- Was there anything that worked particularly well in the workshop?
- If you could change one thing that you did in the workshop to make the sessions more effective, what would it be?
- What changes would make the workshops more accommodating to a diverse range of participants with different roles in the library and varying technology skillsets?
- After several rounds of workshops, do you have any thoughts or comments on our iterative workshop model?
We added an introductory slide to the workshop content and framed the workshop as an opportunity for participants to develop some very basic text analysis skills as well as for us to improve the workshop materials. We took out some slides so that the workshop was only three hours (with an hour in between for lunch). The three-hour length seemed perfect to keep people’s attention. At the end of the workshop, we asked people to fill out the assessment survey but also verbally tell us whether the workshop met their expectations and how it could be improved. People were very honest and gave us all kinds of interesting feedback. The discussion went on for 30 minutes, much longer than we expected.
Include more research and assignment examples, especially those having to do with HTDL content. Participants found the textual analysis examples in Module 1 the most interesting and useful to help them think about how they practice text analysis on their own and/or talk to faculty members about text analysis.
The challenge we encountered and we think will be very important to keep in mind as we move forward is the institutions that participants are from. Most of our participants in this workshop came from small institutions that are teaching and not research-centered. Having examples of text analysis classroom assignments in addition to research projects would be really beneficial.
Having people from different institutions teach the same materials to participants with varying text analysis experience and revising the materials based on the feedback definitely help improve the workshop content. Teaching it a couple of times also helps us have a much better understanding and grasp of the materials.