iTunes U and YouTube – creating visual content collections to aid information
literacy
Andy Tattersall, University of Sheffield, [email protected]
In 2011 the University of Sheffield signed up part of its services to the Google Apps for
Education agreement, gaining individual YouTube accounts for all staff and students along the way. Whilst in 2013 it became one of the latest universities to adopt iTunes U as a host for its teaching materials. YouTube and iTunes U not only help teachers to support and teach
their students, but also offers many opportunities for library and information professionals to improve the information literacy in the academic community.
Creating and hosting video has become much easier in recent years and has allowed for more
creative ways of reaching students and academics. The purpose of this Teachmeet is to show the work Andy Tattersall and colleagues have done at Information Resources at The School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) by creating dozens of short videos on a variety of
topics. Collections which are hosted on iTunes U and YouTube include several short videos explaining the growing number of research apps for tablets and smartphones that help with
referencing, journal curation and notetaking.
Videos are an excellent method to answer common queries, one example of how Information Resources has dealt with this was the creation of a short set of videos called Minute Mendeley to help teach students the basics of the reference management package, Mendeley.
The video collection was endorsed by Mendeley and lead to Andy Tattersall being awarded Advisor of the Month for December 2013.
The purpose of the Teachmeet will explain why video and collections are so important in the
age of the mobile device and YouTube and that there are a multitude of topics that can be captured fairly cheaply. The talk will explain the life cycle of a video and how content can be shared and maximised for impact.
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