A Survey of Online Library Tutorials: Guiding Instructional Video Creation to Use in Flipped Classrooms

There has been a steady increase in library literature on “flipping the classroom.” This teaching strategy requires students to review course material outside the classroom beforehand, thereby allowing more time during workshops to apply newly gained knowledge and techniques. The proliferation of literature on classroom flipping provoked an interest to determine if other academic libraries were making explicit reference on their websites to the preliminary viewing of videos in a classroom context. To ascertain the extent of this practice, and inform the development of instructional videos at McGill, the authors surveyed all Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) and Association of Research Libraries (ARL) websites to document the production of instructional videos, determine the various types of videos, and take note of explicit pre-viewing instructions prior to a workshop. Of the 140 libraries examined, 107 (76%) provide instructional videos on their website. However, of this group, only 2 (2%) clearly instruct users to watch instructional videos before attending a library research workshop. A literature review documents this emerging trend and contextualizes the results.