Optimising information literacy delivery to large classes: the contact or the online approach?

DCU Business School runs undergraduate programmes of varying sizes, from 40 to 200 students. Some modules cross disciplines and attract even higher numbers. One such module is HR118: Skills for success which in the last year has exceeded 200. Even this number is restrained by the optional nature of the module. Were it to be an obligatory module, the total would exceed 300. The Library has been providing embedded information literacy sessions to HR118 since its inception, providing face-to-face training on essential resources and research techniques, together with assessment. Generally the experience has been successful. There have been some problems, mainly organisational and logistical, but the Library and module co-ordinator have resolved these as they arise. However, the recent class size increase, and the possibility that the module may sometime become obligatory, forced the Library to devise an alternative strategy for 2008-09 – a hybrid approach which has enabled the Library to combine new technological options with traditional face-to-face engagement. There are many elements to the new programme, all designed to inform students on content, test the process and obtain feedback. This paper will assess the progress of Library input into the module. It will consider the key nature of relationships with academics, how organisation of the Library content element has been managed over time, and evaluate student response based on diverse evidence derived from online assessment, class feedback and survey. It will examine how developments to date feed into communication with faculty and into future improvements in information literacy development. Finally, the paper will address how Library input has advanced the delivery of information literacy to business undergraduates as a whole, and consider whether libraries should actually invest more in online delivery of information literacy or keep the focus on face-to-face delivery to groups

Video killed the 'PDF' star: taking information resource guides online

Easy-to-use technologies now allow librarians to create their own customised digital and video tutorials. This article takes a look at publisher-created video tutorials. It considers the pros and cons of libraries creating their own video-format guides, and elaborates on DCU Library's own experience in producing video-based tutorials on databases customised to local needs using Camtasia and Screentoaster

QuizPower: a mobile app with app inventor and XAMPP service integration

This paper details the development of a mobile app for the Android operating system using MIT App Inventor language and development platform. The app, Quiz Power, provides students a way to study course material in an engaging and effective manner. At its current stage the app is intended strictly for use in a mobile app with App Inventor course, although it provides the facility to be adapted for other courses by simply changing the web data store. Development occurred during the spring semester of 2013. Students in the course played a vital role in providing feedback on course material, which would be the basis for the structure of the quiz as well as the questions. The significance of the project is the integration of the MIT App Inventor service with a web service implemented and managed by the department

Plasma enhanced pulsed laser deposition: A study of laser produced and radio frequency plasmas, and deposited films

Plasma enhanced pulsed laser deposition (PE-PLD), is a novel thin film deposition technique, which utilises both laser produced and radio frequency (RF) plasmas, in order to deposit semiconducting, metal oxide thin films. In PE-PLD, a pure metal target is ablated within the environment of a RF inductively coupled plasma, which generates reactive oxygen species that react with the laser produced plasma, forming oxides that deposit onto a substrate. Metal oxides of interest within this work are copper oxides (CuO, Cu2O) and zinc oxide (ZnO), both of which are wide band-gap semiconductors, with applications in photovoltaics, electronic displays, batteries, and more. PE-PLD has shown promise in the deposition of metal oxides, with the RF plasma lending additional control over film growth, no need of substrate heating or film annealing, and the deposition of films on flexible plastic substrates. Characterisation of both the laser ablated and RF plasmas will be presented in this work; laser ablation of metal and metal oxide targets has been modelled using the code POLLUX, showing that the compound nature of the oxide targets results in volatile ablation under the conditions used in PE-PLD. Whereas metal targets ablate in a much more stable and controlled manner. Plus, gas temperature measurements of the RF plasma have been performed via complimentary diagnostic techniques, and the effect of pulsed operation on the gas temperature. Additionally simulations via the use of the code HPEM, have been used to characterise the importance of processes, such as heat transfer to reactor walls. Lastly, analysis of films deposited by PE-PLD has been performed, showing ZnO, Cu2O and CuO films of uniform density across their entire depth, as well high density planes of ZnO, on both SiO2 and Si substrates, and the successful deposition of Al2O3 films on steel substrates, and semiconducting films on polymer substrates