We used the Captivate ‘Doing a Literature Search’ RLO in a lecture room, with 2nd year Business students this week. Despite being eerily quiet (as there isn’t any sound with this RLO), the RLO was really well received., students’ confidence improved and students appeared to be receptive to the idea of an RLO.
Student comments were particularly enlightening: most (33 out of 58) found out how to ‘find and use information' through trial and error. Second was ‘friends’ and joint third ‘lecturers’ and ‘self-guided materials’. Only 5 replies mentioned ‘a course’ and 1 a ‘library tour’, and nobody mentioned their friendly librarian! This suggests to me that we still have a lot to do in reaching out to students and supporting them in ways and at a time that are meaningful to them. Hopefully providing quality RLOs will help in this area, alongside providing more embedded information skills sessions, in context and at the point of need.
