Turnbow, Dominique

English

Eastern Michigan University: Digital Commons@EMU

Volume 42, Number 3 LOEX Quarterly  The Quarterly Interview: Dominique Turnbow    UC San Diego  -Edited Transcript- LOEX: Can you briefly define what instructional design is and how does this specifically relate to what instruction librarians do?  Turnbow: Instructional design (ID) is a systematic pro-cess by which instructional materials (online or in-print) are designed, built and delivered. There are many theories and approaches that guide instructional designers in their prac-tice (e.g., ADDIE and SAM), but a systematic process that includes detailed analysis, design, development, and evalua-tion guides all of them. While instruction librarians are ex-perts in teaching a variety of audiences how to use library resources, instructional designers are experts in how to cre-ate an effective and impactful learning experience. Most instructional designers are not experts in how to use a li-brary; however, some librarians have ID expertise through formal or informal education. As an instruction librarian who is also an instructional designer, I see my role as using evidence-based ID practices to inform how I design and deliver information literacy instruction.   You are the Instructional Design Coordinator at UCSD—what does this mean? Are there others in your unit?  My position is part of our library’s Learning Services (LSV) Program. Our program has two “arms” – the instruction arm and the ID arm. The instruction arm (led by our Instruction Coordinator) is responsible for coordinating information literacy instruction to our university’s undergraduate writing programs. The ID arm (which includes me and our Instruc-tional Technologies Librarian) provides ID support to all of our instruction librarians within and outside of the LSV Pro-gram, for example, our subject liaison librarians (which are in our Academic Liaisons Program). I think of myself most-ly as a consultant. I’m available to help my colleagues cre-ate or revise in-person workshops or online tutorials. Addi-tionally, a large part of my job is to manage our online pro-jects. I work closely with each subject liaison librarian and his/her departmental faculty to design, build, and deliver instruction related to information literacy concepts & skills. This includes assistance with writing learning outcomes to creating flipped classroom materials to building online tuto-rials that replace in person instruction all together.  How do instruction librarians initiate your services and what types of solutions do you discuss?  Usually, librarians will let us know they would like to work with us either by email or through an online instructional design request form. During my first meeting with the stake-holders (which typically includes the subject liaison librari-an and faculty), I determine the scope of the project and learning goal. Many people think that ID equals online, but that isn’t the case. When I get a new project, I don’t start with the assumption that an online solution is the goal. In fact, I’ve had projects where stakeholders have wanted us to build an online tutorial and I’ve told them that I didn’t think it was possible to achieve their learning goals with online delivery. We discussed why and in the end, we either decid-ed not to address the goals that wouldn’t work online or we modified them to reflect what we could deliver online. Once the learning goal is determined, I write learning outcomes and create the overall design, which includes the content architecture and building assessments and evaluation. If it is an online project, I turn it over to our Instructional Technol-ogies librarian, who builds and tests it.  We have worked on a variety of online projects, from sim-ple screencasts to larger tutorials that are embedded in courses or completely replace in-person instruction. I have also provided consultation services to librarians for a variety of requests, including developing a Learning Support Plan for our Data Management Program and revising in-person workshops to fit with a flipped classroom model.  Do you work with non-library faculty who are not already working with instruction librarians?  If so, how does that process work and, if not, is there an argument for starting that relationship?  Currently, we only work with faculty that collaborate with a subject liaison librarian to integrate information literacy into their course. This is because our mission is to support our librarians in their instruction efforts. When there is no li-brarian involved, our campus’ Teaching and Learning Com-mons provides instructional design services to faculty for their courses so it makes it easy for us to not worry about confusion over responsibility or mission and thus focus on projects specifically related to library instruction?  How do you assess your projects?  What are these assess-ments telling you?    At UCSD, we make a clear distinction between assessment and evaluation. We assess the degree to which students have achieved the learning outcomes articulated for the instruc-tional event and we evaluate how well the instruction worked from a student, faculty and librarian perspective. Assessment of student learning is challenging when we have little or no face-to-face interactions with our learners. Cur-rently, we assess whether or not students have achieved the learning outcomes for an online module by having them complete interactive exercises within the tutorial where they need to demonstrate the new skill we are teaching. For ex-ample, students would be asked to generate a list of key terms for a topic or match a topic to the database name/description they would use to search for it. After the tutorial (Interview...Continued on page 11) Page 12 LOEX Quarterly  Number 3 Page 11 is complete, students complete an online form that includes questions that uncover to what degree they are able to per-form the skills addressed in the tutorial.  We evaluate the effectiveness of our tutorials using a variety of methods, including a required survey at the end of the tu-torial and formal and informal feedback from stakeholders. The survey includes questions about how long the tutorial took to complete, the device used to complete the tutorial and what device that students want to be able to use. This data helps us to make future design and development decisions.  How well have you been received in your library and on your campus?  What is the buzz? Also, are there any "turf" concerns with either library or non-library units?  We’ve only had this model in place for a couple of years and I think it is going well. We always have new projects to work on so our colleagues seem to take us up on our offer to sup-port their instruction work. Since our work is focused on in-formation literacy instruction, we limit the opportunities to step on toes. We are extremely collaborative, which has helped us not have “turf” concerns. A key part of my job at the beginning of a project is to identify stakeholders – within and outside the library. I invite them to be a part of the plan-ning – and most take me up on it. For example, our plagia-rism tutorial impacted other campus units, including the Aca-demic Integrity Council and the Academic Integrity Office (AIO). We addressed this issue by including the Council in the tutorial design and the AIO in the feedback loop for the tutorial.  What are the first steps for implementing instructional de-sign initiatives in a library that may be new to this?  The first step is to figure out your institutional needs. I wouldn’t recommend throwing resources at instructional de-sign initiatives just because you think you should. If they don’t support the current or anticipated work of your library, then those resources are probably used better elsewhere.  If your institution is committed to providing effective IL in-struction to learners in a variety of formats, then ID is some-thing that you should seriously consider and you will need people with ID skills. Our model is successful because we have two full-time librarians (myself and our Instructional Technologies Librarian) dedicated to providing instructional design support. I realize that not every library can support a model like this, but our success illustrates that you need someone to be able to focus his or her expertise in this area. If you aren’t able to carve out a position that can take on the role of instructional designer exclusively (that means without liaison or other public service responsibilities), then look at the skills that already exist within your institution. Our LO-EX presentation went through a short list of job duties and skills that you would need for an instructional designer and (Interview...Continued from page 12) instructional technologist. You may already have people with those skills in your library. Capitalize on it and build an instructional design team that works closely together   What software, if any, is critical to instructional design?  This is really depends on what skills exist in your library. No matter what though, I recommend:   Project management software. We use Tom’s Planner because it is more robust than most free software, but not as complex and Microsoft Project, which is likely more than you need.  Online review software. You need something that al-lows you to collect comments from stakeholders, partic-ularly for online projects, that isn’t dependent on email and can be shared with everyone on your project team. We use Review My eLearning.   Online survey software (e.g., Google forms, Survey-Monkey, Qualtrics). We use these to capture that stu-dents complete a tutorial when it is a course assignment and the faculty are not using our campus LMS. We also use the forms to evaluate the tutorials. Depending on your needs, other ones to consider are:   Storyboard/wireframe software. There are many prod-ucts on the market for this. We use PowerPoint as it is readily available to us and all of our stakeholders.  Rapid elearning software (e.g., Articulate Storyline, Lectora, Captivate). If you are already familiar with PowerPoint and Photoshop, this software has a fairly low learning curve. You can create your online tutorial within the software and it outputs to HTML 5 and Flash. They are also SCORM compliant so they can be embedded in campus learning management systems. If you have someone with developer skills, consider ZebraZapps—it has a much higher learning curve, but offers more flexibility in building tutorials.   Stock photos and/or e-learning templates. If you don’t have someone with graphic design skills, you’ll likely need access to photos and templates that you can embed in your e-learning. We subscribe to eLearning Brothers because it provides access to stock photos, cut out peo-ple and templates to build interactions in your elearning.  What books have provided the backbone to your instruc-tional design philosophy?  Allen, M. W., Sites, R. H., & American Society for Training and Development. (2012). Leaving ADDIE for SAM: An agile model for developing the best learning experiences.  Clark, R. C. (2008). Developing technical training: A structured approach for developing classroom and computer-based instruc-tional materials.   Rossett, A., & Schafer, L. (2007). Job aids and performance support: Moving from knowledge in the classroom to knowledge everywhere. 

The Quarterly Interview: Dominique Turnbow

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The Quarterly Interview: Dominique Turnbow

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Eastern Michigan University: Digital Commons@EMU