American Chemical Society
Teaching Chemical Information:
Tips and Techniques
— March 1996 —
Workshops: Advantages, Disadvantages and Considerations
Advantages
- Users are usually very motivated
- Have flexibility over length and frequency of sessions
- Can offer a series of workshops that build on one another
Disadvantages
- Users attending may have a broad range of skills (computer and language)
- May have difficulty getting a room if classroom space is in short supply
- May be hard to fit everything that you want to cover into a single workshop
- Handling large classes for hands-on practice may be difficult.
Considerations
- Takes a lot of work to develop good workshop
- Can team teach or bring in experts
- What instructor resources do you have? (Transparencies, presentation software, live online, use “canned demonstrations,” etc.)
- Ideal to include hands-on practice for online searching workshops but may be hard for a one hour session.
- How big a class can you manage?