A Self-Reflexive Essay...

One of my final assignments was to look at the work I've done on my tutorial and discuss the process. This has been one of the most incredibly projects and I learned so much...thought I would share my essay with everyone here...
Creating a tutorial to foster information literacy is a far more challenging task than one may think. After attempting to create a tutorial of available resources at John C. Lincoln Health Network, it is clear that incorporating all of the suggested characteristics of a good tutorial is an ambitious undertaking. Choosing a topic to cover, finding the perfect design for the resource, and finally creating and editing the tutorial have been thought-provoking and insightful.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this process was deciding on a topic. There are thousands of web-based tutorials available for users and attempting to find a topic that has not been done before seemed impossible. There were several options looked into before choosing to create a resource for John C. Lincoln (JCL) employees. One of the options was to create a resource for nurses; however, there are dozens of resources for nurses, many of which are incredibly well-done. The network-based tutorial was finally selected because a resource was not available for JCL employees. The current librarian has only utilized face-to-face training and usually in a one-on-one or small group environment. Additionally, upon employment with JCL, it was observed that few employees know of the thousands of electronic journals available and even fewer know that government resources are available. Furthermore, many resources are scattered throughout the JCL Network. Only one of the two hospitals has a staffed library and at one time the homepage for the two hospitals differed, one had library access, the other did not. In addition, the library catalog does not link to the electronic journals made available through the Arizona Health Information Network (AZHIN) consortia agreement. Not only does the JCL Network include the hospitals, many physician practices depend on the library for resources. However, they cannot access UpToDate or AZHIN resources due to the limited licensing agreements. Basically, creating a tutorial that describes the resources available to JCL employees, both local and government,was desperately needed.

The next challenge was determining how to design the resource. While most at the hospital would prefer face-to-face training or no training at all, finding a balance in design was important. The employees at JCL include experienced physicians and brand new nursing graduates. The information literacy among the employees varies greatly and the variety in learning levels had to be considered in the tutorial design. The textbook and the two articles required for Excersie #2 by Dewald and Somoza-Fernandez & Abadal articles were a great help in deciding the design and what should be incorporated. Also, the hospital's security and limits in technology had to be considered. Many hospital computers do not have audio capabilities, in fact, only one of the library computers has speakers. Additionally, most websites are blocked by the hospital's information technology (IT) department for a great number of reasons – some sensible, some not so sensible. PowerPoint was not the greatest option for this type of tutorial because it would limit the browsing capabilities sought after. Even Elluminate would not have beneficial because it would have created the same limitations as PowerPoint. Finally, a simple website was decided on so that navigation would not be limited to one set order and many different learning levels could be incorporated. For instance, not many physicians would be interested in CINAHL, but everyone would want to know about AZHIN or UpToDate. By creating a website, users can select which resource they want to look at and go directly there without having to worry about fast forwarding.

The creating and editing portion of the project have been the least painful aspects. Once the design was decided, it was simply a matter of creating the tutorial. While there were some difficulties along the way, such as how to create screen shots with a limited set of tools, overall, the final product has been a small success. The rough draft initially created, was exactly that: rough. However, it was a great starting point and feedback from both the instructor and a peer evaluator were helpful in deciding how to make the resource more of an information literacy tool than an instructional website. While the final product does not incorporate all of the aspects desired, it is a great starting point for creating additional JCL tutorials for employees at a later date.

This project has been a great learning tool. There are aspects of the final product that were straightforward, while other aspects still need to be changed. As employment in the library of John C. Lincoln continues, more resources will be created to add to this one. There are several desirable additions that were not technological available at this time. One simple addition would be a site map; however, it proved too difficult by the project due date. As a relation is developed with the IT department, it may be possible to add brief videos showing how-to start a search. Also, seeking permission to use UpToDate images will be continued since the corporation seems reluctant to allow screen shots. Eventually, learning about library resources will be a much larger part of new employee orientation and perhaps courses can be offered through the hospital's Net Learning program. This tutorial is simply the beginning of a much larger group of tutorials to help educate John C. Lincoln's employees on the resources available to them, both at home and while at work.

This project made it possible to try new things and see what could go wrong without having to go through the hospital's IT resources. However, now that this tutorial has been created, the confidence is there to seek out additional library web space through JCL and perhaps create a tutorial permanently linked to the hospital's homepage. The experience has been an incredible help in building the confidence necessary to ask for what is needed and to establish much needed access to the library's resources. If the employees are not aware of the resources, they will not use them and one day it might mean there is no John C. Lincoln librarian. This is just the beginning of a huge effort to create awareness and eventually make JCL a hospital network full of information literate employees.
 
References
Dewald, N. (1999). Transporting good library instruction practices into the web environment: an analysis of online tutorials. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 25(1), 26-32.


Grassian, E. & Kaplowitz, J. (2009). Information literacy instruction. New York: Neal Schuman Publishers, Inc.

Somoza-Fernandez, M. & Abadal, E. (2009). Analysis of web-based tutorials created by academic libraries. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35(2), 126-131.