Choose your own library adventure

Here at the University of Birmingham, Ann-Marie James and myself, of the Academic Liaison and Collection Development department of Information Services, have bid successfully for a research grant from Eduserv to do a project on creation, use and impact of a suite of electronic reusable learning objects (RLOs) to help students with their information skills. For example, we've created a Turning Point interactive quiz on basic referencing.

We've got some academics on board who will pilot the RLOs in their lectures etc. in the autumn term and we're going to put on focus groups and have pre and post RLO questionnaires to find out how useful they are.

We've created quite a few of the fifteen RLOs (3 versions of 5 different type) and it's been a steep learning curve using some of the software.

There are Captivate demos, Turning Point interactive quizzes, choose your own adventure PowerPoints, digital recordings using Camtasia and Captivate and mp3 Podcasts using Camtasia and iTunes.

There is still a long to do list. I've just jotted down some ideas for the publicity material, to go into our divisional newsletter etc. , scripting the next digital recording and meeting with the project officer to check we're doing everything correctly. There will be updates as and when exciting things happen.

Here we are embracing technology! - Nancy on the left, Ann-Marie on the right.