Developing Online Tutorials to Improve Information Literacy Skills for Second-Year Nursing Students of University College Dublin

Abstract

This article explores the process of developing online tutorials for a specified student group, in this case Second-Year Nursing students in University College Dublin. The product was commissioned by the Health Sciences Library and the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Systems. It was developed as a “Capstone Project” for part fulfillment of the MLIS in UCD.We focused our research on three areas of scholarship to assist in the development of our product, namely Information Behavior, Learning Technologies, and Learning Science and Design. Flemings VARK model was used to inform the team of the four different learning styles (visual, auditory, reading, and kinesthetic) and to match the presentation style to these.An initial difficulty in the assessment phase was one of access to a large group of students, as the students were on clinical placements. We created personas and a profile of nursing students to try and compensate for this. The tutorial was developed to cater for this specific group of students and later to act as a valuable support to the Library, which is under severe pressure in terms of staff availability to support student learning.The product is relatively straightforward to produce (and maintain) and is something the Library will be able to develop and add to in future years.