Because of These Events, My Information Literacy Assignment Was Adapted for the Online

Summary

Originally, I was going to do my information literacy assignment for MKTG 484 in the fall 2006 semester. However, two major events occurred that prevented me from doing so. First, I went on maternity leave during the entire fall semester. I was not planning on taking maternity leave at the time of the information literacy workshop but I changed my mind mid-summer. Second, the Marketing Department implemented some major curriculum changes where MKTG 484 will be changed to a junior level course (rather than senior level) and will be renamed MKTG 384.

Because of these events, my information literacy assignment was adapted for the online version of MKTG 380 taught during the summer of 2006. Please delete the .doc file on your webpage about IMC. Instead, provide a link to the assignment I created for my MKTG 380 course at http://cob.jmu.edu/flahertb/380/mktg_380_information_literacy_ch2.htm

Students reported both positive and negative feedback from the assignment. Two appendices are attached which summarize all feedback provided from the students. This feedback will be most helpful in updating the assignment for the future.

Also, I wrote a paper with a colleague to highlight my experience with the information literacy assignment. It will be published in a 2007 issue of Marketing Education Review.

 Clarke, Irvine III and Theresa B. Flaherty, (2007), "Fostering Information Literacy in the Marketing Curriculum by Engaging Students with Print Marketing Resources," forthcoming in Marketing Education Review. Appendix 1 Positive Feedback from MKTG 380 Students who did this exercise in Summer 2006 o The challenges I faced were designing the two magazine ads. I was dreading this part of the assignment because I had no clue how to design a magazine ad. I have never been that creative but it ended up being entertaining for me to just “play on the computer”. o This assignment provided a creative instrument in which I was able to develop my understanding of a variety of print marketing resources. After studying both resources I was surprised at how extensive both resources were as well as how much I did not know. o I was not familiar with the Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands before I started this assignment. I reviewed the first volume and found it so interesting that I decided to look at the other two as well. o I really enjoyed the fact that this was a creative assignment instead of a paper. We were given a lot of creative leeway, which I enjoyed the most about this assignment. o What I really enjoyed most about this assignment was there was a lot of room for creativity. The assignment guidelines were broad enough so that I could design the advertisement however I wanted to. There were not a lot of stringent rules. It would have been helpful to have a few more guidelines in designing the advertisements. o The most important thing I learned was how to get my point across without using too many words or sentences, putting only what was “important” on the ad to make sure the consumer knew (1) what it was I was advertising, and (2) why it may be beneficial. o I like the assignment and how it helps bring out the creative side of students. A lot of students studying in the business school do not get the opportunity to express themselves in creative ways for school. It gives them the opportunity to portray ideas to other students in the hopes that they will gain knowledge from it. As for the assignment it was definitely the most interesting one I have ever done. Thanks o This was an interesting assignment for me. I have never made an ad before so it was a good challenge. What I learned most from this assignment was that it is hard work to be original. o The part I enjoyed most about this assignment was working on the layout and design of the ad. I had fun picking out graphics, colors and fonts to use. I also enjoyed showing my friends the advertisements, then trying to make it better so they know what I was trying to market. o This project encouraged me to really look and evaluate the information that each resource contained and see what they offered. I enjoyed discovering these resources first hand because it made learning about the resources more memorable and interesting. I was surprised that resources like these books were available and I can defiantly see how valuable these resources are for businesses designing their market plans. o I enjoyed being creative and researching each of the resources I selected. I really liked choosing the fonts and formats that I wanted to use to communicate the objective of the assignment. o I think that seeing other student’s advertisements would also help future students learn more effectively about print marketing resources and discussing them on the discussion board. o The thing I enjoyed the most about this assignment was that I was able to use my creativity. I love to do arts and crafts, so I had a lot of fun playing around with different graphics, designs, layouts, and colors. o Since this is the first project I have done in marketing, it has given me a much better understanding what marketing is about along with the other homework I have started on. o I learned most from this assignment about the various print resources that are available. Even though we only had to choose two resources to create ads for, I found that I did at least moderate research for about 5 or 6 of them, deciding which I wanted to use for my ads. In looking some of the resources up online, I found a few articles comparing the print resources to others, and found it interesting how many of the resources could be, and probably should be, used in conjunction with each other. o This assignment helped me become more familiar with print marketing resources. I discovered not only what they are but also how I can use them to help me. By creating these advertisements, I was able to actually apply the information I found in the books to something practical like a marketing plan. o It was interesting to consider all that is needed for a successful marketing campaign. I had to look through the resources a few times before I began to understand how the information was organized and in what ways it could be useful. o I really enjoyed the freedom of creativity with this assignment. I don’t feel as if my ads are all that creative or extraordinary but that is due to my minimal skills with graphical editing software. I tried to incorporate simple graphics and catchy wording to captivate my target audience and I appreciated the opportunity to do that with my own approach and methodology. o The design process of the ads and the chapter readings to understand the components of a successful marketing plan were the most beneficial aspects in my opinion. I would suggest you keep the format for the advertisement design because it was very challenging and fun at the same time to develop an ad with good aesthetics and meaningful content. o I enjoyed the actual creating of the ad the most and looking at the books the least. That goes with my personality because I love creating things, but hate going to the library! I would rather do the research myself. o I did not know that there was information put together in collections about so many companies. I was also surprised at the detail they went into. I think that it would help in the future if you had the students pick out more than two of the books to look at. They would not necessarily need to create an ad for every one of them but they could write about all the information they found in different resources. o This assignment proved more interesting and informative than I first thought. Appendix 2 Negative Feedback from MKTG 380 Students who did this exercise in Summer 2006 o In the future, I would have more of a variety for resources. o I found it very difficult to try and incorporate all the information onto one page, and as a result, my advertisements look more confined than I intended them to be. It was also unclear to me whether you wanted us to try to incorporate the information just through pictures, or if you actually wanted to see information on the advertisement itself. o I did not enjoy the fact that I felt forced to cram so much information into my advertisement, which I thought took away from the creative aspect of it. o The main challenge was thinking creatively and actually designing the two advertisements. I did not have a lot of previous knowledge about the material covered in the resources and that intimidated me when it came down to doing the advertisements. o In the future, I think this particular assignment should be scrapped. I don’t feel as if I learned much of anything. I may have, but I don’t feel like I have. Instead, give the students a company that they could research and have them find certain trends and numbers. Or perhaps make them find a target market for something or create their own product and find a target market full of demographic information. o I also think a quick warning that most of the books cannot be checked out might be helpful for those people planning on spending 5 minutes in the library and 4 hours in their home. It’d be helpful to know ahead of time to bring extra supplies, dimes/quarters for copies, and other such materials. o It also took awhile to find the books. I did not realize they were all in the reference section, so I spent time looking for the books upstairs. I also spent a long time just looking through both books. The part I enjoyed least was figuring out what I wanted to do for the advertisement and also figuring out where it went in the marketing plan. o The only part of the assignment I did not particularly care for was the fact that the advertisement had to be for a marketing resource. I feel that if I had been assigned some other type of product I would have enjoyed creating the advertisement more and would have felt like I could be more creative in doing so. Other than the particular product that the students had to advertise, I cannot think of any changes that should be made to this assignment in order to improve it. As previously mentioned, I feel this was a great way to begin to grasp the general marketing concepts. o One of the biggest challenges I encountered was that I did not understand the assignment at first. I was very confused because I did not know what marketing plans, print marketing resources, or even the products to be advertised were. As a result, the assignment didn’t make much sense to me. However, when I reread the directions after doing the research and the chapter readings, I understood exactly what the assignment was asking for. o In the future, I would suggest explaining this assignment step-by-step in a Tegrity session to reduce the amount of confusion. While the directions are very clear, they can be difficult to understand at the beginning, especially if you’re not too familiar with the subject. I would also suggest using actual ads for print marketing resources in the examples section. This time you gave Adidas ads as examples, which really confused me because they didn’t match with the directions; therefore, I had no idea what the products for the ads were supposed to be. In addition, I think it would be a good idea to include what print marketing resources are in the directions. That way, students will know what they are researching before they start. o At first I was confused somewhat about the books because there was so much different information in it, but I soon realized what it was about. o The biggest challenge was figuring out what information to include on the ads, i.e. how detailed should I make them. I felt that there was a fine line between too much text to where it might bore the audience and enough text to promote the product. o I least enjoyed the fact that our product was print resources. However I think this was a very good way to kind of kill two birds with one stone; we learned about the print resources themselves while implementing what we learned in the chapters in the ads. I do think it was slightly confusing at first because I found myself asking what the main point of the assignment was, learning about the print resources or creating these advertisements for products. I think the answer was both, that they were equally important, but it took me awhile trying to figure out the assignment. I think in the end, the part that I enjoyed most about the assignment was the very fact that we were able to essentially cover two assignments in one. o I did not like how difficult it was to obtain the necessary resources, since I could not check the majority of them out from the public library. o In the future, I would maybe think about making information on the print resources more easily accessible. The research was by far the most time consuming part of the assignment and I don’t think it contributed much to the overall learning experience other than more repetition of library research in general. o One of the problems I found was you cannot check out the books needed for the assignment. It took more time trying to find the resources and looking at them, than it did to create the ad. o I hoped to be able to access them online, but after careful searching I found that they would only be available at a library. o Once I had my thoughts straight and the task was clear, I found the assignment to be enjoyable. It was easy to work at the library, and always a fun challenge to create advertisements. I did find it challenging to condense the amount of material that is available in the print marketing resources into a single advertisement, as there is so much useful information for marketing plans in them, but I believe I created the desired product. o I did not keep track but I spent no less than 12 hours on this assignment. Most of this however was because once I got the resources in my hands I forgot about the assignment and was very interested in the actual material, which was a challenge for me to stay on track. o I would not change a thing about it, because if it wasn’t like it is then I wouldn’t have looked so deeply to find an interesting point in each book, which led me to understand the resource.