Purpose of Case Study

To examine the 'Assignment Based Workshops' and other Information Skills training at City of Bristol College by:

Institutional Background

City of Bristol College was created from the merger of South Bristol College and Brunel College of Arts and Technology in 1996. The College expanded further in 2000, by merging with the College of Care in North-West Bristol, a small specialist college. Recently the College has also incorporated Soundwell College- a small Post- 16 college in South Gloucestershire, which has increased both the variety of courses offered and the community served. Some 35000 full and part-time students are now registered at the seven College centres. The college provides a wide range of courses to Post- 16 students in the Bristol and South Gloucestershire area, including return-to-study and access courses, as well as NVQs, GCSEs, A levels, etc. There are Learning Resource Centres at seven centres, which are staffed by managers, assistants and ILT support officers. The LRCs provide library services, PC/ Internet access and also incorporate study support centres where students can meet with a tutor for help on basic skills such as maths, English and study skills. Both managers and assistants/ILT support officers facilitate the Assignment Based Workshops. All interviews took place at the Brunel Campus LRC which is housed in a large converted building. The LRC is quite large and benefits from a large IT training room where the Assignment Based Workshops and other information skills training is carried out.

Information Skills Provision prior to the 'Assignment Based Workshops'

All students are offered two induction sessions at their LRC. The first is an induction covering basics such as borrowing rights, catalogue searching etc and the second is an IT induction which includes searching electronic resources such as the web. Students attend these sessions with other students on their course and their tutor. Group sizes are kept to a maximum of 15. The induction is tailored to the students' needs and emphasises the resources that are relevant to them. There is also a wide variety of subject-specific literature in the LRCs, explaining how to use the resources and services on offer to the students, especially the internet. Other support is provided on an ad-hoc basis.

The 'Assignment Based Workshops'

The Assignment Based Workshops have been running for three years and originated from a desire to relate information skills to the student's subject and the practical work they have to do as the LRC staff were often asked by students to help them with their assignments, or to clarify things that students had not understood in class. The sessions are planned jointly by the tutor and the LRC staff member who is leading the session. The tutor is expected to be present and to contribute to the session. The workshops begin with a presentation by the workshop leader that goes through the printed and electronic resources available for the assignment and how to find and use them. Teaching students how to search information sources is a key element of the session, as is promoting underused resources such as journals. The students then have the rest of the session to use and explore the resources with the supervision of the workshop leader and their tutor, who is encouraged to attend the session. The session aims to introduce the students to a variety of resources, encourage students to understand which resources can provide the kind of information they require and persuade them to explore the wider world of information as independent learners, not only for one specific assignment but throughout their course. The LRC staff try to promote the workshops to tutors when they accompany their students on their LRC induction. LRC staff also attend faculty meetings to promote the workshops and explain the process of arranging one. The LRC staff reported that they have benefited from good 'word of mouth' and had many bookings from tutors who had had the workshops recommended to them by a colleague. If a tutor decides they would like a workshop to support an assignment they are planning to set, they can contact the library or complete a form giving details of the assignment. The member of LRC staff who will lead the workshop uses a proforma to create a standardised structure for the workshop but the actual content varies and leaders can use their own ideas and imagination. It was clear from interviewing the LRC assistants that they were very enthusiastic about the sessions and really enjoyed delivering them, citing it as one of the best aspects of their work

Examples:

i: Carol Fox- Tutor on evening Access courses

Carol's students only attend college part-time in the evenings. The LRC opened especially to run an hour-long induction session, followed by an Assignment Based Workshop for the students on the same evening for their convenience. The workshop was designed to support their work on their first assignment. Most of the students find the level of the work quite challenging initially as many have been out of study for several years, so the support that the workshop offers is essential in easing the students' concerns about working at this level and getting them up to NVQ level 3 standard. The students' first assignment is about 'War and Conflict' and requires them to identify and use new sources. Carol first met with a member of LRC staff to discuss the details of the assignment. The LRC staff member then researched the subject and selected two conflicts to use as examples of how the students might go about the research process. A trolley of books was brought to the session as examples of the LRC's stock in this area and a sheet was supplied to students identifying key starting points for their research. The session combines a presentation to the students followed by a practical session and lasts for about an hour and a half. The session aimed to encourage use of a wide range of sources and balanced use of traditional sources such as books, with appropriate use of the internet where the students were encouraged to use subject portals such as HUMBUL, rather than using a search engine. The main benefits to the students are that they are encouraged into the LRC at an early stage in their course and are welcomed and supported in their use of the LRC resources. Also, they are helped to make the 'quantum leap' to Level 3 study. The tutor feels that the workshop contextualises what the students have learnt during their induction session and makes the LRC's resources relevant to their study. Finally the tutor mentioned that the students felt that they were learning skills that they would carry over into Higher Education. Liasing with LRC staff was seen as the best way to ensure appropriate support for their course and their students and intends to continue arranging the workshop in its current format for future students.

ii: Richard Thackray- Tutor Basic Skills Courses

Richard's students are mostly young people who have missed out on some mainstream education and need to improve their basic literacy and numeracy. The course is pitched below NVQ level 1. The students on this course do not complete assignments in the traditional sense but have a list of tasks to complete. As well as receiving a tailored LRC induction session a member of the LRC staff devised a basic internet session for the students (a modified version of the IT induction that other students receive) and a quiz for the students to complete, using examples that were interesting and relevant to them (i.e. they were asked to find the official website for the pop group 'STEPS' and Manchester United Football Club, and the cost of admission to Bristol Zoo). The quiz required a minimum of reading and writing. These IT induction classes took maximum of six students and could even be one to one depending on students ' needs. The session lasted approximately one hour and was not compulsory but Richard ensured that his students attended because he felt it was important as the students were often not computer literate. The close attention and support provided was ideal for these students. Richard also used a free online service called 'My Class' which provides a similar service to a virtual learning environment, but is very icon-driven and so is easier for his students to use. The service is free and funded by on-screen advertising. Using this service Richard's students recorded their tasks, including the internet quiz. Initially the LRC support for the students came about due to Richard having a good relationship with LRC staff, and needing some space to hold classes on IT related subjects for the students. Richard mostly communicated with LRC staff via email to discuss the content of the session and values this tailored approach that they offer which is sensitive to the needs of his students, i.e: simple language used, minimal reading and writing necessary, understanding of some students' lack of computer literacy and 'fear' of computers. Such students have become very keen on using the LRC to study and feel comfortable asking the LRC staff for help. Richard felt that LRC staff were well-suited to this kind of training and were, in his own words 'all for building bridges' and working collaboratively. A perfect example of this is the 'Book Review' task that his students have worked on, which encompasses IS and IT, and begins and ends in the LRC. Students first visit the LRC where staff demonstrate how to find books. Then each student selects a book, reads it and writes a review of the book on a PC, including scanning and uploading the cover image. They then laminate their finished, printed review and these are then displayed in the LRC. Richard liked the 'circularity' of this task and the fact that the students could see their work displayed in an environment in which they felt 'at home'. Richard plans to continue arranging the sessions as he feels they have been practical, productive, relevant to the students and very successful, and he hopes to build on that success in the future.

Piloting and Evaluation

Though there has been no formal evaluation of the workshops, every effort is made to get feedback from both students and tutors after the workshop, and feedback from staff has been extremely positive. The LRC staff hope to do some research in the future to find out if students' work on the assignment is improved by attending the workshop. Student feedback on the assignments was extremely positive. Four students on a 'Return-to-Study' course for over 21's and one student on an NVQ level 3 Administration course were interviewed about their experience of the Assignment Based Workshop. All the students were very pleased with the workshop and other support they had received, with some students describing them as 'fantastic' and 'the best part of the course so far'. Linking information skills not only to a subject but to an actual piece of practical work seems to make them much more meaningful to students. Generally the students reported that the workshops genuinely helped them with their work and encouraged them to use resources they would otherwise not have known about. The 'Return-to-Study' students had participated in a workshop to support an assignment about the novel 'Great Expectations'. For the session the LRC staff member used resources from the LRC to paint a picture of Bristol in the time the novel is set in order to give the students some personal insight into the social conditions of the time. The students were also pleased that the sessions covered use of traditional resources such as books as some admitted that they were not keen on using computers. The students thought the workshop was 'brilliant' and reported that they were much less daunted by the assignment after the session. The students also commented on the respect with which they were treated by LRC staff, which they were very grateful for. The induction and Assignment Based Workshops seem to have affected the opinions the students have towards the LRC, with one student saying that she now found the LRC 'incredibly useful' and another directly citing her use of the LRC as being the main reason why her work had improved. The Administration student felt that her session (which supported an assignment which required the students to do a presentation on health and safety) had been of great benefit in increasing her confidence and providing her with some starting points in terms of resources to base her presentation on. She had previously studied at another college and felt that the support the LRC provided at City of Bristol College was incomparable to her previous experiences. All students found the LRC staff helpful and welcoming and admitted that they had not expected this to be the case (based on their experience of school libraries) and felt that the centralising of library resources, study support and PC access was convenient and beneficial. They all also felt that the skills they had acquired in the LRC would help them both with future study and in their careers.

Key Challenges

There are still some areas (such as admin/business and some other vocational courses) where less interest in the workshops has been expressed than in other subjects, and the team hope to build up their work in these areas. Also the LRC teams have promoted the workshops to staff as providing important skills which will help their students in their work on whichever subject they are studying, rather than implying that they are teaching the subject 'Information Skills'. However they stressed that generally teaching staff are positive about LRC staff running these sessions and that the role of the LRC staff is valued by teaching staff. This was certainly borne out by our interviews with academic staff. The LRC assistants did mention that maintaining control and discipline in the sessions is very occasionally a challenge, but having the tutor and either one or two LRC staff present helps with this. Additionally LRC staff encourage tutors tisee the sessions as a valid part of their students' learning, and not a 'babysitting' opportunity.

The Future

The LRCs' plan to continue to offer the Assignment Based Workshops and to continually improve and adjust the content to suit the audience. There are some curriculum areas where little interest in the workshops has been shown so far and the LRC staff hope to attract more tutors from these areas in the future. There has recently been a surge in the number of workshops requested, probably due to the College recently undergoing inspection- an indication that teaching staff are beginning to see the importance of IS as a significant part of their course. LRC staff are looking at the possibility of OCN accreditation. Ideally the LRC staff would like the Assignment Based Workshop to be compulsory for all full-time students, but would require additional staffing to realise this.