Assignment 1 Learning journal

To be conducted Individually
Deliverable Posts on your learning blog
Length Posts: 500 words or three minutes
Weighting 50%
Submission method Post each activity to your blog
Due date Posts are due by 11.59pm Sunday in the week we cover the topic.

Posts will be marked at two check points:

  • Checkpoint 1: Week 7 (Sunday, 11.59pm)
  • Checkpoint 2: Week 14 (Sunday, 11.59pm)
Criteria Criteria sheets [Word]

Checklist

  • Week 2 post on participation in the learning community
  • 6 posts in weeks of your choosing out of Weeks 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13 (you can skip one week):
    • 1 program review related to the weekly topic
    • 1 service review related to the weekly topic
    • 1 Twitter chat champion post related to the weekly topic
    • 3 other posts related to the weekly topics
  • Week 14 post on your participation in the learning community
  • Minimum two comments or tweets each week (for a pass grade on contribution to the learning community)

Resources to help you with this assignment

Background

This unit is designed to allow you to critically explore a range of issues and trends related to design, development, deliver and evaluation of information programs and products.

Overview

There are two parts to this assignment:

    • Critical reflection blog posts (80 marks)
    • Participation (20 marks)

Detailed requirements

Part 1: Critical reflection posts (80 marks)

You will complete a total of eight critical reflection blog posts related to the weekly topics. You will write posts in

  • Weeks 2 and 14
  • 6 weeks of your choosing out of Weeks 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13 (you can skip one week).

How your activities will be marked

Your first four activities will be marked out of 40 and your second four activities will be marked out of 40.

What you need to do

Weeks 2 and 14

All students will respond to the same critical reflection prompt in Week 2 and 14.

Twitter chat champion

You must nominate one week in which you will be the Twitter chat champion. Sign up here by the end of Week 2. In this week you will actively participate in the Twitter chat and then write a critical reflection on your experience of the chat. This might involve picking up on one conversational thread and then giving that thread some further thought, possibly doing some reading about it, providing a critical discussion of the conversation, and adding your views to the discussion.

Program and service reviews
  • One of your activities must be a program review.
  • One of your activities must be a service review.
Other posts

For your other posts, you can choose a type of activity from the list below, or you can write a critical reflection on a topic off your choosing:

  • argue a point
  • program review
  • service review
  • issues-based reflection
  • trends reflection.
More on types of posts
  • Program review: You need to attend a program at a library or information organisation and critically review it. Please note: if your review is negative, it would be a good idea not to name the organisation.
  • Service review: You need to use a service at a library or information organisation and critically review it. Please note: if your review is negative, it would be a good idea not to name the organisation.
  • Twitter chat champion: In one week during the semester, you must actively participate in the Twitter chat and then write a 500 word critical reflection on what was discussed in the chat. You will be marked on your reflection.
  • Issues based reflection: Reflect on the cultural, economic, political, legal, ethical or other issues related to one of the types of programs, products or services covered in the nominated week.
  • Trends reflection: Write or record a reflection on one or more trends related to one of the types of programs, products or services covered in the nominated week. Note that you should aim for depth in your discussion, rather than breadth.
  • Argue a point of view: We’ll make one or more opinion or argument prompts available and you need to argue the case in a critical reflection post. If your peers respond to your post, you should respond to their comments.

Part 2: Participation (20 marks)

Participate in the online learning community by participating in Twitter chats, tweeting during the week, commenting on your peers’ blog posts, helping each other, and answering questions on Twitter or around the site.

To pass this part of the assignment, you must make at least two comments or tweets a week or engage in two other interactions (e.g. answering a question on the forum).

The fine print

How will the activities be marked?

At the end of Week 7, we’ll mark your posts to date out of a total of 40 marks.

At the end of Week 14, we’ll mark your posts to date out of a total of 40 marks.

Do I have to make a post every week?

No. You must complete a post in:

  • Week 2
  • Week 14
  • Six (6) weeks out of Week 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13

When do I have to complete the activities?

You must complete the post by 11.59pm Sunday the week we cover the topic.

But, you can edit your posts right up til they are marked at the checkpoints, at the end of Week 7 and the end of Week 14.

What if I’m late submitting my activities?

We aren’t ogres! In fact, we’re reasonable people who understand that sometimes life gets in the way of study. Talk to us in advance of the due date if you are experiencing issues.

We really, realllllly hate applying late penalties. Please don’t make us do it!

But if you do submit something late, here’s what will happen…

If you are late submitting a post and you didn’t get in touch with us, we have to consider it a late submission.

Your posts are worth a total of 80 marks and there are eight (8) posts in total. If you do not submit one post or are late submitting one post, we will deduct 5 marks from your total mark for this assignment.

So please don’t be late and don’t miss a post completely!

Remember, you can edit your posts right up til the checkpoints, when we mark them, so just get something up by the due date and polish it up later.

31 Comments

  • Anitra 30 July 2016 at 2:07 pm

    Thanks for all the detailed info, I have been thinking about the Program & Service reviews and wondering if I could then link to the weekly topic as that could enhance my critical review (ie have some background) or is this being over ambitious? I have a list of possible programs & reviews but am a bit unsure which topic week would suit them best… I think this is because this is my 1st subject and i am getting my head around the new language.

    • Kate 31 July 2016 at 12:19 pm

      Yup, your reviews should be linked to the weekly topic, so not over ambitious at all. It’s a good idea to plan ahead, particularly for the program review post, so you can make sure you can attend something in time to write a post on the related topic.

      I think you’ll have a better idea of where to position things after this week’s class, where I’m going to talk a bit about programs, products and services and what is what.

  • Karina Rivett 31 July 2016 at 12:09 pm

    Here it says that the blogs are marked in Week 7, but the schedule has it in Week 8. Which is it?

  • Bec 2 August 2016 at 3:27 pm

    Hi Kate and Clare, just regarding the blog topics. So there’s 8 total. 2 of them are the ‘intro’ and ‘outtro’ reflections of the unit. 1 has to be a product review. 1 has to be a service review. 1 has to be twitter chat champion. The other 3 can be any style we like? Thank you!

  • Stephanie Harland 3 August 2016 at 2:14 pm

    Hi Kate, I’m a little confused about this week’s post and week 14. Are we basically reviewing what we learnt in the lecture for week’s 2 and 14? I’m also a little confused as whether we are required to use referencing for this assessment? Cos, I recall you saying you don’t like bibliographies, you’d rather us link citations in the posts.

  • Helen Treherne 12 August 2016 at 10:06 pm

    Hi Kate and Clare,

    So this week, Week 3, we write about Reference Services or Reference Programs or both? Is the blog to be a reflective post, with critical analysis of the service or program, and supported by the week’s readings and other research?
    Or are we to write two separate posts – one on a service and one on a program?
    Do those services or programs need to be grouped under a common term like ‘subject guides’ or ‘cite/write’ for example?
    I had a plan for this blog but have been confused by the post this afternoon as to the requirement for this assignment. I am sorry – I may be missing something on the site – I’ve checked here and on the assignment criteria sheet and on the weekly materials pages, but I am not clear on the requirements.

    Thanks, Helen

    • Kate 13 August 2016 at 2:24 pm

      You just need to write a post on something to do with this week’s topic. It can be anything at all related to reference that interests you. I put some topics related to reference on the Week 3 page to help you with identifying a topic to write about. http://2016.informationprograms.info/learning-materials/week-3-reference/

      We’ve also suggested a bunch of different post types that you could write (also listed on the Week 3 page and the Assignment 1 page) but you aren’t limited to these.

      At some point during the semester, you must do a post that is a service review and a post that is a program review, but you can choose any week to do those.

      Hope this helps, but let me know if you have any further questions.

  • Tim Tillack 14 August 2016 at 9:39 am

    Hi Kate,

    I’ve gone to enter all due dates into Trello and can’t figure out which date is Week 7 or Week 14. The due dates just say:

    Checkpoint 1: Week 7 (Sunday, 11.59pm)
    Checkpoint 2: Week 14 (Sunday, 11.59pm)

    Can you please advise the actual dates too?

    My calendar is my life-saver, so need to have this locked away.

    Cheers!
    Tim

    • Clare T 15 August 2016 at 12:16 pm

      Week 7 checkpoint due Sunday Sept 11 at 11:59pm
      Week 14 checkpoint due Sunday Nov 6 at 11:59pm.

      Weeks run Monday to Sunday in this course.

  • Tim Tillack 14 August 2016 at 10:48 am

    Hi Kate,

    Struggling to find a program time for which I am available for my blog post. Plenty going on around Stonnington Libraries – the public libraries around where I live, but I’m away from home on business Mon-Thurs every week. However, there is a Poetry Slam event on Friday, Sept 2nd which I can make, but it doesn’t tie into that week’s topic: Reading and Literacy. Perhaps fits more under Week 5: Designing programs, products and services?

    No problem with finding a service for reflection – I’ve pinged my local libraries to see if they offer a Reader Advisory service, so will take that approach. Failing that, I could use the Ask-a-Librarian service at QUT for Week 11: Research Support – also the week, I am a Twitter Champion.
    Thanks,
    Tim

    • Kate 15 August 2016 at 10:58 am

      I think a poetry slam totally works for reading and literacy – that’s a really good option.

      • Tim Tillack 15 August 2016 at 11:01 am

        Oh great, it fits with the theme then. I’ll lock it in now as they have limited spaces.

  • Imbi 19 August 2016 at 5:56 pm

    Hi Kate / Clare,
    My apologies, I sent this as an email, then realised I should have posted it here.
    I just have a question about doing our program and service reviews. Do they have to fit in with the topic of the week we post them in? Because I was hoping to do a review of Borrow box for a service and I can’t really see a week that I could match it with the topic, except maybe week 6 – Designing programs and services. But I’m not sure how well it would match. Also, for the program review I was thinking of reviewing a Baby Rhyme Time session, which would fit in with the children and teens week. But I’m twitter chat champion that week. Can I do a program review as well, or do I need to focus on the twitter chat happenings….?
    Thanks 🙂

    • Kate 20 August 2016 at 8:36 pm

      Hi Imbi

      Yep, your posts have to be tied to that week’s topic, and yes, you do need to focus on the Twitter chat in your Twitter chat week.

      If you want to do baby rhyme time, you could do that in the reading and literacy week.

      BorrowBox is an interface for a collection so I think it is actually more of a product than a service – which is ok as we don’t really mind if you do a product instead of a service. You might be able to fit it in somewhere depending on what angle you take on it. That might also fit in the reading and literacy week.

      You can swap to a week where we have less Twitter chat champions if that makes things easier for you.

      Also, don’t forget you only need to write a post in the Twitter chat weeks. For Designing programs, products and services, we have a class, so no post that week. Also note we moved that topic to Week 5. Please make sure you are working off the updated schedule.

      • Imbi 20 August 2016 at 9:57 pm

        Thank you Kate 🙂 I will try to do borrow box in wk 6 (Reading & Literacy) and if I can change my Twitter chat champion week I’ll do Baby Rhyme Time in the Children & Teens week. Could I change to wk 11 (Research Support) for Twitter champ? Thank you for your reply on spam issue too.

  • Imbi 20 August 2016 at 11:45 am

    Hi Kate / Clare,

    I have all of these spam comments in my blog. There is an error message at the top of the page that says:
    Akismet has detected a problem. Some comments have not yet been checked for spam by Akismet. They have been temporarily held for moderation and will automatically be rechecked later. Please check your Akismet configuration and contact your web host if problems persist.

    It also says I need an API key?

  • Karen Eyre 30 August 2016 at 9:43 pm

    Definitional question – Is the “First 5 forever” a program or a service?

  • Ibtisam 8 October 2016 at 9:22 pm

    Hi Kate and Clare,

    My apologies, I sent this as an email, then realised I should have posted it here.

    Actually, I feel confused while trying to choose a program to review for the next three weeks’ themes. So, I would like to ask you few questions in this regards please.

    * In week 12, I will be one of the twitter champions, is it possible to write my program review post about week 12 theme in week 11 or 13 (which will be about children and teens program?
    because in week 12, my post will be about the twitter chat.

    * If it is not possible, is it ok to write a program review about Advanced Information Research Skills (AIRS) workshops which, I think it is related to research support theme, and QUT library offers it for PHD students and researchers

    unfortunately, I am not eligible to attend this program but my husband attended it, and I want to write about his experience, if it is ok!

    Any advice will be appreciated.

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