Thinking about my Information Literacy Wiki in terms of ADDIE continued - Discussion of Design

In the design phase, I first identified the objectives I wanted the system to serve. As a result of using this wiki:
• Students will identify available library services.
• Students will identify sources of extra help and information within the LRC.
• Students will locate and determine the contents of the LRC Collection.
• Students will evaluate their knowledge of information literacy skills and the research process.
• Students will use research guides available on the site to successfully recognize when information is needed, formulate search statements, evaluate information critically, and avoid plagiarism.
• Students will participate in self-directed learning and recognize when additional information is needed.

After determining the above objectives, I created a mock-up version of the wiki on paper. I sketched my ideal homepage, complete with what I believed were the most important pages and links. I also decided I would prepare an information literacy quiz to help students assess their own prior knowledge about information literacy and the research process.

I knew I wanted to keep the site as simple as possible, so I tried to keep text to a minimum. To organize research guides for the time being, I put them all into a folder. In the future, the guides will be placed into an ordered table describing each step in the research process. I also designed photographs into the site where possible, to give users the feeling that they were familiar with the LRC location and setup.

The most crucial elements I needed to integrate into the design included:

• Library Session Course Pages
• Research Guides
• Information Literacy Education/Quiz
• LRC Catalog (although it is not searchable, various pdf formats are available)
• Printing Instructions
• Services
• Synchronous Communication – Meebo Chat

I've already described how I came to decide to use pbwiki as my tool of choice, but I found that each of these required sections fit fairly nicely into the wiki format. The wiki is also convenient because if we ever grow in the size of our library staff, I will easily be able to share what I've done with other staff members and allow them to become administrators or editors of the wiki as well.

In my next post I'll talk about how I developed and implemented the wiki, and the beginnings of its evaluation...