Canvas Research Modules: Meeting Students Where They Are

Since Fall 2020, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College librarians discovered some new post-COVID realities for our college including: more online asynchronous classes being offered; short semester sessions; the declining number of instructors requesting information literacy sessions for their classes; and fewer students visiting our campus libraries. During the Fall 2020 semester, librarians started to discuss how we could create research modules in our Canvas learning management system. Instructors could then request to be added to a specific Canvas research module so they can copy over the module into their course sections in Canvas. Considering the fact that the our librarians have historically collaborated most closely with English instructors and that most students are introduced to college level research in College Composition I, we decided to focus on creating a research module for this course first. In Spring 2021, librarians reached out to and collaborated with the English department head on specific information literacy skills to focus on in the module. The module was completed in Summer 2021 and includes seven short videos that cover: library databases vs. the open web, scholarly vs. popular articles, selecting & using keywords in your search, finding articles in the library databases, finding books, and evaluating resources. This research module was promoted to College Composition I instructors who then copied the module over into their Canvas College Composition I course sections the beginning of the Fall 2021 semester. During the Fall 2022 semester this research module was updated to include assessment in the form of quick check questions after each video as well as a 20 question quiz. This updated research module was promoted to College Composition I instructors the beginning of the Spring 2022 semester. Librarians will be reaching out to College Composition I instructors the end of the Spring 2022 semester to get their feedback on the updated module. Since Fall 2021, Reynolds librarians have also collaborated with instructors and created Canvas research modules for the following classes: Biology (created videos on scientific literacy and plagiarism); Culinary (created videos on finding culinary resources); History (created videos on finding primary resources); Nursing (understanding PICO and finding evidence-based research articles); and Political Science (created videos on finding political science resources). This session will cover how we collaborated with instructors from different programs on developing research modules for their classes, how we developed short videos for the modules using both Canva for Teams, a graphic design platform and TechSmith\u27s Camtasia, a screen recording and video editor; and our future plans for updating our current research modules and developing new research modules