Writing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

I’m currently in the middle of writing a number of staff facing Frequently Asked Quesstions (FAQs) to support some work integrating Moodle with Turnitin.

The process of developing clear and consise instructions for end users took me back to some thoughts I drafted some time ago related to good practice for writing FAQs. This advice follows below.

Background

An FAQ is essentially a Frequently Asked Question.”FAQs are organized “collections” of valuable information that usually comes from questions (and their corresponding answers) for the most common issues raised by users, on various topics.” [1]

Since mid-2008, the e-Learning team at the University of Bath has successfully utilised the open source application phpMyFAQ to power its Moodle FAQ database. With tens of thousands of FAQs views so far, it has proved to be a useful resource, not only for staff and students but for the wider Moodle community.

In light of this success, the e-Learning team are launching a new FAQ database focused on a range of complementing learning technologies during early 2010.

Tips for writing FAQs

• Write from the point of view of the person reading the FAQ. What do they need to know to complete a given task, and why?
• Less is more: don’t use twenty words, when five will do. Be concise in your explanations.
• If your text explanation is lengthy, break it up into paragraphs. Use section headings if they make the content easier to break down.
• Bulleted or numbered lists always make instructions easier to follow. If appropriate, divide these lists up into small lists as illustrated at: http://go.bath.ac.uk/hvx2. Within lists, you may wish to embolded key terms (e.g. the text of buttons or links)
• If possible, avoid using screenshots as these often have to be updated when the application software is upgraded. Instead, use directions instructions – for example, “click on the Turn Editing On button near to the top right hand corner of the page”.

More information

Further details on writing a good FAQ can be found at: http://www.avangate.com/articles/writing-faq_89.htm

How do I support Panopto pedagogically?

A discussion towards the end of last week sparked off some thoughts in my head about how I have been supporting Panopto, our Lecture Capture solution, and how I might continue to do so in the future.

In particular, much of the work that I have been involved with in the last six months or so, have been concerned with operationalising Classroom Technologies as a whole, with an underlying emphasis of the pedagogical principles behind such a deployment.

[For those who are interested, I have both presented and written about the the operationalising side of my work within the last 3-4 months.]

And whilst I feel strongly that this part of my work continues to be important, and needs to be maintained, I am realistic enough to appreciate that being part of an educational development unit entails a responsibility to the academic community where pedagogical enhancement should be the centre of much of what I do.

Very simply, I’ve thought about how (and why) I support Panopto in particular, with a set of Inputs and (Pedagogically focused) Outputs from and to our staff development model.

Inputs

• Webinars – I am fairly new to the area of lecture capture, and have been keen to upskill in this area. A range of webinars, both specific to Panopto and not, have been appearing in a variety of places over the last few months. One such source has been the ViTAL Special Interest Group (SIG), which is focused on the use of video in education. Recent webinars have focused on the deployment of Panopto at Imperial College London, and another on “webinar visited some of the pedagogical questions raised by new(ish) technologies such as lecture capture”. My aim is to watch these webinars (usually a recording, unfortunately), jotting down some notes along the way. Questions can always be followed up with presenters either during the session, or afterwards.
• Distributors – I’ve always been keen to build good working relationships with the distributors of such technologies, both with the UK-based people, and sometimes, with those in the US too. Whilst their approach can sometimes be sales focused, their published case studies often provide invaluable pedagogically sound reasons for the deployment of such technologies. Such strands can subsequently be developed locally at institution level.
• Blogs & Tweets – This area really shouldn’t be underestimated. Much of the Lecture Capture-related work that I’ve been made aware of has been through a variety of RSS feeds, or through Twitter. Custom searches on Lecture Capture and Panopto, setup using Tweetdeck, have been incredibly useful in locating new, relevant and consistent sources of information.
• Papers & Journals - Lecture Capture has been around in several guises for a number of years, and some research in the area exists. Mostly it has been case studies, but occasionally, there’s a relevant paper that catches the eye.
• Special Interest Groups – As a Steering Group member of the ESTICT SIG has enabled me to connect with like minded individuals and teams around the UK HE sector. The ViTAL SIG, mentioned above, is also another source of interest. This aids the process of what is being discussed at other HEIs, both pedagogically and technically.

(Pedagogically focused) Outputs

• Classroom Technologies website – This is the central point of CT activity at the University of Bath.  The resource contains details on staff development,  service updates and session reports and case studies (often written by practitioners). It is the last item which is vitally important – academics are more likely to engage with the technology if they can identify with the benefits to their students.
• Staff Development – I facilitate a range of opportunities, which include a Using Technologies in Face to Face teaching workshop as well as our now renowned Masterclass seminars, which are co-trained with product distributors. Whilst it is easy to become diverted by the What? and the How? of such technologies, the Why? is always, always (said twice for reinforcement!) at the centre of what I promote. I often look to broader sector intitatives (assessment and feedback), the institutional Learning & Teaching Strategy (innovation) as well as the National Students Survey (timely feedback on learning) for inspiration, as well as drawing on local work (Bath-based research papers that have been presented at conferences).
• Presentations – I do my best to get involve and present information on Classroom Technologies at Departmental Meetings, or sessions for the programme for new lecturers. Often, the technology has to be the hook (it’s often rather shiny!) but emphasising how engaging in Lecture Capture can add value to the learning and teaching experience has to be discussed. Subsequent further meetings with those interested, often helps to draw out the valued added.
• Posters – Our Innovations Day 2011 with provide for a perfect opportunity to feed back current project progress colleagues, both those who have used Lecture Capture so far, and those who may wish to do so at the moment. This poster is likely to be based on a particular Semester 1 unit, where some quantitative and qualitative data, collected from students, is available to support any findings.
• Conferences & Papers – Inevitably, the buzzing conference scene is a useful place to disseminate any work undertaken at the University of Bath. My paper at the 6th Plymouth e-Learning Conference is focused more on technological deployment, but once academics become more comfortable with the technology, I feel that it will be easier to explore (and collaborate with them to apply) pedagogical models related to Lecture Capture. The flipped lecture is one that I’m especially keen to explore, for example.

Undoubtedly, this approach will continue to evolve as the months and years roll on. If your approach is similar, or different, why not leave a comment on this blog or drop me a line via email.

Five tips for successfully completing a portfolio

As part of my involvement as an assessor on The Bath Award, I regularly head along to Information Sessions where students can find out more about award, how it works and how to get started.

I contributed to the question and answer session towards the end of sessions usually, but yesterday, the arrangement was formalised a little further where I was given a 2-3 minute slot to give students some tips on how best to complete their portfolios.

I drew on the experiences of working to complete my own CMALT portfolio, which I hope to submit in late-April 2011.

1. Read through and understand the Bath Award guidance documentation including the Competency Skills Framework

Understanding the assessment criteria that the assessors are going to use to mark the portfolio is absolutely key. Read it, understand it… and if you don’t understand any aspect, ask for clarification from administrators or the assessors.

2. Plan how you’re approach writing the portfolio, including what evidence you’re likely to cite

I remember spending a good 3-4 hours noting down what I might write for each section within the CMALT Portfolio Submission Form. It’s easy to forget what one might’ve done and achieved over the time period that you’re likely to reflect upon for your portfolio. Working out what you’re going to write in each section also helps when you’re trying to build a story, or if you’re keen to avoid repeating yourself, and drawing on particular evidence too many times.

3. Set aside some time each week to work on the text

I’m doing my best to do this myself. Friday’s at 8.30am for a focused two hours seems to work for me. It seems to give me enough time to get into the writing zone and produce sometime of note – usually with The Chris Moyles Show as a soundtrack. A shorter time slot wouldn’t allow me to have the space to reflect on my practise, whilst I think that I’d tend to get side-tracked (responding to emails and the like) for anything longer. A defined end date also helps to focus efforts and the mind.

4. Prepare a draft and ask for feedback

This part is absolutely key. Both in the case of The Bath Award and CMALT, students are allowed two submissions, before the portfolio gets rejected outright. Usually, and if the first submission doesn’t meet the criteria, a second submission is allowed following feedback from the first. Why not approach The Bath Award assessors, or colleagues who have completed the CMALT already, to get additional feedback?

5. Submit!

Possibly the most difficult bit. If you’ve got all (or most of) the evidence to support your portfolio, and have already started writing the portfolio, it’d almost be crazy not to submit. The key is not to lose sight of the goal, when the finishing line might only be a couple of sprints away.

Now all that remains is for me to follow my own advice!

Exploring a Participatory Culture

Since the ESTICT@Bath event last November, I’ve been following our keynote, Derek Bruff, and his blog posts, a little more closely. In particular, I’ve been interested to hear his thoughts on concept of a Participatory Culture within learning and teaching when it comes to using Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) and linking this to deep learning.

Recently, I remember being struck by something Derek said in an interview with Inside Voice on this topic, namely,

“I think that for students too, it [agile teaching] can be a little intimidating. Their role is no longer to turn up to class, take notes and figure it out later. They’re being asked to put their thinking caps on, talk to the their neighbour. And so some students are resistant to this too, as it’s not the educational model that they’re used to.”

Derek goes on to cite the example of the American public watching, and engaging with, the television series, Lost. It wasn’t enough just to watch the show on television – people looked towards Facebook, Twitter and that sense of being part of a community, which added to the enjoyment of the show. This example of the Participatory Culture is one that could be transposed to a learning and teaching content, in particular where lecturers are using EVS as one of the mechanisms in which to engage their students.

In this EVS-backed lecturers, students are guiding lecture content by becoming actively involved in their learning – in conversation with not only their lecturer, but the students around them. They might be masters of their own destiny more than they believe – which the lines of the programme/unit description, of course! Mazur’s Peer Instruction Model lends itself to this approach because it encourages students to talk with their peers during a voting exercise. The process “involves students in their own learning during lecture and focuses their attention on underlying concepts” [further information].

I ran a TurningPoint 2008 Masterclass at the University of Bath last week, and along with a TurningPoint UK Account Manager, we ran participants though a range of things related to effective use of EVS, along with the nuts and bolts of the software. When revisiting the workshop in preparation for its next delivery though, I wonder if more needs to be made of the pedagogical models that can underpin the use of EVS.

(I might be being overly self critical here, but…) Currently, the pedagogical aspect could be perceived to be too much like an uncomfortable bolt on, where I guess, it needs to be more of a stripe through the toothpaste. This could then be applied through the Classroom Technologies initiative when looking though the “Why?” of how we might push the boundaries of the technologies within this scope. I’ve had a few thoughts on this area this morning, which I think, might make the basis of a good conference presentation sometime in the future.

Anyhow, if you’d like to find out more, Derek recently presented at Georgetown University titled Connecting with Participatory Culture, with his slides being available on Prezi.

Some Panopto related thoughts…

Earlier on this morning, I met with Sacha Goodwin, Recorded Media Manager at the University of Bath, who I work with on the lecture capture, Panopto, side of the wider Classroom Technologies initiative. A number of items were raised during the conversation, that I’d briefly like to mention and discuss here.

My colleague Vic Jenkins and I are currently constructing a Panopto related guidance document – a flowchart, if you will - which will link to web based FAQs, scenarios as well as pointers to Copyright and Intellectual Property (IP) related information.

In particular, the resource should help those academics looking to record their lectures for the first time. We intend to focus our effort in four broad areas: [1] Prepare, [2] Book,  [3] Capture and [4] Share.

Sacha suggested that rather than a flowchart, we go for something more cyclical which might also cover an archiving policy – thereby bringing the process back to a natural starting point.

As the University of Bath has just completed the first calendar year of the use of Panopto, certain archiving-related questions are only now being asked. The current line is  “we keep content until people tell us that they don’t want it anymore”. However, it is possible to that content may need to be retained in future in line with the university retention schedule, where recordings are archived after a certain period.

An example of a Panopto-captured lecture

On a related note, these recordings are being requested in the main by individual lecturers who wish to have their lecture recorded to support student learning. Sometimes, students themselves are requesting for lectures to be captured, usually for reinforcement, revision or accessibility reasons. Two thoughts come to mind:

• What is the correlation between the number of recordings per unit, to the number of students per unit and, indeed, the (unique and total) viewings of this recordings?
• In fact – Are students following through with requests for recordings with views? That is, is the content actually being viewed? Or do student just like having the option to watch content… without actually doing so?!

Over the last 2-3 years, an in my role as also supporting Moodle, the institutional VLE, we have often received emails from along the lines of: “Is my unit content [PowerPoint slides, PDFs, links to e-resources) available on Moodle?” Yesterday, I saw an email from a lecturer whose student asked: “Is your lecture being recorded using Panopto?”. It’s almost as Panopto is the next part, the next stage.

Is this the first step to that bottom up approach of interest in Panopto, become something more top down where Departments or Faculties schedule recordings of lecturers automatically, as a matter of course? I seem to remember the deployment and uptake of Moodle followed a similar path, such that most undergraduate and postgraduate units now have an associated course.

I’d be really keen to hear from those colleagues at other HEIs, where their use of a lecture capture solution is more advanced, particularly if they’re using Panopto.