Hidalgo, Leo. “Research.” Photograph. February 26, 2015. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ileohidalgo/16702558912/. Creative Commons Licensing Information.

Hunter College LIBR 100 students: If you are enrolled in a LIBR 100 course, this is NOT your course site. Your coursework is posted on a private version of this site. Please contact your professor(s) or check Blackboard for instructions on how to register for and access your section’s course site.

Welcome to the orientation module! In this course, lessons (we call them “modules”) will be posted every week on Tuesday. This orientation module, which we’ve posted a few days early, is meant to familiarize you with the course syllabus, our course site, and some tools we will be using throughout the semester. We are asking you to do several activities using several different tools. We hope this is not too tedious! We do this so that you will be prepared to use these same tools in assignments later in the semester and won’t face frustrating technical difficulties at that point. While the work in Module 1 shouldn’t be too time consuming, please don’t wait until the last minute to complete it: allow yourself some time to work out any technical problems you might encounter.

This module has 7 parts. Six of them require you to turn in something for points:

1. Participate in an icebreaker activity using the Padlet tool (1 points)
2. Fill out a student information form (2 points)
3. Read the course syllabus and outline
4. Use Hypothesis to ask a question about the syllabus (2 points)
5. Set a goal for the course (1 points)
6. Create a blog post about libraries and research (2 points)
7. Submit a document via Dropbox (2 points)

The work in this module is due on [due date].

Nice to meet you! 

-Your instructors

Part 1 – Icebreaker Activity (1 point)

This activity uses a tool called Padlet. You don’t need to have a Padlet account or log in to Padlet to create a post. To create a new post, just double click anywhere on the Padlet or click on the pink (+) symbol in the bottom right corner. Consult the Padlet help site for more details on how to make a Padlet post. Make sure you always write your name in your posts on Padlet so that we can give you credit for your work. Note that your posts on Padlet are always visible to everyone in this class.
Instructions for this activity: 

1. Post your name & a picture that represents you (it doesn’t have to be a picture of you) – or use the video option on Padlet to post a short video telling us a little bit about yourself. 
2. Tell us something you’d like to share about yourself. 

Note that your instructors have posted to introduce themselves, too!

Link to Part 1 Padlet

Note to instructors: If you have a Padlet account, you can recreate this Padlet, and all the others we’ve made. If not, these activities can be adapted to other formats.

Part 2 – Student Information Form (2 points)

Fill out the student information form with some basic information we’d like to know about you. What you type into this form is private and is visible only to the course instructors. 

Note to instructors: you can duplicate this form using Microsoft forms.

Part 3 – Read the Syllabus and Course Outline

Click the following links or use the menu at the top of the site to view the Syllabus and the Course Outline. Please read them both to learn more about what we’ll be working on this semester, when deadlines will be, and how you will be graded.

Part 4 – Use Hypothesis to Ask a Question about or Comment on the Syllabus or Course Outline (2 points)

Hypothesis is open source software that you can use to highlight and annotate information on web sites, both privately and publicly. Later in this course, you will be using Hypothesis to comment on articles. Your comments will be visible only to your instructors and classmates in this course.

For this module, please do the following:

1. Sign up for a Hypothesis account. Please make sure your username includes your first and last name, so that we can identify your posts and give you credit.
2. Once you have a Hypothesis account, join our course Hypothesis group [instructors: link here to your course Hypothesis group].
3. Watch this video on how to use Hypothesis to highlight and annotate.
4. (For 2 points) Use Hypothesis to leave a question or a comment on either the Syllabus or Course Outline, as demonstrated in the video. Be sure that you are commenting in the “[your course group name]” group, not publicly.

Then navigate back here to the Orientation Module to finish the rest of the module.

Part 5 – Set a Goal for the Course (1 point)

Instructions for this activity: Take a moment to set a personal goal for this course, related to one or more of the course learning outcomes. Then, share your goal with the class on this Padlet. The 6 course learning outcomes from the syllabus are listed in the top row on this Padlet. Please post your goal in the column under the learning outcome you think your goal most relates to. Don’t forget to put your name in the post so we can give you credit!

Link to Part 5 Padlet

Note to instructors: If you have a Padlet account, you can recreate this Padlet, and all the others we’ve made. If not, these activities can be adapted to other formats.

Module 1.6 – Blog Post about Libraries and Research (2 points)

In this course we will occasionally ask you to create blog posts to share on this site. These blog posts are visible to everyone in the class. For this module, we ask you to post your answers to the following questions:

1. How do you define the word “research” (in your own words)?
2. What do you think of when you hear the word “library?” What kind of associations–positive, negative, or neutral–do you have?

For this blog post, there is no minimum word or sentence count, just create a post that answers those 2 questions. 

Follow these instructions to create and publish a blog post. When you create this post, you can give it any title you like, but please select the category “Student Posts Module 1,” from the “categories” menu on the right side of the screen. That way your post will appear in the correct place on the site.

Note to instructors:

We teach this course in the CUNY Academic Commons, a WordPress-based site, and regularly assign blog posts so students in our asynchronous course can see and interact with each other’s work. These discussion questions can be adapted to various other formats, like Padlet or the discussion board in your learning manage system.

Module 1.7 – Submit a document via Dropbox (2 points) 

Later in this course you will need to be able to fill out Microsoft Word documents and upload them to Dropbox. Assignments that you submit via Dropbox are visible only to your professors. 

We understand that Mac users and folks using mobile devices may not have ready access to Microsoft tools. To that end, you can use Microsoft Word on the computers on campus, or you can access it online on any computer by logging in to Microsoft Office 365 on the CUNY Technical Services site. 

1.7.1

Here’s a link to a view-only Microsoft Word document: Orientation Part 7.docx

You will need to use your CUNY login to access it from this link. Please either download a copy to fill out, or make an online copy (go to File –> Save As –> Save a copy online).

Save a copy with your answers labeled with your name and Module 1.7.

1.7.2

Next, we want you to submit this document via Dropbox. First, go to the CUNY Technical Services page, and click on “Log into Dropbox.” This step is important so that you can access the document again after submission, and see your instructors’ feedback.

Once logged in to Dropbox, submit your document via Dropbox here [instructors: add Dropbox submission link here].