Connecting the Dots, a Yearlong Lesson in Learning: Using Online Instruction to Connect Student Information Literacy Skills with Those Required to Complete Assignments.

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Learning the Lay of the Land: Defining and Documenting Where Instruction Happens in Order to Target Program Improvement

Before libraries can demonstrate impact and value of instructional offerings on a large scale, it behooves us to be able to articulate which students receive instruction, with what frequency and in which courses. The WSU Libraries historically maintained records of instruction to assist in statistical reporting to ARL; the approach however did not assist in identifying targets for program improvement. As a result the Library Instruction Session Database (LISD) an open access web application, was designed to assist in recording of instructional offerings, providing visualizations and tabulations of the colleges, departments, and courses reached, aimed at assisting in analysis of instructional reach

Sediment source fingerprinting: benchmarking recent outputs, remaining challenges and emerging themes

Abstract: Purpose: This review of sediment source fingerprinting assesses the current state-of-the-art, remaining challenges and emerging themes. It combines inputs from international scientists either with track records in the approach or with expertise relevant to progressing the science. Methods: Web of Science and Google Scholar were used to review published papers spanning the period 2013–2019, inclusive, to confirm publication trends in quantities of papers by study area country and the types of tracers used. The most recent (2018–2019, inclusive) papers were also benchmarked using a methodological decision-tree published in 2017. Scope: Areas requiring further research and international consensus on methodological detail are reviewed, and these comprise spatial variability in tracers and corresponding sampling implications for end-members, temporal variability in tracers and sampling implications for end-members and target sediment, tracer conservation and knowledge-based pre-selection, the physico-chemical basis for source discrimination and dissemination of fingerprinting results to stakeholders. Emerging themes are also discussed: novel tracers, concentration-dependence for biomarkers, combining sediment fingerprinting and age-dating, applications to sediment-bound pollutants, incorporation of supportive spatial information to augment discrimination and modelling, aeolian sediment source fingerprinting, integration with process-based models and development of open-access software tools for data processing. Conclusions: The popularity of sediment source fingerprinting continues on an upward trend globally, but with this growth comes issues surrounding lack of standardisation and procedural diversity. Nonetheless, the last 2 years have also evidenced growing uptake of critical requirements for robust applications and this review is intended to signpost investigators, both old and new, towards these benchmarks and remaining research challenges for, and emerging options for different applications of, the fingerprinting approach

E-Learning: IL Instruction & Out-of-the-Box Software

Institutes of higher education are increasingly incorporating Information Literacy (IL) into their educational goals. Academic departments are actively seeking ways to incorporate IL into their curriculum in addition to seeking methods to assess the instruction provided. As IL providers, librarians are in a unique position to collaborate with teaching faculty to address the educational needs of their students. This session will discuss the Information Literacy Education (ILE) project at Washington State University, Pullman. Mapped to the six learning goals of the baccalaureate, university strategic plan, and a 2000 Washington State legislature mandate, the ILE project provides an opportunity to collaborate with course instructors in assignment design to incorporate IL instruction through an online learning environment. Designed to work with an existing research assignment the ILE project adds an additional component that directly addresses the elements of IL inherent in the assignment (popular vs. scholarly, source evaluation, plagiarism, etc.) by providing instruction, and multiple layers of assessment that focus on the learning of the material and the transfer of knowledge to contextualized applications and feedback. Elements of the discussion will include instructional design, usability, scalability, applied learning theory, instructor librarian collaboration, and assignment design

Understanding the Read/Write Web

Over the past couple of years, social software like blogs, wikis, tagging, podcasting, and the like have moved out of hands of early adopters, into the mainstream, and, increasingly, into our libraries. Should your library have a blog? Is there a way to enhance your reference services with instant messaging? Would MySpace or Facebook help you with outreach to teens and students? Could a wiki replace your procedures manual? Can RSS help you keep up? This hands-on session will give you the tools you need to evaluate these and other technologies to determine if they have a role to play in your library. We'll also give you all the skills you need to get started if you decide to start using one of these tools. This session will emphasize the practical, while providing ample opportunity for discussion of the "big issues" raised by these technologies

Information evaluation instruction: A three term project with a first year experience course

In response to the recognition that work world success is dependent on locating and effectively utilizing information, the academy has acknowledged the need to produce information literate graduates. There needs to be more focus on how to develop the most effective collaborative programs with teaching faculty and benchmark the progress toward research skill mastery. This paper outlines a multiple term collaborative effort targeting student evaluation skill development. Librarians taught hybrid (mostly online with some in-person interaction) lessons to groups of lower undergraduates enrolled in a first year experience seminar. A pre-test/post-test assessment package revealed that students’ strongest area of proficiency was in understanding the differences between popular and scholarly sources, with lowest performance concerning understanding the components of a scholarly article. It was also concluded that the academic term with the strongest collaborative ties between librarians and seminar instructors/leaders resulted in the greatest improvement in student learning across all measures

Using Technology to Reach More Students in Tough Times: An Analysis of Five Semesters of Data Connecting Students with the Information Literacy Skills They Need to Complete Their Assignments

In the fall of 2007 Washington State University Libraries introduced the Information Literacy Education (ILE) learning environment to deliver scalable information literacy (IL) instruction to both on campus and distance courses. Slated to become an open source product in the spring 2010 ILE has provided instruction to over 5700 students in six colleges in 5 semesters. Utilizing ILE the total number of participants reached by the Instruction Department increased by nearly 20%. ILE is a flexible online learning environment which delivers IL instruction targeted to the needs of specific assignments. Librarians and course instructors collaborate to design a space comprised of instruction and assessment components focused on the skills students need to demonstrate in larger research projects. These skills often go unaddressed in the classroom, leaving students to their own devices to acquire an understanding of and build skills required to complete their assignment. Work completed in ILE provides students with an additional avenue of instruction and skill acquisition, while providing opportunities to assess learning, and transfer. This session will explore how ILE has been deployed across the colleges and partner programs to reach students more frequently providing greater depth of instruction and assessment. A statistical analysis of the results of approximately 48,000 instances of 150 IL related quiz questions that have been mapped to IL related concepts will be presented. Through the analysis, a picture of the types of IL competencies WSU students\u27 struggles with, and those they demonstrate proficiency with will be drawn

Point of Need Assistance: Incorporating help pages and tutorials into online archival resources

Archival materials continue to populate the web however access and navigation are often hampered by a lack of point of need assistance. This session will focus on creating user centered online tutorials and help pages to increase access and use of online archival resources. Presenters will discuss barriers to access and design principles for creating online instructional resources. Additionally, an overview of software options for tutorial creation in relation to various capabilities and time investment will be presented

The Information Literacy Education Project at WSU Libraries

WSU and other institutes of higher education are increasingly incorporating Information Literacy (IL) into their educational goals. Academic departments are actively seeking ways to incorporate IL into their curriculum in addition to seeking methods to assess the instruction provided. Librarians as IL instructors are in a unique position to collaborate with teaching faculty to address the educational needs of their students. The Information Literacy Education (ILE) project developed by the WSU Libraries and funded by a WSU Teaching and Learning Grant is mapped to the six learning goals of the baccalaureate, university strategic plan, and a 2000 Washington State legislature mandate, and provides opportunities for teaching faculty and librarians to collaborate on incorporating IL into existing research assignments with librarians. Teaching faculty and librarians design an additional IL component of the research assignment in the form of an online course space. As students work through the course space they are provided instruction via online tutorials on those elements related to IL that are required to complete the assignment. Having the ability to utilize more than WSU online offerings, the ILE project makes use of the best online tutorials available, while also providing multiple layers of assessment. Their learning is tested via multiple choice quizzes, and their ability to transfer the learned material to the contextualized application of their research assignment is assessed via short essays. Within the course space, instructors are provided multiple opportunities to provide feedback at various stages of the assignment. Teaching faculty have found that the resources their students utilize are more relevant, current, and the tendency of students to simply select the first 5 sources found is reduced through participation in the project