AARL

Library and Academic Collaboration: A Case Study in Teaching Media Communications

Dugald Williamson

Abstract As a growth area in the arts, media communications offers new opportunities for academic and library partnerships that support teaching and learning. This article discusses the collaborative development of an online training guide in the use of electronic databases. The aim of the project described was to promote information literacy, especially research skills for undergraduates, by integrating generic library training and curriculum development in a particular disciplinary field. The article updates a paper presented at the Australian Film Institute's 'Information Gathering Conference 1999' (INFOG 99) in Melbourne.

Media and communication studies have expanded greatly in Australian universities. Many courses in this field are offered within a liberal arts context. Those designing and delivering these courses face the familiar higher education challenges of teaching larger and more heterogeneous cohorts with reduced resources and preparing students to follow different trajectories in modularised degree programs. Crucial to meeting these challenges is the integration of training in library research skills and disciplinary learning strategies. The following case study illustrates the use of library information systems at the first year undergraduate level in media and communication studies to embed skills of information literacy and independent learning in the curriculum.

Project Context

At Griffith University, where the project discussed here was undertaken, the Arts Faculty has maintained an interdisciplinary course structure in which students undertake some first year key area subjects that lead into different majors and combined study fields. Within the Faculty, the School of Film, Media and Cultural Studies has responsibility for several majors. Some of these, like Film and Media Studies or Cultural Studies, have a generalist focus. Others, such as Journalism and Screen Production, have a more vocational orientation. Most students taking media subjects are enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts but many are embarking on named degrees in Communications, Screen Production, Law/Arts, Science and Media and so on.

A problem faced in this context is how to equip students of diverse backgrounds and prior skill levels with the capacities to use new information technologies effectively and independently. One initiative undertaken was to introduce a first-year subject called Media Communications Research in 1998, on the grounds that advanced competencies in research, analysis and writing are important to majors in both media studies (theory, criticism and history) and media production (screenwriting and audiovisual production).

Rationale

In developing this subject, the aim was to help students develop the information management skills and study methods needed to explore the institutional, industrial and policy contexts of media communications. Over time, in introductory subjects, it had proved difficult to teach this type of contextual analysis, in contrast to approaches such as textual analysis, the practice of critically deconstructing individual texts that has become a mainstay of secondary and tertiary media education. The relative difficulty of teaching the institutional contexts of the media has been noted more generally in the literature on media and communication studies.[1] Engaging students in the exploration of these contexts requires access not only to the media product but varied types of documentation that reflect the processes of production, distribution and reception. These include communications policy literature, information about industry practices, interviews with practitioners, publicity, reviews, news and debates in the mass media and specialised publications, and online materials produced by government and media industry organisations. In our first year context, collaboration between academic and library staff was seen as essential in providing students with access to these materials and the disciplinary techniques relevant to studying them.

It is worth noting that, whilst the library is the main campus gateway to traditional and new information sources, the connections between academic and library functions are not always clear in the area of teaching and learning. John Arfield has suggested that there is often a gap between library training in resource access and academic course delivery.[2] Flexible or resource-based learning places increasing demands on library staff but their knowledge of how students actually use the library is not routinely taken into account in the planning and revision of courses.[3] In our own curriculum area, we were interested to see whether we could create disciplinary applications of the Griffith University Library workshops in research methods to support student learning about - and through - uses of new information technology.

Planning Process

Some students already attended workshops on library research facilities such as the catalogue, electronic databases and the World Wide Web and the library was developing an online version of these information literacy workshops. However, through discussions between the Arts Librarian and lecturers it became evident that this training support might be extended into specific teaching areas. Through a funded 'shared resources' initiative within the university, a communications team obtained some relief from normal duties to develop an integrated online 'Communications Module'. We focused on electronic databases because the students were less familiar with them than with the catalogue and the web. The Arts Librarian adapted the library's standard training module so that it related directly to communications and we incorporated guidelines on information gathering, analysis and writing relevant to this field. Input was invited from faculty staff in areas such as business communication and literary studies as well as media communications. As a result, the Communications Module contains sections on using databases for these various areas, although the most detailed illustration of the research and writing process is in media communications. The module is not an assessable unit in its own right but a library package, made available to students and staff on the university's intranet site, that can be taken up in different ways to support generic skills development.

Structure and Use of an Online Communications Module

The Communications Module contains an introductory interview (in Quicktime video and text versions) on why research matters in university study and how electronic databases help to conduct research. It contains four other main sections. The first two adapt the standard library database training material, an Information Literacy Skills Program, to fit the general communications area and the last two branch out from this base to provide more specific guidance in sub-fields of communication studies.

Accessing Electronic Databases

This explains the different kinds of database, their varied functions (citation, abstract, full-text) and how to access them, with interactions available for student practice. Examples include general-use databases such as the Expanded Academic Index (EAI).

Research Preparation Process

This focuses on the process of analysing a topic, identifying keywords and planning search strategies including the use of Boolean operators.

Using Relevant Databases

This models the keyword search process on databases for specific communications areas. In media communications, students can explore the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (AUSTROM: APAIS), the Attorney General's Information Service (AUSTROM: AGIS), film literature indexes and Reuters News Service among others.

From Searching to Writing

In the final section, the first steps are as in the Griffith University Library's more general training materials - identifying topic keywords and planning and executing appropriate search strategies to retrieve materials. The subsequent steps connect data searching with the planning and writing up of an assignment. They include reviewing materials to focus an answer, identifying secondary keywords, refining the assignment structure and drafting and editing a paper.

The progression from searching to writing is illustrated by 'walking' students through the production of a short report. The report is about media communications policy but the processes of research and writing that it models are relevant to other areas. It documents and analyses the controversy over 'local content' broadcasting regulations sparked by the High Court's landmark 'Blue Sky' decision that New Zealand programs can count as Australian for the purposes of meeting domestic commercial television content standards.[4] The overall structure of the module enabled synergies to occur between library training in information literacy and the introduction of disciplinary ideas and methods in communication studies. As a colleague, Asa Masterman, pointed out, in exploring a communications topic students often strike the more general problem that different databases vary in the keyword structures that they employ. They can be encouraged to solve this problem by reflecting on the ways in which information is constructed and identified in different types of publication relevant to their topic and modifying their search strategy accordingly. On the basis of even a small amount of initial information, it is often possible to isolate alternative and secondary keywords as the search becomes more specific, including the names of institutions and persons involved in the events and authors who have expertise in the area of study. If a combination of general terms like 'content regulation', 'television' and 'Australian' yielded no results from some databases in searching the issue just mentioned, students often located useful materials by trying secondary terms like 'High Court' and 'Blue Sky'.

The database module was most effective when students discussed their use of it in tutorials dealing with substantive issues for their own writing and assessment exercises. In the Media Communications Research subject, students were asked to use the module to help prepare a report on a policy issue along similar lines, but not identical, to the Australian content example set out in the library module. The Arts Librarian demonstrated the database and web searching facilities in lectures during the first weeks of the semester, while lecturers illustrated the relevance of the retrieved materials to particular topics. The students could consult guidelines and examples in a printed Study Guide and a reading dossier of journal and newspaper articles about the topics discussed in class. They were asked to look for further information on their own issue and could seek help on finding and using source materials, in class or by email. While the results varied, there was a relatively high level of engagement with topics that were initially unfamiliar to most students, such as the changing role of public broadcasting including the pros and cons of the ABC's outsourcing of television program production.[5]

The integration of disciplinary questions and library training has facilitated the introduction of new content to keep the subject up to date. An example is the inclusion of the problem posed for media self-regulation by the commercial radio 'cash for comment' issue.[6] This integration has helped to solve the perennial problems accompanying changes in the teaching team membership and made for coherence and continuity in the delivery of a highly enrolled subject (400-600 students a year in Media Communications Research). Staff can use examples from the bank of subject materials or different ones from their own domain of expertise to teach the basic principles of researching and analysing media communications practices, around which the subject is based.

The library module, supplemented by the use of selected web sites, has alerted students to the ways in which not just the mainstream media outlets but many key organisations with which they are usually less familiar produce and disseminate information for a range of purposes. An example is the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), whose multiple regulatory and research functions are reflected in its reports, occasional publications, fact sheets, press releases and web site.[7](The students encountered the ABA as a key player in both the Australian commercial television content and cash for comment issues.) The integrated use of library research facilities has helped students to understand how the form and function of media products are affected by their institutional and industrial circumstances. It has also aided projects growing out of the initial report on media policy questions, in which students write independently about broader issues from fields adjacent to the media including education, the arts, law, science, health and the environment, in different genres and for different audiences.

Reflections on a Partnership

The database module has assisted undergraduate students at Griffith University in several practical ways. They can access it in their library and common-use laboratories or from home. They do not need to go the library at a set time to receive help with finding information. However, 'home alone' is not necessarily the preferred approach. Many students in a wired teaching environment still wish to have class contact and the social interaction it entails as a dimension of the learning process. For some, attending a library workshop is a starting point to follow up by using the disciplinary module in their own time. Trying out the module means that in classes they can ask more focused questions about the library tools and their application to a disciplinary area. It is often difficult for students to find their bearings in the face of the expert views that they encounter on entering a field like communication studies. Having purpose-built information modules can go some way towards meeting this problem. It can also help students to develop more productive research strategies than the open-ended approach associated with the often-heard comment: 'I'll look on the web'.

From a faculty viewpoint, the integration of interactive library-training components into a subject has created a more flexible pedagogic framework that supports independent learning. The exercise in collaboration has confirmed that increased access to new information technology does not by itself fulfil pedagogic objectives but can help students to gain competence in a repertoire of disciplinary and transferable techniques, when grounded in appropriate learning activities.[8] The use of the library module in Media Communications Research reflected a concern to foster research and conceptual skills through a highly selective use of representative topics and a conscious choice not to blur the focus on skills by trying to cover too much theoretical and empirical content. The student results and feedback provided some evidence that this approach helped to make communication studies accessible and paved the way towards specialised areas of work in later subjects.

Even though the library and academic staff interact more directly with each other on such a project than previously, cooperating to integrate information technology into the curriculum clarifies rather than confuses their respective roles. Library staff members indicate that they see the Communications Module as an appropriate extension of their training programs for undergraduates. It sets out a process for using research tools to pursue subject-based goals and hence meets some of the frequently expressed student needs that otherwise may fall between the responsibilities of academic and library staff. The module makes a shift from the traditional circumstance in which lecturers 'refer' students to the library to one in which the library comes into the classroom. On a small scale, it contributes to a partnership between faculty and library staff that makes information skills training part of the broader educational development of information literacy - the multidisciplinary and portable capacity to access, interpret and construct knowledge in particular academic and social contexts.[9]

Pragmatically, the development of resources such as the module I have described is time-consuming but there can be economies of scale and considerable benefits to teaching and learning if the resources are designed with the interests of a disciplinary or interdisciplinary area rather than single unit in mind. An area-based approach prevents the duplication that occurs if the responsibility for incorporating new information technologies into teaching remains at the level of the individual subject. This is an argument for universities and teaching and learning funding bodies to encourage broad-based academic and library co-operation to embed information literacy skills in curricula. The cost of such consultation is small relative to the base expenditure on both academic course design and delivery and the development of library resources in information technology, to which universities are already committed.

For academic and library staff, area-based collaboration can help to meet the criteria of funding programs in teaching and learning that emphasise institutional or cross-institutional liaison and the potential for broad dissemination of project outcomes. In the project described above, we found that once the use of library research techniques was integrated into the structure of a subject it was possible to put the learning materials to new uses reasonably efficiently. The Media Communications Research subject, which began as a subject for on-campus and off-campus students at Griffith University, became available nationwide in 2001 to students enrolling in the new Bachelor of Communications offered through Open Learning Australia.[10]

Finally, it may be acknowledged that tertiary courses often confront students with 'a bewildering array of options and combinations'.[11] Students need to learn the skills to move across different subjects, levels of difficulty and disciplinary organisations of knowledge. Collaboration between library staff who have specialised knowledge of the ever-increasing range of publications and modes of information delivery and academic staff who represent the interests of particular disciplinary areas can help to meet this student need. Area-based applications of information literacy offer students the benefit of an economical approach that assists them to integrate the methods and content of individual units in their program of study. The project that I have described can be summarised as one local attempt to build the elements of an 'organisational culture'12 that supports the development of information literacy. As information systems change rapidly it is increasingly important to foster faculty, library and administrative partnerships that focus on the essential principles of disciplinary inquiry and promote the core university business of teaching and learning.

Acknowledgements

The Communications Module: Using Electronic Databases was funded by a Shared Resources grant at Griffith University. The University Arts Librarian, Ms Christine Cordwell, and I developed the module with advice from Dr Jock MacLeod. I thank other staff who contributed to the construction of the module, including Dr Asa Masterman to whom, along with Ms Cordwell, I owe some of the observations on the project. Responsibility for any problems in this article is my own.

Notes

1. R Quin and B McMahon 'The Case of Babe on the Internet: New Paradigms of Curriculum Development' Metro Education no 9 1996-1997 pp9-21
2. J Arfield 'Flexible Learning and the Library' in W Wade K Hodgkinson A Smith and J Arfield (eds) Flexible Learning in Higher Education London Kogan Page 1994 pp71-75
3. ibid p74
4. High Court of Australia Project Blue Sky v Australian Broadcasting Authority 1998 at http://www.austlii.edu.au/do/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/high_ct/1998/28.html
5. B Mansfield The Challenge of a Better ABC, Volume 1: A Review of the Roles and Functions of the ABC Canberra AGPS 1997 pp22-23, 35-37
6. ABC Lateline: Advertising Laws broadcast 20 July 1999; M Day 'Defiance in the Air' The Australian 10 February 2000 Media section pp6-7 http://www.aba.gov.au
7. D Laurillard Rethinking University Teaching: A Framework for the Effective Use of Educational Technology London Routledge 1993 pp97-105; C McNaught 'The State of the Art of Learning Through Information and Communication Technologies with Accent of the Role of Study Skills' Metro Education no 15 1998 pp11-16
8. D Booker 'Concept, Challenge, Conundrum: From Library Skills to Information Literacy' Australian Academic & Research Libraries vol 31 no 1 2000 pp49-52; A Bundy 'Information Literacy: The 21st Century Education Smartcard' Australian Academic && Research Libraries vol 30 no 4 1999 pp233-250
9. Open Learning Australia Handbook 2001 Melbourne p118
10. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Thematic Review of the First Years of Tertiary Education Australia Paris Canberra Department of Employment Education Training and Youth Affairs 1997 pp16-17
11. Booker op cit p50