Reference Services Reviewlindsay-oneill.com/downloads/RSR-Deploying a...Reference Services Review Deploying a WordPress-based learning object repository to scale up instruction and

Reference Services Review

Deploying a WordPress-based learning object repository to

scale up instruction and effect a culture of sharing

Journal: Reference Services Review

Manuscript ID RSR-10-2016-0059.R2

Manuscript Type: Original Article

Keywords: Case Study, Technology, Teaching, Repository, University Libraries, Design

and development

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsr



Deploying a WordPress-based learning

object repository to scale up instruction

and effect a culture of sharing

Abstract

Purpose

Instruction librarians develop a tremendous amount of instructional materials (i.e. learning objects)

when they prep for teaching, and are often happy to share when asked. This paper describes an

academic library’s successful implementation of a WordPress-based learning object repository that

facilitates widespread sharing of learning objects, allowing librarians to save prep time and to scale up

our library instruction program. Both practical and technical implications of using WordPress software as

a repository platform are discussed.

Design/methodology/approach

WordPress is free, open-source software that may be used as a platform for a learning object repository.

By using WordPress software to create a public index of content hosted on a server, the library created a

learning object repository that features a record for each learning object which contains metadata about

the object’s format, content, and accessibility. The WordPress platform/repository is also expandable,

through additional free and paid plug-ins, to function as a simple Learning Management System that

may also issue badges.

Findings

As a result of implementing a learning object repository, librarians save time prepping for classes by

reusing or adapting their colleagues’ work, librarians are able to offer tutorials to online students, and

the repository also serves as a showcase for the library instruction program.

Originality/value

Many academic libraries are feeling increased pressure to scale up library instruction and serve more

online students. This paper illustrates a case study of how one library uses an easy-to-implement and

low-budget learning object repository to make progress towards these goals.

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Introduction This paper describes a case study at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), a large regional

institution in southern California. As of fall 2016, nearly 40,000 students were enrolled (Keung & Selleck

2016). CSUF’s library has 15 instruction librarians that teach about 600 one-shot library instruction

sessions a year. With such a large student body and limited librarian staff, the library instruction

program is only able to reach a small percentage of the students. For example, librarians only teach one-

shots to about one-third of the campus’ English 101 students. In-person information literacy instruction

is limited, and there are also hundreds of online classes that are underserved by the library instruction

program.

In mid-2014, the library hired the author as its first-ever Instructional Design Librarian (IDL). The IDL

assessed the library’s instructional strengths and weaknesses, and found that the library did not have

up-to-date digital learning objects, and what was available was extremely limited. For example, the

newest video on the library’s YouTube channel was from 2011, and the rest were much older. It was

clear that not only did the library need to ramp up their online instructional offerings, but the library

also needed new and more flexible platforms to host and share digital content, i.e., a repository.

Literature Review A digital repository is simply “a collection of items in digital format” (Khosrow-Pour 2013, p. 276). These

items don’t have to be located all on the same server. They might be located several places across the

web. What distinguishes a repository is that the collection is accessed via a single online catalog

(Khosrow-Pour 2013, p. 276). Repositories can serve many different purposes and meet many different

needs. Many colleges and universities have or are interested in launching institutional repositories,

which are “digital collections capturing and preserving the intellectual output of a single or multi-

university community,” (Crow 2002, p. 1). These are large collections designed to hold many different

formats and types of materials.

In contrast, a learning object repository (LOR) is a unique kind of repository. Many institutional

repositories focus on “‘traditional’ materials such as theses, dissertations, images, video, or data sets,”

but a learning object repository serves as a shared collection of instructional materials and digital

learning objects (Cervone 2013). Additionally, LOR often require contributors to assign a Creative

Commons license or another type of open license to their work, so that contributions become Open

Educational Resources (OER) and are clearly labeled for reuse by others.

A LOR is useful for faculty teaching both online and in-person. Examples of learning object repositories

include Merlot.org, a project of the California State University system that was founded in 2000, and

OERcommons.org, launched in 2007 by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in

Education. OER included in these repositories includes syllabi, lectures (slide decks as well as recorded

lectures), activities, simulations, tutorials, and even full courses.

Reusing and sharing resources results in less duplication of effort, saving faculty valuable prep time

(Maloney et al. 2013, p. 814). Time is precious for faculty. Publicly funded institutions are constantly

being asked to do more with less, while at the same time being asked to increase their focus on student

success, often through innovative student-centered instructional methods, which means a learning

curve for many faculty and the need to do a lot of new lesson prep (Schell and Burns 2002).

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Unfortunately, common practice for many faculty is to only share their materials on an informal basis,

granting a close colleague access to a PowerPoint or a few handouts at a time. Faculty do not share or

collaborate much with colleagues outside their own departments (Maloney et al. 2013, p. 812). But even

this limited inclination to share may be leveraged to support an LOR, for “fundamental to the OER

movement is an individual's desire to borrow and share resources, and for institutions to cultivate

collegiality” (Rolfe 2012).

Using OER offers a lot of benefits to time-pressed faculty, but there is a lot of confusion and resistance

to voluntarily sharing instructional materials with strangers via the web. Fortunately, OER awareness

among faculty continues to grow as free OER content in repositories continues to grow. In a 2015-16

survey, 42% of faculty stated that they were somewhat aware, aware, or very aware of open

educational resources (Allen & Seaman 2016). This is an increase from 2014-15, when 34.1% of faculty

were at least somewhat aware (Allen & Seaman 2016).

While institutional-level incentives for creating OER remain rare, there are benefits to those who create

and distribute OER. Sharing instructional resources can “provide positive exposure and self-promotion

to colleagues, thereby enhancing employment prospects” (Maloney et al. 2013, p. 814). Many faculty

worry about destroying the commercial value of their work by releasing it for free, but proactively

attaching an open license to a work and releasing it online can prevent plagiarism, since the license will

include the author’s information and re-users are more likely to credit the creator. Attaching an open

license can also help faculty prove plagiarism of their work if it is reused maliciously, since their work will

be easily searchable and discoverable on the web (‘A Basic Guide’ 2011).

A benefit of hosting a local repository is that it can also serve as a showcase of instructor quality and

innovation and may also help recruit and retain new librarians. Repositories can help “demonstrate the

scientific, societal, and economic relevance of its research activities, thus increasing the institution's

visibility, status, and public value” (Crow 2002). Librarians considering employment with a particular

institution may find such a public instructional resource appealing. A readily available collection of

lesson plans and other learning objects may also help new librarians adjust more quickly to their new

institution. Olsen and Crawford (as cited in Ponjuan, Conley, & Trower 2011, p. 321) found that faculty

that experienced higher stress in their first year were more likely to have lower job satisfaction in their

fifth year. This holds true as well for librarians that don’t have faculty status. Oud (2008, p. 260)

discovered that “a relatively high proportion of new librarians…indicated that they started work

knowing little or nothing about how to do effective library instruction.” It’s important to support new

instruction librarians because, just like all faculty, “long-term retention is affected in part by the

experiences of new employees during transition and adjustment to their new workplace” (Oud 2008, p.

260).

One way to support new librarians tasked with instruction is to provide them with examples and

instructional resources to draw upon when planning their own teaching. However, there are no known

LOR targeted to librarians at a single library, though it’s likely that materials are often shared informally

among librarians. There are a few repositories that exist that are dedicated to information literacy

materials including CORA (projectcora.org), PRIMO (primodb.org), and the inactive site ANTS

(ants.wikifoundry.com). CORA is a newer repository that collects research assignments, while PRIMO

and ANTS are both dedicated to multimedia tutorials. The repository MERLOT contains information

literacy-related teaching and learning materials as well.

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There are several well-developed platforms for creating repositories: D-Space and BePress are popular

options among academic institutions. Unfortunately, options like these require a lot of programming

work as well as a healthy budget. In our quest to implement a small-scale solution that would allow

sharing materials, a free open-source option seemed to be a good choice. WordPress software seemed

like it would fit the bill, especially because of the possibilities offered by additional plug-ins that can give

a WordPress site the ability to issue digital badges to learners that complete specific tasks, or even to

serve as small-scale Learning Management Systems.

This paper argues that implementing a small-scale learning object repository for a single library benefits

all librarians, may help a library retain librarians longer, and also make progress toward institutional

goals. A local LOR helps new librarians to understand the local instructional culture by being able to view

and reuse current instructional materials, lowering their stress level when adjusting to their new

workplace. A LOR may assist librarians tasked with teaching unfamiliar classes. And a LOR can also help

effect a culture change that prompts librarians to share more with their colleagues, fostering the ability

for overstretched library instruction programs to scale up.

A Design Thinking Scenario Each librarian at CSUF has faculty status and works independently to teach their one-shots, develop

materials, and liaise with their assigned campus departments. To new librarians, their new colleagues’

work is often largely invisible, especially since new librarians are largely left to their own devices. As of

2014, there were no easily findable lesson plans or handouts or other materials to draw upon at the

library. Librarians are often willing to share materials if asked, but it’s difficult for new librarians to know

who to ask or even what to ask for.

In 2014, when the IDL began employment, the official library YouTube was extremely dated, with the

newest video four years old. The IDL was very experienced in developing videos and interactive tutorials,

so she realized that a good part of her new role at the library would be to develop reusable learning

objects for librarians to use in instruction and to help the library serve online students.

Thus, the IDL began developing online tutorials that could be used in one-shots or in online courses. The

IDL was very fortunate that the library purchased a license for the authoring software Articulate

Storyline to develop interactive tutorials, but she quickly realized that a place to host them online was

needed. Because Storyline produces tutorials in Flash or HTML5 format, they need to be hosted on the

web or uploaded into a Learning Management System to be usable. They cannot be uploaded onto

LibGuides, though they could be embedded if server space was available to host them. At the time the

IDL began developing these tutorials, it was technologically possible to deploy them from Dropbox or

Google Drive (this is no longer the case) but it seemed more advantageous to provide a visual, user-

friendly interface for educators and students to access all available tutorials. Without a robust public

interface, the learning objects might as well not even exist because no one will be able to find them.

At the same time, two librarian colleagues expressed a desire for a place to host their own videos and

tutorials. They were unsuccessful in accessing and loading videos to the official YouTube channel due to

departmental politics, and they also had a need for web hosting also for HTML/Flash-based tutorials.

Other librarians expressed the desire to try out new technologies in their teaching, but were unsure

where to start.

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The library’s programmer kindly obtained permanent, stable, server space that facilitated making digital

learning objects available through the web. But this didn’t solve the problem of an interface for

accessing the learning objects. Using a content management system would provide a friendly interface

that would facilitate access to other librarians.

This turned out to be a “design thinking” scenario (‘Design thinking’ 2012). Creating a centralized

repository would solve a lot of problems at once: it would give librarians much needed web hosting, it

would help the library scale up instruction and better serve online students, and it might help promote a

more collaborative culture by encouraging librarians to share materials for the benefit of others (see

Figure 1).

Figure 1 - A design thinking scenario

In seeking a practical solution to eLearning needs, the IDL also began to pursue and encourage a broader

culture shift. The author wanted new librarians to feel supported, and she wanted to encourage a

culture of sharing.

Sharing is a larger trend in copyright. In the drive to reduce the cost of education, many academic

institutions, including ours, encourage faculty to explore no- or low-cost alternatives to expensive

textbooks and course materials. The most common way to identify these Open Educational Resources

(OER) is through the public license assigned to them, usually a Creative Commons license.

When an author creates something, she owns the copyright to it. The creator automatically has “all

rights reserved” unless indicated otherwise. The easiest way to let others use copyrighted work is to

assign a Creative Commons license – the creator chooses the level of openness, and states what others

are allowed to do with the work.

Libraries are champions of open initiatives, including OER. A great way to learn about OER is to create

and share OER.

Therefore, in our repository, contributors are asked to assign a Creative Commons license to their work.

This accomplishes two goals: first, other librarians know when they look at specific learning objects what

they can and can’t do with it without having to ask, and second, this effort educates librarians about

Creative Commons licenses and how to use them.

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Implementing WordPress WordPress is open source software that began its life as a blog platform. Now it’s grown to be a full-

featured content management system for which blogging is just one of many options. WordPress is

similar to content management systems like OU Campus, SharePoint, Drupal, or Joomla; what a user

creates with it is pretty much just limited by her imagination.

The WordPress brand name can actually refer to two different platforms: one is the open source

software that is used in this case study as a repository (available at WordPress.org), and the other is

WordPress.com, which is a freemium (meaning it has both free and paid options) hosting service for

simple websites and blogs. WordPress.com doesn’t offer nearly as many customization possibilities that

the WordPress software offers, even with the paid version.

Setting up the WordPress software on a local server may require the help of a programmer, especially if

you are unfamiliar with web programming or don’t have access to your institution’s servers. But the

beauty of WordPress is that once it’s up and running, it’s on your institution’s domain and no

programming knowledge is required to publish content. There are no subscription or other continuing

costs.

WordPress software is used as the basis for a very wide variety of websites, from individuals using it as a

professional portfolio, to businesses using it as a marketing platform and even as an online store or

reservation system. There are thousands of free themes and plugins to customize a local

implementation, and there are thousands more paid themes and plugins that offer features like

shopping carts, or the ability to issue badges.

The library’s programmer had to be enlisted to help to get server space and to install the WordPress

software. Once the programmer was done, we had a blank website loaded with the default WordPress

theme. The next step was to convert the site into a repository: a public, searchable collection of

content!

Themes

Once WordPress is installed, the site is plain but functional. Developers may increase usability or add

branding by installing a theme – there are thousands available for free. A WordPress theme changes the

look of a site and may also help structure a site for a given use. For example, there are many themes for

creating a personal portfolio. These themes tend to emphasize using images for navigation, and

individual posts feature a photograph and very little text. Of course, as WordPress was originally

blogging software, there are many themes available for creating a beautiful blog.

Our site currently uses a free theme called Gridster-Lite (many free themes are just minimalist versions

of fully featured paid themes, hence the appended “Lite”), but originally we used a free theme called

Portfolio Blog Responsive. The original theme wasn’t browseable enough to allow users to quickly

discover content. In contrast, Gridster-Lite creates a navigation page that allows users to browse by the

Featured Images attached to each post.

The LOR is really just a collection of digital records that describe and link to content. The WordPress site

really serves as an interface that facilitates public access to content stored on a server. Each record is

created as a separate post that is based on a template. Each post contains the learning object name and

link as well as descriptive metadata including learning objectives, format, accessibility information,

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creator, and Creative Commons license. The Gridster-Lite theme worked well for our site’s organization

by creating a very browsable interface that displays a small image along with a text description of each

learning object. The theme also allows the objects to be grouped by categories (an object can assigned

to more than one category), so that our learning objects are organized by type (e.g. handout or lesson

plan) as well as by instructional context (e.g. in-person, online).

The biggest challenge with using WordPress as a repository is the inability to implement a new theme

without breaking the site and rendering individual records unusable. It was difficult to change the theme

to Gridster-Lite from our original theme because the new theme had different features for each record

that didn’t align. Therefore, each post had to be edited individually to remove theme-specific

formatting. This was achievable because the site didn’t have more than 20 records, but it is

recommended to choose a theme and thoroughly test it before uploading lots of content.

Plugins

Adding plugins is easy. Like themes, there are many thousands of plugins available that, once installed

and activated, add new features to an existing WordPress site. For example, the freemium BadgeOS

plugin transforms a WordPress site into a pseudo-Learning Management System where learners can

complete short tasks to earn digital badges.

This project utilized several plugins to enhance functionality. Each plugin adds a feature that makes the

site function more like a full-featured repository. The plugin Advanced Search Widget allows a search

box to be embedded into the site’s sidebar that provides custom searches. We used the Widget to

provide a search box for searching only the tags assigned to each record, as well as a box that searches

all keywords across the site.

Akismet is a commonly used plugin that helps prevent spam comments and hostile logins. Many

repositories feature commenting and rating features for content re-users to provide a review of the

content. This feature helps improve the original OER by allowing re-users to suggest changes or

improvements. We chose to leave the commenting feature enabled on this site for this reason, and

appreciate having the Akismet plugin to prevents bots from leaving irrelevant and spammy comments.

In the quest to cultivate a well-used and healthy repository, the Jetpack plugin was implemented to

collect detailed visitor statistics. Using Jetpack, this site collects numbers and locations of visitors, as

well as which parts of the site are most visited. The site has received 2,829 visits since its inception in

2015, and our Keyword Generator research tool is the most visited object.

Finally, this site uses the plugin Simple Content Templates. This plugin allowed us to create reusable

templates to ensure site uniformity for individual posts/records. Uniformity is important for user

experience and also for ensuring that required information is included in each post.

Content Organization

Once the theme is installed and a record template created, the developer has to decide how to organize

content as it is loaded. When deciding on content organization, the site manager should consider the

intended audience and how they interact with materials. For this project, we assumed a faculty

audience that consisted mostly of local librarians. Repositories across the web were toured and

evaluated to get a sense of how multimedia content was organized elsewhere and used those as

inspiration for organizing this site’s content.

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The WordPress platform offers three ways to organize content: through pages, categories, and tags.

Pages make up the core of the WordPress site. The LOR uses four pages: a Welcome page that serves as

the main landing page, an About page, a Blog page for updates, and a Posts page that automatically lists

everything uploaded to the site (i.e., each post is an individual record).

Posts may be assigned to one or more categories, and any number of tags may be assigned to a post.

WordPress dynamically creates pages that contain only posts that belong to a certain category or tag

when a user clicks on that category or tag.

The LOR lists links to repository categories in the left sidebar, and also by allowing the user to search

only the tags assigned to each record, which include information related to format, author, audience,

and more (see Figure 2). The LOR is organized by categories that act as headings and subheadings to

organize content by method of instruction.

Figure 2 - Navigation sidebar for the LOR that shows categories

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Strategies for Implementation The best built repository is useless if it has no content, or if it has content from only one person. A

project like this will only succeed if the repository receives OER from many contributors. A healthy

repository should have lots of content from lots of people and receive frequent visitors.

The first key to success is facilitating access to the server space and to the WordPress site. Make your

colleagues aware of the repository, and make sure they know it’s perfect for hosting media files in

particular, which can be very large and often need to be on a web server so that others can use them. It

may be impossible to give colleagues direct access to the server, but there are workarounds.

The designer for this project utilized the freeware DropIt (www.dropitproject.com) to enable a

colleague’s occasional video contributions. DropIt can be configured to periodically scan a given local

folder for new files, and, when found, copy the new files to the public server. This software only runs

when the host computer is on, but allows a contributor to have nearly instant public web access to her

videos even without the repository manager’s intervention. Willing contributors may also share

materials via email or links to items in shared online folders so that they may manually be copied onto

the server. Records are created for automatically uploaded files at a later point.

The next key to success is to periodically remind colleagues that the repository exists and that it might

benefit them to use it. One way to do this is to share a link to the item’s record when a colleague asks

for a given document, so that next time she can find it herself. If a colleague mentions that she is

planning to teach a class, remind her that there are lots of materials in the repository that could be

reused, thus saving her time.

You may also encourage your colleagues to support the repository because by supporting the

repository, they are supporting new instruction librarians, they are supporting the library instruction

program, and they are supporting online students.

New instruction librarians have it rough. They are adapting to a new work environment, learning about

their new colleagues and how to work with them, learning their new library’s collections, and are also

trying to plan and teach library instruction sessions to a new student population. A healthy repository

supports new librarians by providing at least examples (or even better: instantly reusable materials) for

teaching library instruction sessions. Seeing the work of their new colleagues helps new librarians learn

how others teach and what the general expectations are for developing handouts or presentations.

Discovering reusable materials can also be a lifesaving timesaver for new librarians who are stressed out

by all of the demands suddenly placed upon them in a new work environment.

Supporting the repository also supports the library instruction program. Many faculty and even

institutional administrators don’t know that librarians teach, let alone how much they teach. A

repository of librarians’ instructional materials puts the librarians’ talents and breadth of instruction on

display – it makes the invisible (or not very visible) visible and explorable. Such a collection may serve as

a showcase for library instruction that also broadcasts how invested librarians are in student and

institutional success.

Finally, a repository like this also helps a library better serve online students. While much of the

available material might be geared toward in-person classes, such as handouts and PowerPoint

presentations, the repository might also contain digital learning objects, like videos or interactive

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tutorials. Placing these items online in a public and accessible location makes it very easy to share these

materials. Online handouts and tutorials can help scale up an instruction program and outreach to

online students. It’s an easy way to support online student success.

Currently, the LOR indexes a total of 34 learning objects created by six librarians (out of 15 total

instruction librarians). This repository is still a small collection, but several colleagues use and reuse

materials from this repository on a regular basis to teach their courses and just haven’t uploaded their

remixed materials. Librarians also share links to online tutorials to their faculty and students, and

materials are discoverable via Google so that the site has received thousands of views since its creation.

Conclusion WordPress is just one option for organizing materials, and there are pros and cons to choosing

WordPress for creating an online repository.

WordPress, of course, is not a “true” repository. It’s more of a content management system that

facilitates creating access to objects hosted on a server. The record for each item must be manually

created by hand, and careful thought must be put into categories and tags so that records are easily

searchable. Updating a WordPress site’s theme may be very difficult on a site with lots of content, if not

impossible, due to the varying features of each theme. Finally, a WordPress-based repository is a small-

scale solution. It is not practical to use this platform for anything larger than a single library or small

library system due to the time involved in manually developing each record.

But the pros outweigh the cons when a WordPress repository is implemented in a limited environment.

WordPress is infinitely flexible in terms of features and visual interface – there are thousands of free and

cheap themes and plugins to customize it for your institution. WordPress sites are crawlable by search

engines. Content stored on your site will appear in Google and Bing search results, unlike many

repositories that don’t get indexed. WordPress is very user-friendly and doesn’t require programming

knowledge. WordPress lets you retain control.

Implementing WordPress as a repository is cost-effective and not very time-intensive. Librarians may

also consider carving out their own niche in an institutional repository just for library-related LOR. The

benefits of creating a local LOR are great. A healthy LOR can help define local teaching culture, helping

new librarians to understand expectations and pedagogical mores at their new institution, and also

facilitate an indirect sort of mentoring by allowing senior librarians to share their materials with junior

librarians. Anything that can lower stress for new librarians will help lead to greater retention. A local

LOR can be a great source of pride and foster a sense of identity and community. A local LOR can also be

an indicator of commitment to quality teaching and learning practices both to local administrators and

to librarians considering pursuing employment at the institution.

There are lingering issues to explore when implementing a repository. Librarians don’t necessarily see

the value in sharing the instructional materials that they’ve developed, or don’t want to expose their

work to potential criticism (of course, these characteristics are typical of many faculty, not just

librarians). There also must be better ways to publicize this useful resource: perhaps it should be

marketed on the main library website, or shared more often with campus faculty. Finally, there must be

ways to make it easier to write and publish item records – perhaps by employing a student assistant, or

as part of an internship.

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In any case, as libraries are pressured more and more to show their value, innovations like local

repositories are a great solution to scale up a library’s instruction efforts and showcase their significance

to their campus communities.

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technology, vol. 20.

Schell, GP & Burns, M 2002, 'Merlot: A repository of e-learning objects for higher education', e-Service

Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 53-64.

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Figure 1 - A design thinking scenario

292x106mm (96 x 96 DPI)

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Figure 2 - Navigation sidebar for the LOR that shows categories

66x183mm (96 x 96 DPI)

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