Scholarly Metrics Baseline: A Survey of Faculty Knowledge, Use, and Opinion About Scholarly Metrics

This article presents the results of a faculty survey conducted at the University of Vermont during academic year 2014-2015. The survey asked faculty about: familiarity with scholarly metrics, metric seeking habits, help seeking habits, and the role of metrics in their department’s tenure and promotion process. The survey also gathered faculty opinions on how well scholarly metrics reflect the importance of scholarly work and how faculty feel about administrators gathering institutional scholarly metric information. Results point to the necessity of understanding the campus landscape of faculty knowledge, opinion, importance, and use of scholarly metrics before engaging faculty in further discussions about quantifying the impact of their scholarly work

Closing the Loop: Creating Deliverables That Add Value

As special collections librarians and liaison librarians work together to create in­novative experiences working with primary source material, it is important to remember students have much to offer in the collaborative design process. In this case study, Prudence Doherty, a special collections librarian, and Daniel DeSanto, an instruction librarian, describe a project they initiated and implemented with upper-level education majors at the University of Vermont (UVM). The students were pre-service teachers (student teachers working toward degree and licensure) enrolled in Social Education and Social Studies, a course that focuses on teaching methods, assessment alternatives, and resources used in the elementary (K–4) classroom. The project gave the pre-service teachers an opportunity to work with three digital collections in order to design lesson plans for elementary-aged stu­dents. The project closed the loop of learn, create, and teach by requiring students to learn evaluative approaches to working with historical material and then create lesson plans based on those approaches. By creating professional resources for other teachers, the students added value to the digital collections

What Can Guide on the Side Do For Your Library?

UVM is in their second year using this free software that can lead users through interactive tutorial experiences. Come learn about this software and the UVM Libraries’ experiences

Our Library, Your Portal: Integrating Dynamic Library Content Into A Campus Portal

Learn about an innovative and collaborative project in which instruction librarians worked with their institution’s Registrar’s Office to integrate library resources and services into a campus-wide portal. Integration has been implemented in two phases: the development of a global library page for all campus-users, then customized date-specific content for targeted groups of students and employees based on characteristics including major and academic status

Let\u27s Meet at Your Place: Integrating Library Content Into a Student Portal

For years, librarians have been encouraged to go where students are instead of waiting for them to come to the library. In the digital environment, where can libraries position themselves to meet the most users and provide the most timely assistance? For UVM students, one of the highest-traffic and highest-visibility locations is the “MyUVM” portal, their one-stop shop for many essential services, such as email, grades, and advising. In this presentation, you will learn how UVM librarians collaborated with Registrar’s Office Banner programmers to integrate point-of-need educational content into the portal and extend instruction services into a key student space

Gratings: Theory and Numeric Applications

International audienceThe book containes 11 chapters written by an international team of specialist in electromagnetic theory, numerical methods for modelling of light diffraction by periodic structures having one-, two-, or three-dimensional periodicity, and aiming numerous applications in many classical domains like optical engineering, spectroscopy, and optical telecommunications, together with newly born fields such as photonics, plasmonics, photovoltaics, metamaterials studies, cloaking, negative refraction, and super-lensing. Each chapter presents in detail a specific theoretical method aiming to a direct numerical application by university and industrial researchers and engineers

A qualitative exploration into the presence of TB stigmatization across three districts in South Africa

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) stigma is a barrier to active case finding and delivery of care in fighting the TB epidemic. As part of a project exploring different models for delivery of TB contact tracing, we conducted a qualitative analysis to explore the presence of TB stigma within communities across South Africa. METHODS: We conducted 43 in-depth interviews with 31 people with TB and 12 household contacts as well as five focus group discussions with 40 ward-based team members and 11 community stakeholders across three South African districts. RESULTS: TB stigma is driven and facilitated by fear of disease coupled with an understanding of TB/HIV duality and manifests as anticipated and internalized stigma. Individuals are marked with TB stigma verbally through gossip and visually through symptomatic identification or when accessing care in either TB-specific areas in health clinics or though ward-based outreach teams. Individuals' unique understanding of stigma influences how they seek care. CONCLUSION: TB stigma contributes to suboptimal case finding and care at the community level in South Africa. Interventions to combat stigma, such as community and individual education campaigns on TB treatment and transmission as well as the training of health care workers on stigma and stigmatization are needed to prevent discrimination and protect patient confidentiality

Exploring the promise and reality of ward-based primary healthcare outreach teams conducting TB household contact tracing in three districts of South Africa.

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) household contact tracing is a form of targeted active case-finding for which community health workers ('outreach teams') in South Africa are primarily responsible for its implementation. We conducted an exploratory qualitative study to understand the role of outreach teams in delivering TB household contact tracing. METHODS: The study took place in three districts of South Africa between May 2016 and February 2017. We conducted 78 in-depth interviews (IDI) (comprising 35 key stakeholders, 31 TB index patients and 12 HHCs) and five focus group discussions (FGD) (40 outreach team members in four FGDs and 12 community stakeholders in one FGD). RESULTS: Outreach teams contributed positively by working across health-related programmes, providing home-based care and assisting with tracing of persons lost to TB care. However, outreach teams had a limited focus on TB household contact tracing activities, likely due to the broad scope of their work and insufficient programmatic support. Outreach teams often confused TB household contact tracing activities with finding persons lost to TB care. The community also had some reservations on the role of outreach teams conducting TB household contact tracing activities. CONCLUSIONS: Creating awareness among outreach workers and clinic personnel about the importance of and activities related to TB household contact tracing would be required to strengthen the delivery of TB household contact tracing through the community-based primary health care teams. We need better monitoring and evaluation systems, stronger integration within a realistic scope of work, adequate training on TB household contact tracing and TB infection prevention control measures. Involving the community and educating them on the role of outreach teams could improve acceptance of future activities. These timely results and lessons learned should inform contact tracing approaches in the context of COVID-19