Narratives of Academic Librarians: Chapter 3: Instructional Tool 3.1 and 3.2

Chapter 3: Instructional Tool 3.1 and 3.2

OK, so [Instructional tool 1] I've been using pretty much my whole time here, and videos are something I also have been working on for many years here.

Sometimes we do need to create video-based instructional content rather than just text-based, or other interactivities. 

At the early stage, I was using [instructional tool 3.1] to create anything that's related to a tutorial or that's very screencast related. Sometimes I had to record my screen, and then we were adding the direction either as we were providing the instruction or everything was pre-recorded, things like that. 

Sometimes I was working by myself. Sometimes I was working with a group of people using [instructional tool 3.1]. When we were working with a group of people, I had this video guideline of how we want to engage in a video production. 

We have things related to pre-planning, principle production, and post-production. 

So, who's involved in what? 

Everyone's role is clearly defined so we know exactly who's responsible for doing what. 

[Instructional tool 3.1] is something that I've been using for quite a while ever since my program. This is something- this is the tool I was pretty familiar with. Anytime we need to create an instruction-based and screencast-based tutorial, we have to use [instructional tool 3.1].

When I first started, I was just mostly using my own subscription at the time.

 I had it on my personal laptop.

Later on, the school or the academic institution here received a grant which gave [instructional tool 3] for all the instructors on campus. 

I was able to use the license provided by the institution because I didn't have it on my work machine.

 [instructional tool 3.1] was mostly used for those.

Sometimes we do have to film individually- like a tour or some other video-based instruction that is not recording our computer screen but using a camera to film it. 

And so that's when I have to use [instructional tool 3.2]. 

We had to create some video trailers for a project that we did, which was related to special collections. 

We don't need to get into that. 

I use it to create a tour video for another [library related academic department] that we have, which was kind of affiliated to our main library, but it was more curriculum focused.

And so those were the two instances, sometimes I have to use [instructional tool 3.1], sometimes I have to use [instructional tool 3.2].

Back in those days, I was probably not paying too much attention to accessibility, I would say. 

I guess I would just say that if it's like a shorter video or something about less than five minutes, you know, I have no problem with creating a caption.

But if I'm creating a longer video, typically there isn't a caption. 

We were mostly relying on [online commercial video host] automatic captioning, and we do upload our videos to [online commercial video host].

Our library is probably a little different in that regard.

I think if you look at a lot of institutions, libraries, they may have a [online commercial video host channel], but that [online commercial video host channel] is typically dedicated to promotional videos related to “welcome to our library,” “Why our library is so great for the students”.

Whereas us- every time we create any instructional content, we just put it in our libraries, upload it to our [online commercial video host channel]. 

We have a lot of recordings from past workshops, a lot of recordings related to specific things, “how you can do this.” “This is how you do this”. “This is how you do that”. “Here's a tour of our [academic] center”. “Here's a tour to our maker space”, things like that. 

So, it's actually things that are not fluffy.

[pause]

I was talking about accessibility.

So, accessibility- I was saying that if it's for video, we have no problem with creating a caption.

Longer video- sometimes we are lacking.

This is something that, to increase accessibility and to also back universal design for learning, this is not something I was paying a great amount of attention to. 

Ideally, there will be multiple means for representation. Right?

So, for those who may not necessarily be drawn to watching a video, they want to be able to at least access the video transcript.

We don't necessarily provide that a lot of times. 

Then just the same with images.

Sometimes I ignored providing the alternative text, things like that.

So, there are just a lot of things I need to get better at.

And I really need to think about when it's appropriate for us to make a video, when would that make sense? 

Because a lot of times we think that, well, it makes sense to create a video on some of the basic functions or the basic skills or knowledge that we want the students- the patrons to have. 

It would make sense. Like how do you find an article in the library? How do you find a book in the library? It makes sense to make a video. And that's what we did a few years ago. But then we look at the videos we made a few years ago. 

We look at them now and some of the other content- most of the content- are still up to date. But sometimes our interface looks different. Our catalog looks different. Our databases may look different. 

It might still seem outdated just because of that, and then, you know how it is too because I read your chapter- so you know how it is a pain in the ass to update videos and to create a new one. 

It's just it's just a lot of work.

This is (a conversation) that I don't think we have been having.

We haven't had a conversation on that yet, so typically - I guess as the only person who does instructional design in our library-  I have to provide some guidance. 

 Sometimes I feel like, well, maybe for this it makes sense to do a video for that, maybe just like we just need to create some content like a web page.

I don't know, a lot of details need to be ironed out, and this is something that we need to have a discussion moving forward.

I guess we can talk a little bit about things coming out of the pandemic.

Things started to go back to normal, and we started doing face to face activities again.

Then [recently], the library decided to do a library wide reorganization.

I guess the leadership felt that there were a lot of silos going on. 

We want to break the silos.

There were different groups working on the same thing, but they are now working together.

Anyhow, we did a library reorganization.

One thing coming out of that was different teams that started to pop up.

We have a team related to [library spaces], a team related to [collection management], or related to our [library system tools], like the catalog, and so on and so forth.

I was assigned to some teams, and one team related to instructional [technology and design] was an instruction team. We started to look at anything related to instruction. 

As a team, we talked about it, and we made decisions together.

We thought about some of the bigger initiatives or projects that we want to work towards.

So, after that, I feel like the silo probably did break down for quite a bit. 

I guess it was a successful reorganization. We will see.

I was able to work with folks not just in the [freshman experience] team, but also folks from across the library, to talk about our instructional related initiatives- to talk about instructional [technology and design]. 

That felt a little bit more, I don't know, feels more efficient and productive, in a way, rather than just working with two or three individuals in the library. Now we are everywhere. 

We have representation from different departments on the instructional team. That felt pretty productive. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I want to cover or talk about the videos, I think I cover most of them.