Guided inquiry design for online information literacy media

Abstract

Purpose

To examine how academic librarians in Indonesia design online information literacy (IL) instructional media, focusing on their design workflows, the competencies they draw on, and the contextual constraints they navigate when integrating instruction and technology in post-pandemic digital environments.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative descriptive study used an asynchronous qualitative instrument with purposive, criteria-based sampling (academic librarians with ≥1 year of experience who had created online IL media within the past two years). Eighteen librarians from multiple regions participated. Respondents provided narrative accounts and shared examples of their online IL media; follow-up clarifications were conducted via email and WhatsApp. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis and organised through Guided Inquiry Design (GID) as the primary analytic lens.

Findings

Librarians describe a recurring workflow that enacts GID as a production-centric loop rather than a fully balanced, sequential cycle. All GID phases are present, but work clusters heavily in Gather-Create-Share (media production and dissemination), while Open/Immerse, Explore/Identify, and Evaluate are compressed, informal, and often under-documented. A phase-structured competency ecosystem underpins this loop, with competencies distributed across phases: instructional awareness and user-needs sensing; media and interaction design; information architecture and copywriting; platform operations; and basic analytics, supported by cross-cutting soft skills. These patterns are shaped by structural pressures, including limited time and staffing, multiple role responsibilities, uneven infrastructures, and visibility demands driven by social media metrics, which collectively push librarians toward rapid, output-focused workflows and lightweight, engagement-based evaluation.

Practical implications

The study suggests practical levers for strengthening online IL media design in academic libraries, including lightweight planning tools aligned with GID phases, targeted micro-trainings in instructional and evaluative design, simple enhancements to evaluation (e.g. brief checks, user polls, and feedback prompts), cross-functional collaboration, and the development of reusable digital assets. The proposed model can serve as a diagnostic tool for libraries to reflect on where competencies and resources are concentrated and where planning or evaluation phases may need reinforcement.

Originality/value

This study provides one of the first qualitative accounts of online IL media design from Indonesian academic librarians and extends the IL and GID literature by theorising a production-centric adaptation of GID, articulating a phase-structured competency ecosystem, and framing the contextual constraints of IL media work as structural pressures. It offers a context-sensitive explanation of how inquiry-based instructional frameworks are operationalised in resource-variable academic library environments in Southeast Asia.

Limitations

The study draws on a small purposive sample and self-reported accounts supplemented by artefacts, without direct observation or student outcome measures. Future research should incorporate ethnographic or longitudinal data, learner analytics or assessments, and broader or comparative samples to examine the transferability and boundary conditions of the production-centric GID loop in other institutional and regional contexts.