LI844 Tracking Information Literacy sessions

1. Garrett K. Drake Designing a database to efficiently track information literacy sessions LI844 Tracking Information Literacy sessions

2. Target Organization Butler Community College 5000 Library Services Project: Database of Pending/Complete Instructional SessionsContact People: Micaela Ayers, On-Site Instructors, MyselfDescription/Justification:My library has opened a new sort of "Library Nook" at another location which is intended to provide a variety of services including Course Reserve, Research assistance, and Library Instruction. We are enjoying many service requests and one of the major things we do is orientation and instruction sessions. Many instructors have specific resources they'd like us to emphasize or skip and it's getting difficult to keep everything straight. In the past, an old-fashioned physical calendar, jotted notes and memory were sufficient. My Director agrees that it's time to design a database to keep track of pending and complete sessions as well as individual instructor's needs.

3. Interview I interviewed myself and my Director Micaela Ayers What would you say is our primary goal at 5000 library services is?Our Primary goal is to facilitate student learning in whatever way possible. Essentially that means providing guidance throughout the research process that 1st and 2nd year college students undergo, providing info literacy sessions for classes, virtual reference and collection development for instructors.What information is tracked currently?A paper calendar is used to track instructor info literacy sessions. Tally sheets and a spreadsheet are used to track usage statistics. Could you break those down? What exactly do each of those entail?The info literacy sessions generally have an instructor’s name, contact number, class number, dept type, Time, Location, approximate number of students and any notes about special focuses that the instructor would like. The tally on usage is broken down into Virtual reference, General help and Research Help with dates listed.

4. Interview Pt. 2 What would you like the ideal database setup to accomplish *braces for unreasonable expectations*?It would be great to be able to pull up usage statistics for a given period of time. Maybe we could enter them at the end of the week. It would be great to begin keeping more detailed track of the info lit sessions and I think that more detailed notes would be great for that. I’d like to be able to develop a satisfaction rating and then pull up how satisfied instructors in the English department are with our services, for example or to be able to review notes on an instructor before going to the session. Sometimes it’s hard to communicate those little details in the limited space we currently have. Finally, it would be great to track use more effectively to gauge how well various promotional endeavors are going.How many people would be using this database?Two Reference Librarians and Two Paras

5. Artifacts • Current Database

6. Mission Statement The purpose of the information literacy database is to track all pending and complete information literacy sessions in as much detail as possible. But what Specific Objectives will guide us on this course?

7. Mission Objectives 1-Complete Instructor contact information must be maintained 2-Complete Information literacy sessions must be tracked 3- Pending Information literacy sessions must be tracked 4- The number of students in each session must be tracked 5- Sessions at both locations must be tracked simultaneously 6- Staff member contact information must be maintained 7- One staff member must be assigned for one information literacy session 8-One staff member can be assigned to one session at a time 9- One session lasts a minimum of thirty minutes 10- Staff members should be assigned based on availability

8. Mission Objectives continued 11- Availability is determined by the staff members weekly schedule 12- Availability is determined by the staff member's location 13- Satisfaction level of faculty must be tracked for each completed session 14- Instructor department information must be tracked 15- A general satisfaction level within departments needs to be produced 16- A general number of students presented to must be produced

9. Current Database Assessment The current system is a paper-based operational database compromised almost entirely of a Desk Calendar and a series of chaotic sticky notes. The data is organized chronologically so that days and sessions are crossed off, leaving the current day and it's pending information literacy sessions and other events readily visible. Regularly, sessions are recorded with the characteristics of time, Instructor name, number of students, brief notes about the session and sometimes a contact number in case things go awry.

10. Instructor Instructor ID# Instructor Name Instructor Phone# Instructor Email Instructor Session Notes Preliminary Tables/Fields Staff Staff ID# (PK) Staff Name Staff Phone # Staff Email Staff Time/Day/Location Available

11. Satisfaction Satisfaction ID# (PK) Rating 1-5 Preliminary Tables/Fields Dept Name Dept ID# (PK) Dept Satisfaction Dept Session Notes

12. Session Table Cont'd Satisfaction ID# (FK) Time Preliminary Fields/Tables Session # of Students Location 5000/6000 fixed Pending/Complete/Cancel Date (xx/xx/xxxx) Staff ID# (FK) Instructor ID# (FK) Session ID# (PK)

13. Business Rules Field Specific 1.) # of Students must never be a null value 2.) Location is fixed at either 5000 or 6000 3.) All sessions must either be Pending, Complete or Canceled 4.) Date is always in fixed form xx/xx/xxxx 5.)Time will be a fixed matrix of 10 possible options 6.) Satisfaction is fixed at 1-5

14. Business Rules 7.) Instructor Name, Phone,and Email fields must never be null 8.) Staff Name, Phone and Email fields must never be null 9.) Calculated fields should allow for a Dept Satisfaction average rating 10.) #of Students served in a particular date range should be visible

15. Database Structure

16. Process? Table relationships were somewhat complicated at the beginning of the design process but it was decided that each should link to the Session table. The session table had a number of one to many relationships with all other tables. Session tables will likely be the most numerous and will contain most of the raw data needed to determine average satisfaction ratings for Instructors, Departments and Staff through calculated fields. The time field was determined to be a simplified matrix to bypass complicated visual basic programming needed to automatically populate the Staff ID# field.