Preparing Emerging Professionals: Whether and How LIS Faculty Teach “Soft Skills”

Studies show that LIS employers seek professional or “soft” skills such as communication, teamwork, and interpersonal skills, making these skills essential to the employability and success of emerging professionals. This panel shares the preliminary results of a national study examining the extent to which LIS faculty are teaching and assessing these skills in their courses. Survey questions focused on skills and areas previously identified as important to employers, including, interpersonal skills; writing; communication; teamwork; cultural competence; reflective practice; customer service commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; presentation skills; and flexibility and adaptability. The presenters will provide some brief background on previous studies that highlight the demand for soft skills by employers and share the findings of the current study. The results of this study provide a baseline of the extent to which LIS faculty are addressing these important skills, as well as insight into the specific instructional strategies they use to these skills. They also offer an overview of faculty perceptions the importance of soft skills for career success, and their role in helping students develop such skills. The findings could help guide curriculum at the individual faculty level by providing insight and inspiration for lesson planning and course design, and could also inform curriculum decisions at a programmatic level by providing an overview of the extent to which these skills are currently addressed and identifying potential gaps in the curriculum

Actes du Symposium International - Le livre, la Roumanie, l’Europe / Proceedings of the International Symposium Books, Romania, Europe - 5ème édition 24-26 septembre 2012

Tome 2 des actes du Symposium International "Le livre, la Roumanie, L\u27Europe" qui s\u27est tenu les 24, 25 et 26 septembre 2012 à Mamaia, Roumanie, organisé par la Bibliothèque Métropolitaine de Bucarest. / Tome 2 of the Proceedings of the International Symposium "Books, Romania, Europe" held on 24, 25 and 26 September 2012 in Mamaia, Romania, organized by the Bucharest Metropolitan Library. Textes réunis et présentés par : Réjean Savard Chantal Stanescu Hermina G.B. Anghelescu Cristina Io

Big Data in the Big D

Presented at the 2017 International Conference on Knowledge Management during the panel session on Big Data, Ethics and Public Engagement. This presentation discusses crowdsourcing information science frameworks

Using focus groups to gather information for LIS curriculum review

Focus groups can provide a useful means of gathering information for use in making decisions about core and elective courses in a library and information science (LIS) curriculum. Ideally, the focus group consists of six to eight people who are invited to participate in a discussion of some issues of common interest. Before implementing focus groups, the curriculum committee should decide what it wants to know and whom it wants to participate. The focus group should be conducted in a businesslike but pleasant manner. Opinions offered by the focus group should be fed by the curriculum committee into a decision apparatus. Focus groups are beneficial in that they enable employers to experience involvement with LIS program review and can teach faculty what employers expect from new graduates of LIS programs