Facilitating Librarian Research on Data Literacy: The Institute for Research Design in Librarianship

Background: Librarians conduct research to better understand the communities they serve and to develop new services. For librarians in rapidly evolving dataintensive settings, research is especially crucial. However, librarians regularly encounter obstacles that stymie their abilities to complete necessary research projects. To address these barriers, librarian researchers at Loyola Marymount University developed The Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL). Setting/Participants: In June 2014, a data librarian (D.B.) was accepted into the inaugural class of scholars attending the IRDL in Los Angeles, CA. During IRDL, scholars received training in research processes, including topics surrounding the formation of research questions, qualitative and quantitative research methodology, as well as mixed-methods research. Purpose: Using the skills and network acquired during the IRDL, library researchers have been able to pursue studies for which they previously had little support. One such study is a protocol designed by a data librarian (D.B.) at Weill Cornell Medical College to assess perceptions of data literacy competencies and socio-technical barriers impeding data literacy and data management practices among biomedical research teams. The study makes use of a novel interview protocol designed to rapidly assess these issues and their impact on research data workflows. The Weill Cornell Medical College Institutional Review Board has approved this library study. Conclusion: Participation in the IRDL has been instrumental in facilitating the execution of research aimed at examining socio-technical barriers impeding data literacy and hindering data management practices among biomedical research teams at academic medical centers

Databib

With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the libraries of Purdue and Pennsylvania State University have collaborated to create Databib: an online, annotated bibliography of research data repositories. A number of academic and research libraries are taking an active role in data curation, applying library science principles to help address the data deluge. Librarians are helping researchers formulate funder-required data plans, adapting library practice to help organize and describe research datasets, developing data collections and data repositories, performing digital preservation, and teaching data literacy. Librarians are in a good position to provide these services; unfortunately, there is currently no framework in place to support the organization and discovery of data repositories. Many funding agencies are requiring their sponsored researchers to submit their data to repositories without giving further instructions to them. What repositories are appropriate for a researcher to submit his or her data? How do potential users find appropriate data repositories and discover datasets that meet their needs? How can librarians help patrons who are looking for data find and integrate datasets into their research, learning, or teaching? Databib (http://databib.org) has been created to help address these needs for librarians, data users, data producers, publishers, and funding agencies

Databib: An Online Bibliography of Research Data Repositories

With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the libraries of Purdue and Pennsylvania State University have collaborated to create Databib: an online, annotated bibliography of research data repositories. A number of academic and research libraries are taking an active role in data curation, applying library science principles to help address the data deluge. Librarians are helping researchers formulate funder-required data plans, adapting library practice to help organize and describe research datasets, developing data collections and data repositories, performing digital preservation, and teaching data literacy. Librarians are in a good position to provide these services; unfortunately, there is currently no framework in place to support the organization and discovery of data repositories. Many funding agencies are requiring their sponsored researchers to submit their data to repositories without giving further instructions to them. What repositories are appropriate for a researcher to submit his or her data? How do potential users find appropriate data repositories and discover datasets that meet their needs? How can librarians help patrons who are looking for data find and integrate datasets into their research, learning, or teaching? Databib (http://databib.org) has been created to help address these needs for librarians, data users, data producers, publishers, and funding agencies

Information Literacy and the Transition from High School to College

What expectations should college librarians have concerning the information literacy skills of incoming freshmen? This has been a recurring question among college librarians for years. The complementary question for high school librarians is: what do colleges expect freshmen to know in order to be effective researchers? AASL and ACRL have published information literacy standards, and have worked cooperatively to encourage communication between high school and college librarians. Have these efforts been successful? In this article, the authors share information about their research study exploring whether a gap exists between high school and college expectations related to information literacy. The authors conducted a study of Catholic high school librarians in Minnesota and neighboring states during the 2009‐10 school year. They conducted a survey and interviews with the librarians and gathered information about the reference resources available (print and online) and the information literacy skills of high school students, especially seniors. The hypotheses of the study include: Larger schools (over 500 enrollment) are more likely to have: 1) a full‐time media specialist able to develop collections and programs; 2) more comprehensive reference collections and more online resources; 3) a formal curriculum for information literacy instruction; and 4) students receiving a formal curriculum will rank higher in information literacy skill levels. The researchers found that the size of the student body is not the critical factor for a successful IL program. Regardless of the size of the school or library staff, the key factor for success according to the data is the integration of the librarian and IL concepts into a few key core courses. The interviews revealed that it is important for the librarian to have general knowledge of what is taught in various classes, as well as knowledge of specific assignments with a research component. It is evident from the librarians’ comments that it is crucial for the librarian to have a flexible schedule in order to accommodate working with students and teachers. Librarians in the study reported much higher interaction rates with the students when computers and other technologies, including special software and smartboards, are located in an adjacent lab or in the library itself

LECTURERS ATTITUDE TOWARDS COLLABORATING AND COMMUNICATING WITH LIBRARIAN FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING IN UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTH-SOUTH NIGERIA.

The study investigated the attitude of lecturers towards collaborating and communicating with the librarians for effective teaching in universities in south-south Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The population of the study comprised 2,500 lecturers in faculty of humanities and science in federal universities in south-south Nigeria and the sample size was 750 lecturers selected using proportionate stratified random sampling technique. The instruments for data collection was questionnaire. A total of 750 copies of questionnaire were administered by the researchers, out of which 730 copies were correctly filled and returned and used for the study. The data obtained were analyzed using frequencies, mean and standard deviation. The results revealed that lecturers show negative attitude in collaborating with librarians in student’s information literacy, and positive attitude in communicating with the librarians as to know the various databases and services available in the library for effective teaching in federal universities in south-south Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that Lecturers should involve librarians in their departmental meetings, this will help to build a better collaboration specially on students’ information literacy, that their collaboration should not only be for accreditation purposes

Data Information Literacy: Developing Data Information Literacy Programs

Researchers are under increasing pressure to manage, organize, describe and document their data in ways that enable others to discover, understand and reuse their work. However, the knowledge and skills needed to be successful in these tasks are not often a part of a student\u27s education in college or graduate school. Librarians have an opportunity to address this gap in student\u27s education through developing data literacy programming, but developing effective data literacy programs can seem daunting. This session will introduce students to a model for creating data literacy programming developed as a part of the Data Information Literacy project. We will begin by reviewing the findings from interviews conducted with faculty and students at four universities. We will then walk through the DIL model step by step. Finally, participants will work through case studies to explore potential opportunities and generate possible approaches to offering data literacy programs. Jake Carlson is Research Data Services Manager, University of Michigan

Whose Responsibility is it Anyway?

The evolution of scholarly research raises questions regarding the role of research libraries in the 21st century. As information and data have taken on new forms, researchers and libraries alike have adapted their skills and services to reflect changes in how information and research are created and conducted, disseminated, and preserved – throughout shifting social and philosophical paradigms as well as in response to emerging technologies. As such, librarianship is an ever-changing field that has advanced to include data management skills as a core competency. Unfortunately, perceptions of the LIS field have not kept up with the pace of its development. Involvement of librarians in data capture and management remains a struggle because those producing data in universities may not necessarily associate their activities with the library – unless there is a system in place that makes it mandatory for them to use a library or other repository in place, e.g. grant funding or promotion requirements. This calls for information specialists such as data and academic librarians to intervene and provide guidance in numerous areas such as: information management, classification, and basic data literacy skills. The tendency in academe to avoid librarians in the research process is a missed opportunity for many researchers but also requires that librarians step up and make their voices and potentialities be known

Teaching by Example: Evidence of Data Literacy Competencies and Practices in Top Economics Journal Articles

Objective: Data literacy is the ability to describe, evaluate, use, share, and cite data. It is increasingly important for researchers and college students, including in the field of economics. This study explores the prevalence of data literacy competencies in economics articles. Data literacy competencies displayed in journal articles demonstrate what researchers value and provide opportunities to teach students, helping librarians shape data services and instruction.Methods: Based on close reading of economics and data literacy literature, the author developed a protocol of terms relating to data literacy. A stratified random sample of 100 articles was selected from ten top economics journals. Adobe Acrobat’s index search function was used to conduct automated content analysis coding, with additional manual checking for accuracy and data sharing and sources.Results: The economics research articles in the study sample showed strong coverage of terms relating to describing, evaluating, and using data. Sharing and citing data were identified as areas for improvement as only 36% of articles shared data and 40% included terms related to citation. The analysis verifies previous research about the prevalence of commercial data use in business research and adds insight on frequently used open data sources. Conclusions: There are clear data literacy strengths within economics. Librarians have the skills to partner with economics instructors to reinforce strengths and improve gaps to prepare more data literate students

PERANCANGAN SISTEM ASESMEN LITERASI INFORMASI BERBASIS WEB

Abstract, Information literacy is an important skills for 21st century learners. One of methods to evaluate the implementation of information literacy program in school library is assessment of information literacy competence. The objectives of this research were to establish a standard of information literacy for Indonesian students and to design a webbasedinformation literacy assessment system. This research employed Delphi technique with two rounds questionnaire distributed among panelists of 9 experts. The experts consists of three school librarians, two teachers and four information literacy researchers. Six standards and 40 performance indicators were identified as information literacy standard. The design ofsystem resulted models which presented in System Flowchart, Data Flow Diagram and Entity-Relationship Diagram.Keywords: competency standard, information literacy assessment, web-based syste