A tool to navigate information overload

Hello, my name is Shonagh Douglas, and I’m a senior lecturer at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. Today, I’m going to share a solution to tackle the information overload problems that can result from the ever-increasing online resources available to students.

I think most universities now have lots of really excellent online resources for students, but as the volume of this grows and grows, students are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate to the right resource at the right time and can actually find the volume of resources quite overwhelming.

One way we can help students navigate online resources effectively is to proactively guide them through, using a series of relevant questions. As an example, here is one of the tools I have developed which guides students through support resources on academic writing. If I open it briefly, you can see it’s a series of simple questions, and depending on how these are answered, either directs the students to a relevant resource or moves them on to the next question, filtering out the resources which are not relevant.

So, if we click to get started, the students are asked the first question, “Do you understand what you’re required to do for your assignment?” The student might say, “yes”, at which point they’re taken on to the next question, and the resources that sit behind that first question are filtered out. The next question is, “Do you know how to get started with answering your assignment question?” The student might say, “no”, at which point a resource from our study skills department that helps them develop the skills they need to do that is opened up.

And so it continues. And the students work through various different areas, and you can see to the side which type of areas we cover, so essay report writing requirements, academic writing, writing critically, incorporating sources, plagiarism, referencing, drafting, reviewing and proofreading. And all of these follow a similar format of a simple question and they’re either taken on to the next question or they’re directed to resources that will help them.

My tips for setting up this type of tool.

First, you will need to decide which platform to use.

In the example, I used Articulate 360, and it does have a really nice interface, but you could achieve a similar result with embedded links and PowerPoint or similar. Or, moving up a level, it could even be developed into a bot.

Second, you will need to develop your questions and organise them into a sensible sequence. Sketching it out as a flow chart can really help here. Try and keep the question short and simple; answerable with a simple “yes” or “no” can help you keep the parts clear.

Determining which resources to include can also be a challenge. For some uses, this may be determined by the resources you need the students to access, such as when we did one for getting started at the university. For others, like the academic writing one, I started based on common problems or questions that I received as a tutor and used the tool to bring together the resources that could help answer these. I then adapted the initial design based on feedback from tutors, course leaders and students who had used it.

Third, consider the timing of the release of your tool carefully. This was a key learning point for us. Released too early, it actually just added to the problem it was trying to solve by becoming yet another online resource. Too late, it actually caused a little bit of frustration, you know from, “Why didn’t we have this earlier?”

So, think what it’ll be used for and try releasing it at the point it’s needed. For the academic writing one, this was at the time the coursework was being released, or when the tutor was doing the assignment briefing. Fourth and final, keep the tool up to date. Any link changes will need to be updated, but also consider including any new resources that are developed and take regular feedback for improvement.

I hope you find this useful. Thank you for listening.

Shonagh Douglas is a lecturer in finance and accounting at Robert Gordon University.

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