- During the first week of March, we invited all of the 23 Things participants to attend one of three different focus group/feedback sessions.
- We posed the same seven questions to each group (link).
- We had a total of 16 people attend the in-person sessions over the course of the week and two participants emailed their feedback.
- 30% response rate to the request for feedback
- Of that group, 12 did complete the program and 6 did not.
1. What did you like about the program? Why?
2. What didn't you like about the program? Why?
3. Did you finish? If no, why not?
4. What do you think the project team could have accomplished better?
5. Did you have enough time to complete the exercises?
6. Are you still using any of the 23 Things? Which ones? In what contexts?
7. If you are not using any of the 23 Things, do you have future plans to use them and in what context?
Focus Group Questions & Summary:
Question 1: What did you like about the program?
In this question, people focused both on the positive communal experience of the program as well as on specific "things." A few sample responses are below:
- positive whole library experience, everyone learned at the same time
- got to work with people I never would have worked with before this program (in drop-in sessions)
- appreciated the opportunity to learn the 2.0 vocabulary, felt better informed at system-wide meetings
- the self-paced nature of the program was appreciated
- Google docs, Del.ici.ous, LibraryThing, mentioned specifically as "things" people liked most
Question 2: What didn't you like about the program?
In this question, respondents indicated that the level of password creation, expectations to learn or understand new technological terms, and the very public nature of assignments (public blogs), were the most discomfiting aspects of the program. A few sample responses are below:
- spent so much time creating accounts
- too many passwords to remember
- it was like having your homework assignment online for everyone to read
- there was one exercise I got so lost and I spent so much time on and never completed - 15 minutes a day seems inaccurate
Question 3: Did you finish? If no, why not?
The overwhelming response in this category was lack of time. The issue of 15 minutes a day as "false advertising" came up again when this question was asked of the groups. Some respondents also indicated that some of the technical requirements of some assignments (RSS feeds, Flickr), were too much, too overwhelming and caused them to stop or slow down. Some respondents indicated that the time issue was theirs; that they spent so much time exploring that they strayed from the examples or exercises. A few sample responses are below:
- Too much, I would be happy for 10 things, too many things, too overwhelming
- Big leap in terms of terminology and couldn’t follow it, getting feeds into the blog, challenging, couldn’t understand the language and tricky to figure out, a little too technical, felt like needed to be a computer programmer to understand it
- Not of enough hours in the day
- In the beginning so sucked in, couldn’t focus in on the thing, got interested in the links, other options, more time in the day, more focus would have helped
Question 4:What do you think the project team could have done better?
Respondents commented on the lack of consistent feedback from team members and other participants on their blogs. There was an unmet expectation that there would be more of an online dialogue about the exercises than there was. Respondents also offered concrete suggestions for improving and expanding on the program:
- reorder the things, start with easier things and move up to more complicated items (RSS and Flickr specifically)
- present smaller sets of things at a time
- make the drop-in sessions more like instruction sessions, more formal help with the things
- immediate proliferation of things after the program was done, when the momentum was high
Question 5: Did you have enough time to finish?
Regardless of whether respondents finished or not, people generally agreed that more time would have been helpful. Some people felt they rushed through the end of the program to meet the deadline. The team did extend the deadline through October (4 people completed the program after the initial September deadline). Respondents primarily offered ideas to help people meet deadlines when asked this question:
- give people a better sense of how long each thing would take to do or learn about
- A little rushed through the end, extension was nice but not enough and it would have been nice to know one was coming then I wouldn’t have rushed through the last things.
Question 6: Are you still using any of the 23 things? Which ones? In what contexts?
Many of the respondents were still using the 23 things. Many used Bloglines and RSS feeds for work and home issues; several incorporated things into instruction programs and still others reported using things to efficiency work processes. A few examples are below:
- created a wiki for a library intensive course (ES 140)
- created blog for course (Econ 108)
- use chat to check in with supervisor and other staff when at the desk - helps with separate service desks, doesn't tie up the phone, quick, low interruption option
- one section schedules their service desk using Google calendar
Question 7: If you are not using any of the 23 Things, do you have future plans to use them and in what context?
Many people reported that they had plans to start wikis,create blogs, use chat and explore different podcasting options.
- Access is going to create a blog for student communication
- Film & Music and Access are planning to put student manual in a wiki
- explore del.ici.ous for ready reference option
