The joys and perils of Ebooks, we thought it would be easier! - JIBS event

 Location
Chancellors Room, Hughes Parry H
November 26th 2013 10am- 4.15pm
http://www.jibs.ac.uk/workshops/ebooks/programme.htm

Event details 

Was designed to bring together colleagues in FE and HE, together with suppliers and other interested parties, to discuss just where ebooks are taking us in the 21st century institution.  Half the day was devoted to strands focused on FE or HE matters, which will allowed participants to share concerns and issues and network with colleagues from your sector. For me the day provided a really useful introduction to Patron Driven Acquisitions together with some excellent overview of the issues relating to purchase, delivery and promotion of eBooks.


Programme for the day:

Keynote Speaker: Caron Milloy, JISC Collections, will give an overview of the current marketplace, including the difficulties encountered within the FE sector: The ebooks marketplace: try and then try again!  http://www.slideshare.net/JIBSUK/caren-milloy-28993755 Caron's presentation provided a concise overview of the history of eBooks over the last 10 years and predictions for the future. It included research and projects.

Jill Taylor Roe, University of Newcastle: Trying to keep the customer satisfied – the role of PDA. http://www.slideshare.net/JIBSUK/jill-taylor-roe Jill presented on Newcastle's experience of implementing PDA. Including the rationale for introduction (student

Elaine Mulholland, St. Mary's University College, Belfast: “The Impact and Perceptions of e-books on Academic Staff in Further Education Colleges in Northern Ireland.”
Elaine gave an overview of how she promoted eBook use in Further Education.

Ken Chad: Ebook ‘consumption’ the challenges issues and opportunities. Outputs from the Jisc ‘Challenges of ebooks’ project http://www.slideshare.net/kenchad/ebook-consumption-jibs-nov213 Ken presented a range of infographics on eBook usage together with the outputs of the JISC project. He stated that the eBook landscape was challenging because of models and formats and that HE and FE may still not be be a position to exploit their full potential.

 Elizabeth McHugh: Purchasing challenges in HE http://www.slideshare.net/JIBSUK/elizabeth-mchugh Elizabeth's presentation stated that the main considerations were location, platform, user models and downloading. On top of this there are decisions with respect to whether to rent or buy and access.

Phil Gee: 'The Plymouth eBook Project' http://www.slideshare.net/JIBSUK/phil-gee This project used School funds for purchasing core texts for level 1 students in psychology. The model has attracted students to the University and is now being extended to other courses.

Lectures - engaging students a view from the other side

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ms_cwang/296148795/sizes/m/

Recently I was asked to give a lecture overview on literature searching to 120 students. Not my preferred method of delivery for this type of activity, hands-on being in a lab my preferred option, not a cavernous theatre, but it was part of one of those modules that students on a range of cohorts do and the staff had chosen the lecture approach because it was logistically easier.

I spent quite a bit of time preparing for this as it was in a subject that I was still getting familiar with. So I prepared my slides put them in Blackboard in preparation. I, also, included an example activity to encourage students to think about creating concepts and identifying keywords in their area of research, that they could use for searching for resources on our online databases, the area I chose was a crime scene. I was going to suggest that the students get themselves informally into small groups and choose an aspect of a crime scene e.g. evidence collection and identify keywords and concepts in relation to this.

In reality the lecture was a bit of a disaster "darling" right from the start. The microphone did not work in the lecture theatre, which meant I had to bark so that the top row could hear me. I introduced the activity but the students did not appear to be engaging, so I did a sweep of the room to see if the instructions had been clear, only to find that most had already started their research project and wanted to focus on their own area of research, rather than participate in an activity that focused on a hypothetical  unrelated area. There was, also, a mix of science students and social science students to add an additional complication. I quickly cut the activity short and decided to focus on developing search strategies and the online databases, when the technology froze completely and I had to abandon the lecture.The student rep happened to be in the audience and came up to me afterwards and said I think this session would have been better hands-on, I agreed and he said he would report this back to the module lead.

I was due to take a part 2 lecture the following week but instead of subjecting the students and myself to the same ordeal I decided to take a blended approach. I set-up a discussion board in Blackboard where students could post questions with respect to their research, I also provided my contact details if they wanted to speak to me directly. I made it clear that the discussion would be open for two weeks. In addition, I cancelled the lecture and replaced this with an optional drop-in session. I had covered all bases and the lecturer appeared happy with this.

So what was the resulting engagement by students? Well the answer is zero, I got a high attendance at the lecture but despite the students being present they were obviously not engaged as many had already started their work and appeared to want something that was specific to them. For the online discussion and the drop-in it was equally zero engagement, but I did not feel quite as frustrated as when the students were present because at least they had the flexibility to use the time how they wanted and hopefully that was doing some self-directed research - I had also had no to time to provide an induction into the discussion forum, so lack of confidence or familiarity may have an impact on engagement.

After spending 10 years developing staff in the arts of effective elearning this was quite a learning experience. It is very rare that I am in an situation where I have little control over events and I cannot turn things around, in fact I think this is the first time I have had to abandon a lecture or presentation. It, also, taught me that there should be more dialogue between those that teach on modules and the module lead with respect to delivering learning activities. For example, somebody had presented an overview of referencing early on in the module and after my sessions there was a large posting in Blackboard on Web of Science which does not even have the best range of resources for this subject, and if they had looked in my area in content they would have seen I had already provided an overview of all the online resources which they could have linked to...rrr!