1. Organizing Your Digital Closet:
Effective Information Management for Online Faculty
Lorna Kearns, Barbara A. Frey, and Christinger Tomer
What is PIM?
…the practice and study of activities a person
performs to create, store, organize, maintain,
retrieve, use, and distribute information.
-- William Jones
Keeping Found Things Found:
The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management
(2008)
Our Study
Research Questions
• What information management challenges do online
instructors face?
• What strategies do they use to manage information?
Methods
• Conducted two online focus groups in summer 2009 using
Elluminate Web conferencing system
Participants
• Four online instructors and two instructional designers from
several universities
Results
• Effective email practices include:
• Create folders
• File inbox items at regular intervals
• Have students put course name in all emails
• Reduce or organize select emails with filters
• Effective desktop practices include:
• Use folder names that reflect course activities
• Use file names that include version tracking info (e.g.
version number, date, semester)
• Keep copies of discussion board summaries for future reuse
• Convert paper files to digital
• Use desktop search feature to locate files
• Rename student homework files as soon as you download
• Make regular backups
• Effective Web practices include:
• Use social bookmarking to share information with students
• Don’t download items that can be easily accessed online
• Effective cross-category practice:
• Align folder structure across email, desktop, and Web
bookmarks
Next Steps
Based on our review of the literature and the data we collected in
the focus groups, we will design a survey to administer to a group
of instructors teaching online at one university. The purpose of
this part of the study will be to investigate personal information
management strategies practiced by instructors using the same
course management system and situated in the same
institutional context
Further Recommendations
Email
• Create mail folders labeled for topic, sender, and/or course
• Remember to file sent emails
• Flag emails as high priority or for follow-up
• Act on incoming email or delete it
• Use subject line to keep emails clear and brief
Desktop
• Use folders for each course and subfolders for each semester
• Within subfolders, create folders for announcements,
discussions, assignments, FAQs
• Create folders for advisees
Web
• Save bookmarks in a shareable format
• Add notes to bookmarks
• Explore Web 2.0 tools for bookmark sharing, calendaring,
scheduling, and media sharing
• When you upload content to wikis, blogs, or other media
sharing sites, keep a copy on your desktop
Information is a source of learning. But unless it
is organized, processed, and available to the
right people in a format for decision making, it is
a burden, not a benefit.
--William Pollard
Alignment
Email Desktop Bookmarks
Image created at http://www.wordle.net/
Web 2.0