Historyof the ProjectThis project was an outgrowth of aninitiative started by the COPPUL Distance Education Information LiteracyWorking Group. The group has been in existence since 1998 when itbegan to look at ways in which institutions could collaborate in theprovision of Information Literacy to Distance Education Students.
The first initiative undertaken by thegroup was the creation of their DoingResearch from a Distance online tutorial. It was a comprehensiveinformation literacy tutorial that discussed finding information,evaluating information, citing information, etc. Despite themarketing of it to our Distance Education Students, it was clear by 2004that the tutorial was getting very little use.
At the same time, newer technology thatallowed librarians to quickly capture search screens, add audio or text,and highlight or point to pertinent areas of a search screen, came intoexistence. This technology was identified as being more userfriendly and more interactive. It would also allow librarians to createPoint of Need tutorials for highly used electronic resources; but it wasrecognized that creating and updating an Animated Tutorial for eache-resource would require a lot of work. As a result, in 2004, theCOPPUL Distance Education Information Literacy Group was asked to lookinto ways to enable librarians to collaborate in the development of Pointof Need Tutorials.The group met in September 2004 - alongwith the Chair of the COPPUL Public Services Group. Several itemswere identified for development or follow up and by the Spring of 2005these undertakings were completed.The group subsequently made a presentationabout the project to the COPPUL Public Services Group in November 2005 andreceived some very positive and helpful feedback in the process.This feedback was been integrated into the overall plan for the projectthat is now underway. Sharingother Learning Objects in DSpaceOne question asked by Public ServicesLibrarians in November was whether or not other Learning Objects could beadded to DSpace. After discussing the issue we now wish to say thatanyone wishing to share other Learning Objects can register for DSpace andadd them to the COPPUL Tutorials site.