Introduction
Caboodle is a Moodle block that creates a shop window of e-resources and publications from research and teaching repositories directly to the learner’s course page. The tool allows teachers to pre-define search criteria on multiple research/teaching resource repositories. When a learner accesses a course with Caboodle enabled the most up to date resources for the pre-defined search criteria are shown to the learner. Caboodle also allows learners to perform their own search on multiple e-resource repositories in one go. Caboodle succeeds in bringing research closer to teaching and learning.
Check out the instructional video created by Sunderland College below.
Who was involved
Caboodle was a multi-institutional project funded by Jisc where Enovation worked with institutions from across the UK including Sunderland College (lead institution), Oldham College, Worchester College of Technology, Stockport College and Wiltshire College.
What it does
Caboodle can be connected to a number of repositories which can be queried using a search form in the block. Results are displayed to the user within the block with hyperlinks to the online resources. There are two types of searches that can be done. The first is the basic “Learner Search” which learners can perform themselves. The second type of search is the “Initial Search” this is a search which is performed by a teacher. The results of the search are saved in the block for everyone to see but are updated periodically ensuring learners have the most up to date information. The teacher can also configure which results from a search to display and which are not relevant, arranging the most suitable results for viewing.
The diagram below shows the Caboodle block. As you can see from this block the teacher has done a search for Anatomy. They have specified three results for each repository result set listed (Jisc MediaHub, British Periodicals, Childlink and EBSCO). The learner can easily perform their own search on these repositories by placing their search criteria into the search box at the top and pressing ‘go’.
Caboodle screenshot
Conclusion
Caboodle is an important piece of work that makes research more accessible to learners in a learning environment. It also highlights to learners the vast amount of knowledge at their fingertips through e-repositories but gives them the scaffolding they need to ensure that they do not get overwhelmed by the information.
