Education Commons^™

Asking The Right Questions: Accessibility And Library Study Rooms, Jessica Schomberg, Christopher R. Corley

Library Services Publications

This article assists administrators who want to ensure their libraries are inclusive of people with disabilities but don’t know where to start. We argue that organizations should understand not only the basic dimensions of ADA law but also dimensions of disability. They should also become familiar with multiple domains of disability and proactively incorporate reflective questions posed by researchers and advocates into the library space planning process. The article uses examples of common missteps in the development of study rooms with some reflection on how to learn from the experience.

Transitioning From The Mls To The Mld: Integrating Design Thinking And Philosophy Into Library And Information Science Education, Rachel I. Clarke, Steven Bell

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Purpose

As change creates more uncertainty for library practitioners, graduate library education needs to explore how to best prepare students to manage ambiguity through new approaches to identifying and solving challenging problems. We advocate for incorporating design into graduate library education.

Design/Methodology/Approach

First, we discuss the need for a design approach to librarianship. We then introduce the nature of design thinking and philosophy, and discuss the ways in which it is already present in librarianship. We review past developments and recent trends with a special focus on the ways in which design thinking, methods, and philosophies are (or are not) …

Uxperimentation: The Library As Design Studio, John B. Weaver Dr

Library Research and Publications

The university and seminary’s work and workplaces evolve within emerging digital ecologies, such as mobile communication, digital fabrication, and cloud hosting. At Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Abilene, TX, we have driven this transformation of educational spaces and curriculum with 1-to-1 and BYOD smartphone and tablet initiatives, and through construction of an interdisciplinary makerspace. Now our provision of personalized access to Adobe Creative Cloud for all students and faculty is again reorienting library spaces and practices with a focus on User Experience (UX). This paper explores: 1) the relation of UXD to library research and instruction. 2) an ecology for …

Book Review: Online By Design: The Essentials Of Creating Information Literacy Courses., Cindy Gruwell

Library Faculty Publications

In-depth book review of Mery, Y. and Newby, J. 2014. Online by design: the essentials of creating information literacy courses.

Becoming Reflective: Designing For Reflection On Physical Performances, Tom Moher, Cynthia Carter Ching, Sara Schaefer, Victor R. Lee, Noel Enyedy, Joshua Danish, Paulo Guerra, Alessandro Gnoli, Priscilla Jimenez, Brenda Lopez-Silva, Leilah Lyons, Anthony Perritano, Brian Slattery, Mike Tissenbaum, James Slotta, Rebecca Cober, Cresencia Fong

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Learners’ physical performances can serve as focal objects for reflection and insight across a variety of contexts and content areas. This session brings together a set of projects that leverage the physical performances of learners, construct concrete and abstract representations of those performances, and investigate how learners reflect on and understand the relationships between their performances and target content—physics, health and fitness, data literacy and navigation, animal foraging, and climate change. The session will share findings and design principles from each of the studies around constructing technological scaffolds for physical performance reflections. The symposium highlights the various ways performance can …

"Blacks Deserve Bodies Too!" Design And Discussion About Diversity And Race In A Tween Virtual World, Y. B. Kafai, M. S. Cook, Deborah A. Fields

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In this paper, we investigate racial diversity in avatar design and public discussions about race within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net, with more than 1.5 million registered players of ages 8—16. One unique feature of Whyville is the player’s ability to customize their avatars with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the racial diversity of available resources for avatar construction and online postings about the role of race in avatar design and social interactions in the community. With the growing interest in player-generated content for online …

What Do Students Gain From A Week At Science Camp? Youth Perceptions And The Design Of An Immersive Research-Oriented Astronomy Camp, Deborah A. Fields

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This study explored American high school students’ perceptions of the benefits of a summer astronomy camp, emphasizing a full cycle of the research process and how the organization of the camp contributed to those perceptions. Semi-structured interviews with students and staff were used to elicit the specific benefits that campers perceived from their experiences and examine them in relation to the stated goals and strategies of camp staff. Among the perceived benefits that students described were peer relationships, personal autonomy, positive relationships with staff, and deepened science knowledge. These perceived benefits appear to influence the kinds of identities students constructed …

Preliminary Report To The Purdue Writing Lab: Assessing Usability Of The "New" Online Writing Lab (Owl) Design And Contents, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report is submitted June 16, 2006 to the Purdue University Writing Lab, specifically to Linda Bergmann, Director; Tammy Conard-Salvo, Associate Director; and Karl Stolley, Lead Web Designer. Intended to inform the ongoing redesign of the Online Writing Lab (OWL), it is written to maintain the highest level of usability and user-centered design of a unique, globally-utilized information resource. This document is a preliminary report limited to initial findings from a five-step usability testing protocol conducted February 25 through March 3, 2006. This testing plan was submitted to Purdue’s Institutional Review Board’s Committee on the Use of Human Subjects (IRB) …

Owl Usability Report: Appendices, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This document includes appendices to the OWL Usability Report and contains survey and testing instruments, testing scripts, and testing data. It also includes information about the Creative Commons licensing associated with the OWL Usability documents produced in 2006.

Purdue Online Writing Lab (Owl) Research Report, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report outlines the history of the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) and details the OWL Usability Project through the summer of 2006. The paper also discusses test methodologies, describes test methods, provides participant demographics, and presents findings and recommendations of the tests. The purpose of this report is to provide researchers, administrators, and pedagogues interested in usability and Writing Labs access to information on the Purdue OWL Usability Project. We hope our findings—and this open source approach to our research—will contribute positively to the corpus on usability and Writing Lab studies.

Testing The Design Of A Library Information Gateway, W. Bede Mitchell, Laura B. Davidson, Virginia C. Branch, Lynne Lysiak

Library Faculty Publications

In autumn of 1999, the library World Wide Websites at Appalachian State University and Georgia Southern University had been in place for more than a year, and many library users reported that certain aspects of the sites’ designs were confusing. In order to alleviate the confusion, librarians from the two universities decided to redesign the sites by determining the greatest sources of confusion. To do this, we studied how patrons used the web sites by way of user-centered usability testing.