Specialist Option

Online self-study academic skills resources: a development project

Guidelines

"As well as the core areas, candidates are required to demonstrate evidence of independent practice in one or more specialist options. This reflects the fact that, although there are common areas of work for learning technologists, practice is extremely diverse and everyone specialises in something different. Your specialist topic should reflect an area where you have particular expertise. This may be unique to you or common across your team, but goes beyond what would be expected of any learning technologist."

Online self-study academic skills resources: project introduction

Online self-study academic skills resources are intended for students to use to develop and support their information literacy, academic reading, academic writing and other study skills. They are stand-alone resources without any direct interaction with a tutor or other students, rather than being part of a supported online course. However, they are commonly embedded in subject module VLE sites. There are many formats of online resources, including screencasts and other videos, interactive tasks, quizzes, slideshows and more traditional text and image-based materials. Often, multiple formats are included in the same tutorial.

At the UoY, the Library Skills Guides offer a lot of self-study information literacy resources, but wider academic skills resources that fall under Learning Enhancement's (LE) remit (e.g., academic reading, writing, critical thinking and analysis) are much less developed. In my new role focusing on Online Support, I’ve been tasked with developing a new set of academic skills resources to better support on-campus and distance/online students.

In this section I discuss the preparatory stage of the wider project. I’ve learnt about best practices in online instructional design and conducted two initial mini-projects; creating study skills modules for online masters programmes, and online self-study resources to support the MSc Psychology in Education cohort. The next stage is to use the outcomes of this preparation to inform the wider project. The aim is to produce a comprehensive range of effective, engaging self-study academic skills resources that students actually use.

Good practice in online instructional design

On-demand self-study resources are very different to blended learning courses, or even fully online tutor-led courses. There is no interaction with a tutor or other students, meaning that there is a lot more burden on the student to find and use resources. The lack of personal contact also means greater consideration is needed to design activities that encourage effective skills development. The on-demand nature of resources also makes direct relevance to assignments a lot more important; if it's not relevant, why would anyone use it?

The principles that influence my practice as a whole are still relevant in this context (Bloom's Taxonomy, 1956; Chickering & Gamson's principles of effective teaching, 1987 etc., see Core Area 2a), but need to be extended with other principles and research findings specific to self-directed learning in an online environment. This principle- and evidence-led approach is necessary to create resources that are effective in a self-study context, rather than just online versions of classroom tasks.

Here I describe the additional principles and research findings that have influenced my practice in this project. Click each to show details.

ADDIE model

The ADDIE model (summarised in Drljača et al., 2017) seems to be commonly used in online instructional design, which I found is essentially the same approach I already take when developing courses; establish an educational need, develop a solution to this, then implement it and evaluate its impact. The key difference for on-demand content then seemed to be considering how to make sure content is engaging, supports the use of high level cognitive strategies and promotes effective skills development without contact with a tutor or other students.

Adult-centred design

Self-study resources require a high level of independence and self-direction from learners, so an andragogical approach may be more appropriate than a teacher-led pedagogical approach.

Knowles' andragogical model

The andragogical model (Knowles et al., 2005) is based on six principles:

The need to know: adults need to see the value in learning something - how does a resource relate to an assignment, or fill a gap between their existing skills and those needed for their course?
The learners’ self-concept: adults need to be (and be seen to be) self-directing, so give the opportunity to control the content, pace and style of learning.
The role of the learners’ experiences: adults can draw on a lot of varied experiences and have a greater focus on experiential, rather than transmitted learning.
Readiness to learn: the need to learn comes from real-life situations, and learners need the relevant skills to be able to cope with this.
Orientation to learning: adults are task or problem-orientated, so learning needs to be authentic with tasks aligned with life needs.
Motivation: adults are mostly intrinsically motivated.

Based on these principles, Halpern and Tucker (2015) also advise that students should be able to select content that fits their skill level without having to work through earlier resources.

In terms of applying this to creating online self-study academic skills resources, I’ve interpreted the key aspects of this model as:

Provide resources tailored to specific assignments or coursework, along with ‘helper’ resources that scaffold skills development towards assessments (make clear how these are relevant) [1, 4, 5].
Let students control the content, pace, difficulty level and style of learning, and apply their previous experience [2, 3].
Create resources that learners are motivated to use (see the section below for more detail) [6].

Principles of multimedia instruction

Mayer’s evidence-based principles of multimedia instruction (2008) are based on a cognitive learning model. To briefly summarise, multimedia learning utilises dual channel processing, with separate visual and auditory channels. Each channel can only process a limited amount of information at a time, depending on working memory capacity. Deep learning occurs when the information through these channels is selected, organised and integrated into prior knowledge.

Using this model, Mayer conducted numerous studies into effective multimedia instruction, leading to ten principles:

Reduce extraneous processing

Cognitive resources are limited, so don’t waste them on effort spent navigating design or unnecessary content.

Coherence principle: don’t include unnecessary content.
Signalling principle: highlight essential information to aid focus.
Redundancy principle: don’t waste resources on processing equivalent content. For example, present narration or on-screen text, but not both (of course, make optional subtitles available).
Spatial contiguity principle: present related words/pictures (e.g., image and caption) physically close to each other.
Temporal contiguity principle: present related words/pictures simultaneously, rather than sequentially.

Manage essential processing

If material is too complex, learners can become overwhelmed by high processing demands. Note that complexity here relates to the number of elements and how they relate to each other, rather than the difficulty of the content.

Segmenting principle: break down content into learner-paced segments (e.g., click to move on within narrated animation, multiple short screencasts instead of a longer one).
Pre-training principle: pre-teach key vocabulary and information.
Modality principle: leverage dual channel processing to avoid split attention and overloading visual or verbal working memory.

Facilitate deep learning

Multimedia principle: using both words and images means learners make more connections between multiple representations of the same concept.
Personalisation principle: use a conversational, rather than formal style. This creates more social involvement, increasing motivation to understand.

Martin and Martin (2015) also suggest that multimedia resources be kept short, as usage drop-off rates are high, and suggest that important content should be fronted early in a resource.

I’ve found these principles to be very useful when considering how to create effective online self-study resources, as a tutor isn’t available to offer guidance in case of processing overload or breakdown. The dual channel and limited processing concepts are particularly interesting, as this isn’t really taken into account in other learning models. I like that it’s shown as a limitation to manage in the extraneous processing principles, but also a tool that can be leveraged to facilitate effective learning in the multimedia principle. However, utilising dual channel processing does bring in some accessibility challenges, as it assumes users can process audio and visual information simultaneously - single channel alternatives should also be available.

Efficacy of different resource formats

Active learning is generally regarded as being essential to foster deeper learning and access higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (see Parramore, 2019 for a review of online active learning). In self-study resources, this is often built into tutorials through interactive tasks such as drag-and-drop activities or quizzes, or by adding quiz questions during videos. Some evidence suggests that interactive resources are more effective than passive text-based resources (Craig & Friehs, 2013; Stiwinter, 2013). However, this is not universal; passive tutorials (Anderson & Wilson, 2009) or text-based resources (Sachs et al., 2013) can be as effective as interactive resources, and for complex, technical tasks static text and image-based resources may be more effective (Mestre, 2012; Turner et al., 2015).

Comparing interactive tutorials to screencast or video-based resources, higher post-test scores have been found for tutorials over video-based resources (Stiwinter, 2013), but generally there is little or no difference in outcomes (Mery et al., 2014; Stonebraker et al., 2016; Zhang & Kozak, 2017) or student confidence (Lantz et al., 2017).

Students' opinions of different formats of online resources also varies greatly (see section below). This suggests that if different formats are similarly effective, it seems good practice to provide resources in a variety of formats.

Student preferences relating to online self-study resources

Use of online self-study resources is often low (Artemchik, 2016; Homol, 2018; Lo & Dale, 2009; Morris & Chikwa, 2014; Shaffer, 2011; Zielinski et al., 2018), so to encourage use, it's crucial to create materials that students find valuable and enjoy using.

What students like about online resources varies a lot. Interactive features such as drag-and-drop activities, quizzes or dynamic videos are generally highly rated (Anderson & Wilson, 2009; Artemchik, 2016; Clerehan et al., 2003; Craig & Friehs, 2013; Held & Gil-Trejo, 2016; Sachs et al., 2013; Shaffer, 2011), and the quality of learner-content interaction is the biggest predictor of student satisfaction on online courses (Alqurashi, 2018). In terms of the format of resources, some prefer screencasts or other video content (Lantz et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2015), some prefer interactive tutorials (Zhang & Kozak, 2017) and some like static text and image-based resources (Mestre, 2012). It’s worth noting that some students missed the personal interaction of face-to-face support (Gorman & Staley, 2018; Johnston, 2010). For online programmes (rather than online self-study resources), learners also want a mix of interactive tasks and webinars, not just written content (Harrison et al., 2018).

Useful content is highly valued (Clerehan et al., 2003; Dugartsyrenova, 2020; Morris & Chikwa, 2014; Turner et al., 2015; Zielinski et al., 2018). Adults need to see the value in learning something, be able to direct their own learning, and are task- or problem-oriented (Knowles et al., 2005). This suggests that for online resources to be useful, content should clearly relate to skills needed to complete module work and assignments. Students should be able to select content that fits their skill level without having to work progressively through content (Halpern & Tucker, 2015).

Student feedback also shows that clear navigation is important (Artemchik, 2016; Sachs et al., 2013), and confusing navigation can mean students miss aspects of a tutorial (Lantz et al., 2017). A very comprehensive range of resources available can be overwhelming (Dugartsyrenova, 2020), suggesting that it may be more effective to target key skills, rather than cover a broad range.

Mini-project 1: Online masters study skills modules

In the first mini-project I created self-study study skills modules for the UoY’s online masters programmes in management and computer science. These programmes have recently been launched, and run on a rolling basis with six intakes per year. The courses are delivered through the Canvas VLE.

These modules are part of the set of induction modules for each programme, which they (in theory) have access to before the first programme module begins. As such, one aim is to help students develop the basic study skills needed to start their course. However, it is hoped that students return to the module for guidance throughout the course.

There was a very basic existing module for the management programme, which had already had a few intakes when I came onboard. I expanded this module and created a new module for the new computer science programme. The two modules are broadly similar, with some programme-specific content. This was quite a ‘rough and ready’ project, to get something in place in time for the new programme - I’ll be returning to update the modules again fairly soon.

Organisation & presentation

To help students navigate content, the module is organised thematically. Within the broad themes, topics are organised to front key skills, and to scaffold skills development. This gives students control of the content (Knowles et al., 2005), but still offers guidance on a logical order to use resources. Individual pages for each topic (and sub-pages for large topics) segment the content into student-paced chunks, helping to manage essential processing. Within pages, key information is signalled through use of headings, icons and bold text (Mayer, 2008).

Resources: content

Content is largely focused on general study skills, such as time management, note-taking, and critical reading. This was based on the topics we usually teach in on-campus study skills support, but also took these particular students’ needs into account:

Good time management is a key success factor for distance learners (Au & Wong, 2018), and distance learners are likely to have other constraints (work, family etc.), so I included a large time management unit with content on planning a schedule to fit in studying around other commitments.
The computer science programme is a conversion degree, so many students have no prior knowledge of computer science or coding. To help students make the transition, I included content on programming study tips and a reading list of introductory resources.
Tutors from the management school shared some academic reading and writing materials that they use to support on-campus students. Online students will have similar needs in these areas, so I adapted these slides or handouts for asynchronous online resources and added independent practice tasks.

The current module content helps students develop general study skills, and provides scaffolding to help them reach a readiness to complete their course assignments. However, the indirect value of this may not be clear, so more assignment-specific resources may be more appropriate (Knowles et al., 2005). Feedback from module tutors also suggests that more assessment-specific support would be valuable, as students in both programmes often seem confused about task requirements, and many management students struggle with a lack of critical analysis, structure and use of sources in their assignments.

Resources: features

In terms of the features of resources, these promote effective skills development by:

including regular tasks to promote active learning, apply skills learnt and encourage use of higher cognitive processes such as evaluation and analysis (Bloom, 1956; Chickering & Gamson, 1987). These were a mixture of independent tasks (e.g., the evaluating sources task below) and interactive resources embedded from the Skills Guides.
providing answers to item-based tasks to give feedback on progress (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). The evaluating sources task below provides answers and explanations in a PDF.

using a conversational style, and trying to build some sort of dialogue by using “you” a lot and asking questions, rather than giving instructions. For example, “Can you give more detail?” instead of “Give more detail” (Mayer, 2008). This can be seen in the resources given as evidence below.
providing exemplars of completed tasks/activities (e.g., the weekly schedule example below) to provide guidance in the absence of a tutor.

Evaluating sources task

See in context in SO_Evaluating source information

Task where students much assess whether the sources provided are suitable for the given research topic

Weekly schedule example from Time management unit

Click to expand or see SO_Weekly schedule example

Weekly schedule_Google Calendar.pdf

A major weakness of the resources is the lack of interactivity or dynamic features. This is due to limited interactive features in Canvas, not being able to embed YouTube videos (because of possible geographical restrictions), and my lack of LT skills at the time to compensate for this.

This makes resources very text-heavy, which risks overloading the visual channel (Mayer, 2008). Additionally, as students generally want a lot of interactive content and some variety in formats (see above), this also risks being very boring!

Reflection on mini-project 1

For my first experience of designing self-study resources, I'm quite pleased at what was achieved in the short time available. Canvas analytics shows that the modules are being used, which is also positive. The median number of page views is higher than I expected; 104.5 for computer science and 71 for management, suggesting that students are using the study skills modules alongside programme content.

There is much to be improved, both for these specific modules and to inform the wider project:

More assessment-specific resources are needed. It's also important to scaffold skills development, but this could be provided in a more assessment-specific context rather than a general one.
More interactivity and dynamic content is needed, which means I need to develop my own LT practice and learn to use new tools.
Module usage drops off steeply after the first programme module showing that content with more long-term value is needed.
A big issue was the minimal contact with programme staff during development, and no feedback from students after deployment. Going forward, I feel a more embedded approach will be more positive, and allow creation of resources that better meet students' needs.

Evidence:

SO_Management module organisation (thematically arranged)
SO_Evaluating source information (signalling key information, tasks requiring higher order processes)
SO_Time management (distance learner-focused content)

SO_Weekly schedule example
SO_Programming study tips (anticipating needs of conversion students)
SO_Adapted management materials (adapting subject-specific seminar materials to online self-study content)
2b_Online masters usage data

Mini-project 2: online resources for MSc PiE

The second mini-project was developing online self-study resources to complement the face-to-face academic skills support I provide for the MSc Psychology in Education (MSc PiE, see Core Area 2b for details of how I've learnt about students' needs and used this to inform resource design).

Based on my experiences in Mini-project 1, my aims in this project were:

to improve my skills in developing interactive, engaging self-study resources.
to gather subjective feedback and usage data to inform future resource development, particularly to compare different resource formats and general skills / assessment specific resources.

Organisation & presentation

I set up a VLE site (Blackboard) to host the resources, as students already use the VLE heavily for their other modules. While a Google Site might have been more visually appealing, my experience with the hybrid VLE-Google system at the IPC (see Core Area 1a) showed that it’s simpler to stick with platforms that students are already familiar with. Feedback from students is that they like having resources in a central location on the VLE.

The overall organisation of the resources is very similar to that of the online masters study skills modules described above. There are three main themes; Reading for science, Effective science writing and Assessment-specific resources. This doesn’t include general skills such as time management, so resources are more clearly relevant to the demands of the course than the online study skills modules (Knowles et al., 2005).

Students feel clear navigation is important (Artemchik, 2016; Sachs et al., 2013), so these themes appear on an overview page and also are directly accessible in the navigation menu. Within each theme, resources are organised into clearly labelled topics such as ‘How to… Evaluate source suitability’ and ‘Advice on… Critiquing a research paper’, which helps students choose resources relevant to their immediate needs (Knowles et al., 2005).

Video tour of pilot project VLE site

Subtitles available. Click to expand or see SO_Pilot project VLE site tour (Panopto with captions)

SO_Academic skills VLE site tour (Panopto).mp4

Evidence:

Resources: content & format

The content of the self-study resources was informed by needs analysis and feedback/questions during face-to-face sessions (see Core Area 2b). Topics that students often asked about were the structure, content and format of assignments, critical analysis/argument, finding suitable sources, exam preparation and citing in APA style. Based on this, I created a mix of general skills resources to scaffold development and assignment-specific resources.

To cater to different preferences and also develop my skills in creating interactive or dynamic resources, I included resources in a variety of formats; interactive tutorials (Xerte), screencasts (Panopto), text-based materials (Google Docs/PDFs) and slides (Google Slides).

Click below to show a full list of resources.

Full resource list

SO, 2b or 3b at the start of the name shows that resource is presented as evidence in this portfolio. (A-S) shows an assessment-specific resource. Links are provided for resources accessible outside the UoY.

Interactive tutorials (Xerte)

SO_Advice on... Critiquing a research paper_(Xerte) (A-S)
SO_How to... Write in scientific style_(Xerte)
2b_Advice on... Writing a research report (A-S)
2b_How to... Cite correctly in APA style
4_How to… Read the results section (collaboration with research methods tutor)
Critical reading & note-taking
How to… Understand & use assessment criteria (A-S)

Screencasts (Panopto)

SO_How to... Build strong arguments_(Panopto)
SO_How to format a PGT assignment (Panopto)
3b_Using a paper to find other sources (Panoto with captions)
Cognition formative - choosing suitable sources (feedback) (A-S)
How to… Read the results section (worked example)

Text-based materials (Google Docs/PDF)

Slides

SO_How to... Build strong arguments_(Slides) (annotated slides with transcript)
2b_Writing in English
Slides: Literature research (what to read and where to find it)
Slides_Assessment Tips
Evidence-based argument

Introducing interactive & dynamic resources

A primary aim of this mini-project was to build on experiences from mini-project 1 by developing interactive and engaging resources. There are many benefits to this: interactivity encourages active learning and allows controlled practice of skills, promoting effective skills development. Students also like interactive features, so they can be a motivator for students to use the resources independently.

To introduce this, I used two new platforms; Xerte for interactive tutorials and Panopto for screencasts. I chose these platforms because:

both are supported by the Programme Development & Learning Technology team, so myself and students can access technical support if required.
students are already familiar with Panopto, as it’s used for the Lecture Capture system.
both can be easily embedded in the VLE or another site (but not Google Sites, it seems), or can be shared via a weblink.
students can control when to move on or review content.
both have good accessibility features.

Resources are embedded in the VLE site, so they can be used without moving away from the site, but links are also provided so the resources can be used in full-screen mode. If there is a text/slides alternative, that is also provided on the VLE alongside the embedded resource.

Xerte: interactive tutorials

Xerte offers a very wide range of page types, including a range of media pages, navigator pages that segment content, and many interactive activities such as quizzes, drag & drop and fill in the gap tasks (for examples, see Xerte Online Toolkits: Page Types). This flexibility has made the platform very useful to create tutorials for more complex topics that combine text-based information and interactive tasks. It’s been a steep learning curve though - I’m quite happy with the resources I’ve created so far, but there’s a lot of opportunity to further explore the functionality Xerte offers.

Below are two examples of Xerte tutorials that I’ve created for the pilot project. Example pages are given here - click the links to open the full tutorials.

Advice on... Critiquing a research paper

SO_Advice on... Critiquing a research paper_(Xerte)

This relates to an assignment to critique a research paper, and was the most heavily used resource of the pilot project.

The first section includes ideas to critically analyse each section of the, and how that can be used to structure the assignment. The second section evaluates authentic examples of strong and weak critical responses to a paper. These topics were included as they were students' main concerns during face-to-face sessions. These are also some of the most common issues seen in 1:1 writing support, suggesting that these skills will be applicable beyond this assignment (see section below).

Text-based page: example and segmented explanation both visible

For full tutorial see SO_Advice on... Critiquing a research paper_(Xerte)

How to... Write in a scientific style

SO_How to... Write in scientific style_(Xerte)

This tutorial scaffolds skills development in the transition from humanities and social sciences to a science writing style. MSc PiE is a conversion course, and many students are nervous about the new writing style.

The tutorial begins with a (comically) bad example of science writing to raise awareness of some key issues before the main content. Different aspects of science writing style are then presented in order of priority. Each aspect has an interactive practice task so students can check their progress and to help build confidence.

Interactive task: practicing being concise

For full tutorial see SO_How to write in scientific style_(Xerte)

Here are some ways that the interactive tutorials promote effective skills development. Where points relate to specific pages of a tutorial, these are specified.

Key content is fronted to appear early in the tutorial, with practice activities appearing afterwards (Martin & Martin, 2015).
Information is segmented into manageable chunks by the page structure and within pages using the accordion or tab navigator page types (scientific style p. 3, 7, 9, 11; critique p. 3, 7-10; Mayer 2008).
Within pages, key information is signalled throughout through the use of bold text and headings (Mayer, 2008).
Students can control navigation through a table of contents and page turning arrows, and aren’t required to complete a page/task before moving on (Halpern & Tucker, 2015; Knowles et al., 2005).
Deep learning is promoted through interactive tasks such as quizzes (scientific style, p. 10, 12), drag & drop evaluative tasks (critique, p.4) and example identification (scientific style, p. 4, 8; Biggs, 2003).
A conversational style is used throughout, with lots of use of ‘you’ and direct questions to create a personalised tone (Mayer, 2008).

To support independent learning, feedback is given though correcting item-based tasks (scientific style, p. 10, 12; critique, p. 4), suggested answers for open tasks (scientific style, p. 2) and explanations of answers (scientific style, p. 5; critique, p. 5; Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
Examples are adapted from authentic previous student work (scientific style p. 12; critique p. 7-10), helping to show the relevance of the content to this cohort (Knowles et al., 2005).
On more text-based pages, active learning is encouraged through invitations to reflect on content, usually with a text box to complete or click-to-reveal feedback (scientific style, p. 1; critique p. 2, 6; Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
Spatial contiguity is achieved through placing examples and explanations so both can be seen at once (critique, p. 7-10; Mayer, 2008).

The Xerte interactive tutorials have been the most popular pilot resources by far, particularly the assessment-specific tutorials. Subjective feedback has also been very positive (see Core Area 2b). This suggests that Xerte is a worthwhile tool to carry on with for the next stages of the project.

Evidence:

Panopto: screencasts

I used Panopto to create screencasts explaining smaller topics or giving short demonstrations. I’ve found it easier to use than more lightweight screen recorders, and it’s a much more robust tool. Including screencasts in addition to interactive tutorials caters to different preferences, which may encourage more students to use resources. I think there's also some situations where a quick visual or verbal explanation can be more effective than a text-based resource.

Here are two examples of screencasts I’ve created for this project. As Panopto isn’t accessible outside of the UoY, I’ve included a short demo of the functionality when viewing the videos in Panopto in the video tour of the VLE site above (Panopto demo at 01:29).

See Core Area 3a for details of how I've considered accessibility by providing captions and text-based alternatives.

Concept explanation: How to... Build strong arguments

SO_How to... Build strong arguments_(Panopto)

These narrated slides explain the process to build strong arguments. This was created as students commonly find adding enough examples, explanations and critical analysis difficult.

The screencast starts with some general tips, then works through building up an example argument. This would be possible as a text-based resource, but a video is more engaging and offers more choice.

This video promotes effective skills development through:

using dual channel processing, which avoids overloading one particular channel and promotes making connections between different aspects of the concept (Mayer, 2008).
giving the verbal explanation while the relevant text is shown on the slide, so students don’t need to keep points in working memory across slides (temporal contiguity principle, Mayer, 2008).
signalling new content on each slide by highlighting text (Mayer, 2008)
segmenting information so that there is one new piece of information per slide, and using animation to segment information within slides if needed (Mayer, 2008).
when viewed in the Panopto platform, each slide is bookmarked so students can jump to specific content (Halpern & Tucker, 2015).

Demonstrations

These simple screen-capture videos demonstrate how to use a paper's database page to find other papers, and how to use features such as heading styles, margins and line spacing to format assignments. I created these as there were many questions on these topics in sessions.

Text-based instructions are also available, but students seem to follow this demo more easily, possibly as extraneous processing is reduced as the screencast shows the same interface. A participant in the focus liked being able to follow along with the video and pause where needed.

Screencast: explaining concept

Click to expand or see SO_Building strong arguments_(Panopto)

SO_Building strong arguments_(Panopto).mp4

Screencast: short demonstration (with captions)

Click to expand or see SO_How to... Use a paper to find other sources (Panopto with captions)

SO_Using a paper to find other sources (Panoto with captions).mp4

Although students reported in the survey that they prefer screencasts, usage hasn’t been as high as the interactive tutorials, and on average only 62.7% of each video is watched (see Core Area 2b). This is a little disappointing, as the videos take a lot of work to prepare. I still want to offer screencasts, as they were the most popular format in feedback, and also to provide variety. However, I need to make sure that new screencasts are short and on useful topics.

Evidence:

SO_How to... Build strong arguments_(Panopto)
SO_How to... Build strong arguments_(Slides) (annotated slides with transcript)
SO_How to... format a PGT assignment (Panopto)

Student feedback

See Core Area 2b for an in-depth discussion of student feedback - it's summarised here for convenience only.

Overall, feedback was very positive, and students think the online resources are relevant and useful.
Resources are used as guides to refer back to while writing assignments, or to get an overview before starting writing.
Content is seen as more important than resource features; there is a strong preference for assessment-specific resources, but general academic skills are also valued. Interactivity and having a variety of resources is seen as much less important.
Clarity and concision are highly rated, and students want to be able to get the information they need quickly and easily.
There is a variety of preferences about resource type; usage and the focus group suggest interactive tutorials are most popular, but screencasts were most popular in the feedback survey.
Students want resources to be available centrally on an academic skills VLE site, and possibly also embedded in module VLE sites.

Reflection on mini-project 2

I've really enjoyed working on the resources for mini-project 2, and I've learnt a lot about interactive and dynamic content authoring - I feel like this has been a huge step forward in my LT practice.

I was despairing a little in mini-project 1 that I couldn't create engaging resources to support effective learning, but I'm really pleased with the tutorials and screencasts I've created for this project. The functionality of the Xerte and Panopto platforms is so much better able to encourage use of higher order skills and promote effective skills development than the largely text-based online study skills modules in mini-project 1. Having a lot more access to programme modules and assessments has helped to create more relevant, higher value resources. As well as being more effective, I think the resources for mini-project 2 are also a lot more motivating to use, which is crucial in a self-study context.

There's a lot of scope to further explore Xerte and Panopto. For example, I haven't yet used any audio or video content within a Xerte tutorial, which may be useful to add explanations or demonstrations if needed. In addition, as I know the cohort in mini-project 2 well, I haven't added captions to many screencasts as I know that they not required by any of the students. This is definitely something I need to work on for the main project.

Other information to inform new resources

As there was only a narrow range of students involved in the two mini-projects, I've also collected data from other sources to inform the development of the new academic skills resources.

Key issues in 1:1 writing support

The Writing and Language Skills Centre offers 1:1 writing support, covering all stages of the writing process. Common issues seen in these sessions could reflect gaps in current academic skills provision and suggest priority areas for the new resources. To explore this, I conducted a content analysis of tutors’ notes on sessions held between 01/09/2019 - 13/01/2020.

Results & implications

The most common issues, and therefore priority areas for new resources were:

structure (diamond model, overall & paragraph)
critical analysis (what it is & how to do it)
addressing the question
using source information effectively
writing clearly

Grammar & spelling is one of the most common issues that students report wanting help with, but only around 5.5% of tutor comments related to grammar or vocabulary errors. This suggests that students don’t necessarily have a good idea of what support they need, so guidance on which resources to use may be useful.

Evidence:

SO_1:1 support content analysis (full results by category & theme)

Results of content analysis by theme

For a full breakdown see 2b_1:1 support content analysis

Broader student input

I also developed a survey to explore students' perceptions about future online academic skills resources. I wanted to find out:

which resource features are the most important?
which topics are the most useful?
where would students like to access resources?

Results & implications

At the time of writing there were 78 responses in total. The vast majority of responses were from the postgraduate cohorts in the Management School and Department of Education that receive face-to-face support from the LE team. These cohorts are predominantly made up of Chinese students, so the sample isn't representative of the student body as a whole.

Most popular features

Develop academic English (55%)
Content relevant to my degree (42.5%)
Guidance to help choose useful resources (42.5%)
Documents I can download (38.8%)
Develop academic skills in general (37.5%)

The popularity of developing academic English likely reflects the non-English language background of the majority of respondents; this was selected by only 21% of responders in mini-project 2 (50/50 home & international). While it might seem obvious, this suggests that home and international students likely have different academic skills needs.

Content that's relevant to the degree programme was very popular, but assignment-specific resources were not seen as important (16%). In comparison, assignment-specific resources was the most popular feature in mini-project 2 feedback. These differences in preferences could show that these students have a greater interest in general academic skills development. Alternatively, it may not have been clear how 'relevant to degree' and 'assignment-specific' differ.

Similarly to feedback from mini-project 2 (see Core Area 2b), interactivity (16%) and features relating to self-directed learning (4.9% - 18.5%) were not highly rated. Again, this suggests that students are most interested in the relevance of the content of resources, rather than how it's presented.

Most popular topics

Critical analysis (65%)
Writing in an academic style (56.3%)
Assignment structure (46.3%)
Using evidence from sources to build arguments (41.3%)
Genre-specific writing (36.3%)

These topics largely align with common concerns from students in mini-project 2 and key issues arising in writing 1:1 support.

Combining input from the four sources in this section, it seems that priority topics for the ongoing project relate to developing critical analysis skills, structuring assignments, building an argument and writing in an appropriate style for the genre.

Preferred location for resources

On an academic skills VLE site (62%)
Integrated into my degree module VLE sites (60.8%)
On the Skills Guides (21.4%)

These results clearly show that students would like to access self-study resources through the VLE, with a dedicated VLE site and embedded in module sites both being popular. Students in mini-project 2 had similar preferences.

For the ongoing project, this suggests that providing resources only on the Skills Guides may be a barrier for students to access the materials; while they could find resources here, they may not even think to look here in the first place. It seems that providing them on the VLE too is important to encourage their use.

Evidence:

SO_Online resources preferences survey (note: the survey is still live, so there may be additional responses not included in the results above)

Moving forward: planning the wider project

The next stage of the project is to use experiences of the mini-projects and other information gathered to plan the broad approach to take with the new online self-study resources. I've broken this down into three broad areas for consideration:

Resource content

Feedback from mini-project 2 and the broader student survey showed that relevant, useful content is the most important aspect of resources. This aligns with Knowles' principles of andragogy, in that adult learners are task-orientated and need to see how a resource will help fill a gap in their current knowledge or skills (Knowles et al., 2005). This also manifests in the desire for resources to be relevant to modules and assignments. It's been quite straightforward to do this for the MSc PiE cohort in mini-project 2 as I've only had to support one programme. However, for the wider project it'll be difficult to scale this to create resources to support students throughout the university.

It seems that there are two possible approaches to this:

create resources to support key assignment types (e.g., an IMRAD-style research report) that can be used by students in a range of modules and departments.
work with interested departments to create specific resources relevant to their programmes.

I feel the second approach will be more effective, as resources will be more clearly relevant to a student's assignments. This will be a lot of work though, and requires a high level of collaboration with departments (who may or may not be interested in this). I think it's likely that the final approach will be somewhere between the two; generic resources that are useful for multiple modules, with closer liaison with priority departments to create more specific resources for their programmes, or to signpost generic resources that are relevant to specific modules or assessments.

In terms of the scope of resource content, it's important to make sure that there isn't an overwhelming amount of resources and to make navigation simple. This suggests that it may be better to focus on key areas, rather than trying to provide a comprehensive range of resources. Based on 1:1 writing support data and student feedback, it seems priority areas include:

structuring an assignment
critical analysis & building strong arguments
academic writing style

Resource format

Feedback from mini-project 2 showed a variety of preferences; screencasts were most popular in the survey, but the focus group and usage data suggest that interactive tutorials were more popular. There were also a few requests for downloadable versions of resources. This shows the wider project must include different types of resources to cater to the variety in preferences; a student that doesn't like learning from videos may not use resources much if they are all screencasts.

Interactivity wasn't rated as an important feature, showing that surface features like this are secondary to how relevant and useful resource content is. However, interactive tasks with feedback help students apply skills and check they are "on the right lines", and basic interactive features also allowed content to be segmented into manageable chunks. This shows it's still important to build interactivity into resources to foster deeper learning and motivate students to use them.

Although andragogical principles state that adult learners need to be self-directing (Knowles et al., 2005), features such as being able to control pace or select difficulty level were also not rated as important in the two surveys. However, having choice over which resources to use or tasks to complete was a key feature that came out of the focus group. This again shows that content is the most important aspect of resources; there's no point being able to control the pace of a resource that isn't relevant to your needs. It may be useful to provide some guidance on which resources are relevant to different modules or assessment types that students can then choose from.

In terms of improving resource format based on experiences in the mini-projects, I will:

learn more about best practice for screencasts to try to encourage higher usage.
take greater consideration of multimedia principles to create effective resources.
explore the functionality of Xerte more, particularly relating to incorporating audio and video content.
further explore appropriate alternative formats to create accessible screencasts.

Resource location and delivery

Feedback from mini-project 2 and the broader student survey shows that there's a strong preference to access online self-study resources through a dedicated academic skills VLE site, and also to have key resources embedded into relevant module VLE sites. Additionally, as students commonly don't know that self-study resources are available (Artemchik, 2016; Bowles-Terry et al., 2010; Morris & Chikwa, 2014; Zielinski et al., 2018), providing them in multiple locations is good practice to increase awareness of the online self-study resources available and help students quickly find the information they need (Weeks & Putnam Davis, 2017).

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