Creating Tutorials for

the Web: a Designer’s

Challenge
Module 4: Checking for
Effectiveness
Learning Process – a quick
reminder!
 What do you want the student to be able to do?
- outcomes
 What does the student need to know?
- curriculum
 What is the learning activity?
- pedagogy
 How will the student demonstrate the learning activity?
- assessment
 How will you know the student has done this well?
- rubric
Why do Assessment?
 Necessary to add to the educational
experience
 Part of the learner centered approach
 Satisfies accountability
 Important for fulfilling goals of strategic plans
etc
 Can be relevant for accreditation in an
academic setting
Performance Assessment
 Requires the student to do something more
than just fill in a questionnaire or give
true/false answers
 Student performs a task and generates their
own response
 Task is usually a performance or extended
response that requires the application of
critical thinking skills
Rubrics
 Scoring guides which define criteria for
judging student performance
 allow for consistency in rating performance
 give students a set of expectations of what
will be assessed and standards that need to
be met
 Can help avoid bias
Sample Tutorial
Lesson & Outcomes
 Lesson:
- Teaching relevant subject searching
 Outcomes:
- Students will be able to apply subject searches in a
catalog that retrieve results with a high degree of relevance
to their chosen topic
- Students will be able to retrieve records in the catalog
doing a keyword search
- Students will be able to identify subject headings in
catalog records
- Students will be able to identify suitable headings
- Students will search catalog with LC subject headings
relating to their topic
Sample Tutorial
Curriculum
 Curriculum:
- Students need to know what types of information
catalog records contain
- Students need to understand what happens in a
catalog/database when the user executes a
search
- Students need to know where to locate LC
subject headings in a catalog record
- Students need to know the difference between a
keyword and LC subject search
- Students need to conduct subject searches of
their own
Sample Tutorial
Pedagogy
 Pedagogy:
- Working with a local area telephone directory the student is asked to find the
telephone numbers of the local movie theatre and a local area plumbing
company
- The student then repeats the process using the Yellow Pages
- The student is asked to comment on the differences in searching for the same
information in two different source arrangements
- Explain the differences by showing how the Yellow Pages “indexes” its entries
using specialized terms, “controlled vocabulary”
- Show a keyword search in the catalog using natural language, “Internet and
security”
- Examine a record from the list of items returned
- Highlight the LC subject headings and run another search on a selected
subject to find all other records in the catalog that share that same subject
heading
- Students will repeat this process starting with a keyword search on a topic of
their choice and execute a subject search based on their findings
- Students will maintain a log of their search terms, results, and process
Sample Tutorial
Assessment
 Assign each student a random topic
 Student will have to note three keywords for their topic (some
may be synonyms)
 Using their self selected keywords they will do a keyword search
in the catalog
 They will select records that will give them at least three subject
headings that area appropriate to their topic/keywords
 List subject headings that best match the original topics
Sample Tutorial
Rubric

Criteria Fully Basic No

Understands Understanding Understanding
Analyze topic Can derive at Can derive at Can derive only 1
and devise least 3 keywords least 2 keywords keyword from
keywords that match topic with moderate topic with tenuous
relevance to topic relevance to topic
Active catalog Can do keyword Can do keyword Can perform
searching and subject and subject keyword searches
searching to find search to find but unable to
records relevant records of refine search with
to topic moderate subject headings
relevance to topic
Identification of Can find 2 Can find 1 subject Cannot use
controlled relevant subject heading keywords to find
vocabulary headings relevant subject
headings
Retrieving Can retrieve 2 or Can find 1 or Can find 1 or no
relevant records more records with more records with records with even
direct relevance moderate slight relevance to
to topic relevance to topic topic
Taking it Online
 Existing tutorials can be adapted for the Web
 Activities such as in the Sample Tutorial can be
refined
- the telephone directory activity could consist of
scanned pages from the directories to illustrate the
points being made
- students could be required to do this activity
themselves and report their findings via a Web form
in the tutorial - eg: matching a given set of criteria
with check boxes etc
Taking it Online
 In an online tutorial students could be asked
to submit their sample searches and research
log via e-mail
 The assessment activity can be conducted by
presenting the student with a list of possible
topics
 The results of the assessment can be
submitted via a Web based form
And Finally…
 Many of the suggestions for putting the Sample
Tutorial online involve a degree of involvement from
the librarian - reviewing and commenting on Web
form submissions
 It is possible to design a self-contained tutorial
where the student is able to gauge their own
progress – cannot continue to the next level until the
previous skill has been mastered
 Have colleagues or a control group do the tutorial
before you release it to a larger audience
 Change is a constant