the most enjoyable session I've ever taught.

Why don't students read more?

Photo Credit: umjanedoan via Compfight cc

Last year I did a round table session at our Swansea Academy of Learning & Teaching conference 2013. It was a bit scary but I gave it a go in the spirit of starting a debate and tackling a common problem, namely the generally perceived lack of enthusiasm that students have for wider reading.

The topic came about as part of work I was doing on our new reading list system - lots of places have tied this kind of launch into wider work on encouraging students to read more. This is something most academics feel is A Good Thing and surely most librarians would agree with them as without readers we are pretty much out of business.

I have a bibliography in a Google Doc dating from the research I did back then (helped immensely by my colleague Susan Glen @lbglens) and below is the deck of slides I put together. It wasn't designed to be a presentation - as it says on one of the slides, I printed them off back to back so you had the perceived reason for lack of reading on one side (with a few provocative quotes) and some potential solutions on the other. Then in the session people could just pick up what interested them and discuss it. I think this would have worked better if the round table hadn't had a big hole in the middle! I'd kind of imagined that they would get circulated more easily but it wasn't a disaster. Drawing from all the literature I'd read, I was able to identify the following key issues :

• Assumptions about students' reading ability 
• Lack of time
• Students not understanding what reading is expected of them
• Boredom
• Students perceive a poor "return on investment"
• Subject differences 
• Language
• Digital Lives

The aim was to have some that would be expected (lack of time, boredom) and some that weren't (reading ability).

On the day my table was swamped! Lots of people had lots to say about this subject and it was great to see real interest in some of the suggestions proposed. I put post-its on the table for feedback and got some great comments, ranging from requests for more info to candid honesty ("I’m not sure I read as much as I should do so how do students differ?").

Not sure why it's taken me this long to get round to blogging it (prompted by the announcement of the 2014 conference!) but - belatedly - here it is:

Is the students’ lack of enthusiasm for reading a fact of life or can we do something about it? from Samantha Oakley

ModPo MOOC Avalanche!

So here I am again, a student on another MOOC - this time Coursera's "Modern American Poetry" (ModPo). First off, let me say that it is just brilliant. I was all for giving it a miss as I thought the timing was impossible (start of term) but I got completely hooked on the first week. I love the poetry, I love the discussions to watch, I love the whole world of meaning that is teased out of every line. Unfortunately real life term has indeed started with a vengeance meaning lots of teaching and weariness (not to mention family & kids etc.) and now by the end of Week 3 I am hanging on to my MOOC by the very slenderest thread.

Talking about this to my husband (who also did a MOOC a while back), we stalled on the question "who are MOOCs for?"

ModPo clearly states it is "fast paced" and that it requires 4-6 hours a week. Yet this week just gone there were 14 poems (by 4 authors) to study with at least one video discussion to watch of each (usually about 15-20 minutes) plus additional audio to listen to. There was also a wider discussion of Imagism and an additional painting discussion. You have 2 quizzes and this week there were 4 peer evaluations to complete on the work we did the week before as well as being required to participate in forum discussions. Who has the time to do all this to any kind of depth? Is it just people not working or full time students? Spending an hour per poem might be a reasonable average if you include learning the most basic facts about the poet and perhaps a few new technical terms per poem. The whole business of studying poetry - the joy of it - is the mulling and the re-reading. The way the course is run seems to prevent the kind of deeper enjoyment and reflection that should be the whole point. Never mind participation in the monster forums which buzz with ideas and conversation.

I don't really know who is the target audience when MOOCs get designed but I'd recommend a bit of flexibility and compassion - how about a reasonable-sized "core" each week with further reading and activities for those with the time? Also, keeping the focus of each week clear so you can immerse yourself in it fully, rather than trying to deal, in this case, with multiple new poets and ideas. Sure, I could just forget about completing ModPo and enjoy it at my own pace, but part of the beauty of the MOOC is feeling you're in step with all the others & meeting the deadlines. I also hate to be a quitter but this time I'm just going to have to get over that...

MOOC Week 7 - made it!

I'm glad to say I am not one of the droppers-off - I made it to the end of my MOOC. We had an extra assignment of critiquing a work of art but I did enjoy reading some of those posted. Unfortunately this was also the first week I really became aware of how nasty people can be in the forums. There was a real bullying mentality going on in one thread and it left me feeling like I wanted to run a mile from it all. If the numbers of students are too big for effective moderation, then I guess it's just a free for all. The majority were lovely, kind, friendly, supportive people but it's the nastiness I remember now. On the plus side, there is a tuition group now formed on Facebook which I'm going to try to keep up with.

There was a long interesting forum thread where students were posting their opinions of the MOOC. General themes seemed to be that it wasn't quite what people thought (suggested that they rewrite the blurb) but enjoyable. Recurring criticism of the videos too but generally thanks to the tutors and Penn State for putting the course on. I'm hoping there will be some kind of review by the tutors where they say how they thought it went. If there is, I'll  post a link. 

My MOOC days are over now for a while. It's been hugely illuminating and I feel 100% more informed on the MOOC world. I saw first hand where the librarians would have come in useful (e.g. developing copyright advice, additional resources, providing support) but little evidence that our expertise was included in development. I'm also going to be signing up for a face to face art class in September so I shall approach that in the spirit of comparison - not least because it will cost real money as well as time & effort!

MOOC Week 6

The final topic is Personal Collections displayed as artwork. I wasn't alone in struggling a bit with the topic and the artists involved. I found the readings and the videos a bit fatuous although I did enjoy discovering Joseph Cornell and that there was somebody called Ole Worm. A real down-side to the videos is their lack of images, one assumes for copyright reasons. This means that 4 minutes into a 10 minute video, I have had no example of the artist's work, just someone reading out a script to a photo of the artist. Then you get maybe three images of their work and some analysis of it but if you aren't familiar with the artist, that just doesn't make for helpful viewing. I imagine in a face-to-face art class, it would be image after image after image. Some students assume we are meant to be Googling as we go. I find myself turning to Pinterest to check out the artists.

Every week they tell us to "challenge ourselves" with the assignment. I'm still not sure I know what that means or how to do it. What would be useful is to have an artist explaining their work process and how they push themselves in this way. Still, I managed to do the assignment this week - albeit badly - and that should qualify me for the "studio track" completion, fingers crossed.

As the end approaches, there is a real sense of communities forming that may go on after the course: a G+ group and a Facebook group. Other courses have been suggested on art and poetry and I've signed up. My MOOC experience has been positive - definitely willing to give some more a go.

MOOC Week 5

This week was a clash of great topic on the MOOC and extreme lack of time. This week it was installation / environmental art including a great favourite of mine, Andy Goldsworthy. Lord knows, I've seen enough installation art - and enjoyed a fair bit of it - but what a great thing to have a better understanding of what it's all about and a deeper look at some of the key artists. 

On the down side, this was the week of continued illness, extreme business at work and all the usual kids & stuff. By Friday I hadn't even done the quiz let alone thought about the assignment and we had visitors arriving that night. So I managed to get through this week only by not attempting the practical assignment and by winging it on the quiz. I noticed that, as well as feeling I've missed an opportunity to try out the art, I feel left out. The forums are full of people posting their work and doing the peer reviews. It would have been fun. Determined to do better next week...