What are online learning resources?

Libraries, both public and part of schools or HE institutions, provide essential services to support teaching and learning. The materials that they provide now encompass both physical and digital, such as e-books, e-journals, and online resources. We’ll be focusing on online resources and the challenges associated with getting learners to make the most of them.

ClarityEnglish provides online learning resources for teaching and learning English. The programs focus on different English skills, such as pronunciation, grammar and IELTS preparation. They can be used independently or as part of a taught course. The online resources have interactive exercises, video, audio and the ability for learners to track their progress. Online resources popular with public libraries include Active Reading, Tense Buster and Road to IELTS. (Do get in touch if you would like to try out any online resources!)

Benefits of online learning resources

After the last couple of years, the benefits of online resources for libraries are no longer in question. 

• They can be accessed anytime, anywhere, without the need to physically visit the library — offering great flexibility to a range of patrons. 

• They are convenient to access, and can be used by numerous people at the same time. 

• They can be cost-effective, easy to use and environmentally friendly.

Dealing with low usage of online resources

Speaking with library staff, we’ve often come across the same situation. Someone has identified and invested in a great online learning resource for the library. It’s engaging, useful and relevant to a range of library members. But when the time comes to check the usage, it is frustratingly low. How can we change this?

Promoting the usage of online resources in libraries can be a challenge, but there are many effective strategies that can be employed to boost usage and engagement. In this two-part blog post series, we’ll share ideas that can help libraries promote the usage of online English programs created by ClarityEnglish (the strategies and lessons can be applied to any online resource).

First step — Take stock of where you are now

In order to make any effective improvement plans, it’s important to take stock of where you are now. After all, how can you get directions for where you want to go, if you don’t know where you are starting from?

Here are a few questions to think about, to help guide the evaluation process:

How often are the online learning resources being used?

The first step is to understand your overall usage statistics. If the information is available, it can be helpful to delve deeper; are a relatively small number of learners using the learning resources repeatedly? If so, the good news is that it is clearly helpful to the learners who know about it. You might just need to increase awareness of what you’re offering, and facilitate access to the resource. Conversely, perhaps a large number of learners are using the online resource just once. If that’s the case, perhaps it’s not clear to the learners what they will gain from using it, and they would benefit from more guidance.

When are they being accessed? How are they being accessed?

Are your online learning resources only being used during opening hours? That might be intentional, in which case no action is needed. If not, you can take a look at why they are not or cannot be accessed at home. Perhaps the access has been limited to a specific IP range and this is preventing access outside of the library.

Your online resource provider might allow you to generate reports to analyse what device learners are using to access your programs. If that’s the case, you can use that information to create targeted promotional material simplifying access from specific devices.

Which topics or features are popular with library members?

Perhaps some of the online resources you offer would be particularly useful for certain learners, or in conjunction with other courses you offer. For example in our program Active Reading, the most popular unit is “Reading for information”. This could be useful information for Adult Learning classes to utilise.

How are online resources promoted at the library?

Are there any posters, bookmarks or leaflets? Can the online resources be easily found and accessed through the website? Is there any information shared on computers within the libraries?

Conclusion

All the information you gather through asking these questions can help you evaluate the current situation, to understand the obstacles and motivations that library members face when trying to access the online learning resources you provide. You can use this to develop strategies aimed at your specific audience. We’ll share some ideas that you can adapt in the next blog post. See you next week!