Just-in-Time Learning (Just in Time for Finals)

Finals are stressful. 

I remember sitting at the reference desk, watching students study, write, and sometimes cry. We did our best to help, offering extended hours and free coffee. Students grabbed from the basket of complimentary blue books and scantron sheets with relief and a frazzled “thank you”. 

I don’t remember getting a lot of in-depth reference questions during finals. When students approached us, it was for quick, no-nonsense help. Their information literacy classes were long behind them, and many hadn’t looked at a database since. Students needed immediate resources they could access and understand without extra help.

We provided support at the desk, but I would have loved to give students just-in-time access to tutorials explaining how to use databases. I’m sure more than one student, working late at night, logged into JSTOR or Credo Reference and didn’t know what to do next. 

Fortunately, there are tools that can help students when you can’t. Niche Academy has created over 100 academic eResources tutorials you can seamlessly embed in your website or link to research guides—supporting information literacy when students need it most. 

Let me show you how. 

eResource Tutorials for Just-in-Time Learning

Niche Academy’s academic eResource tutorials cover many of the major (and specialized) databases students use, including:

• JSTOR
• Credo Reference
• Academic Search Premier
• OneFile
• NewsBank
• History Vault

We also cover many others in the following suites:

• EBSCO
• Gale
• ProQuest

And, more specialized resources for students deeper in their majors include:

• Naxos
• PsycINFO
• ERIC
• Science Direct
• CINAHL

Just to name just a few!

Each eResource tutorial is professionally developed and designed to help students at their point of need.

This example shows some of the Niche Academy eResource tutorials that Cabrini University library has added to their site.

Each tutorial is branded with your school’s colors so students have a consistent experience on your website.

Seamless integration provides more than just a visual benefit. Our tutorials keep students on your library’s website. Instead of sending them off to YouTube or a vendor site where they can get distracted, students access tutorials as part of their research workflow. Everything they need is in one place and at their fingertips.

Each tutorial provides true just-in-time help—with no frills or unnecessary complexity—so students get the basics right away. And, most tutorials are only a few minutes long. Having struggled through database help pages as a librarian, I appreciate a tutorial that keeps students moving through the research process. 

Even though our tutorials are short, they’re full of information students need. This example from Gulf Coast State College shows individual lessons in the CINAHL tutorial. Students can jump ahead to exactly what they need. So, if they want to know how to get the full text of an article, they don’t have to sit through how to narrow their sources. 

In this JSTOR tutorial on the Cabrini University site, students quickly learn to read a results page, as well as how to cite resources. 

Each tutorial features text, closed-captioned video, and screenshots so students can choose how to interact with the information. And we take the pressure out of maintaining them—when database interfaces change, we update the tutorials so you don’t have to!

All of this is great for students, but it’s also great for libraries. The easier it is to use databases, the more students will use them. And the more students use them, the higher your stats will be—making it easier to advocate for the necessity of library resources in the face of budget cuts. 

Get Started Today

Ready to get started? Let us show you why academic librarians have said the Niche Academy platform is “Easy to use” and “Extremely useful.” One told us, “The more we use it, the more I love it.” 

We think you will, too.

Contact us to set up a free trial. We’re here to help you be there for your students—even when you can’t be there!