26 research outputs found
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Repurposing Zotero for Sustainable Assessment and Scalable Modified Embedding
Purpose – This paper aims to describe a new application of Zotero, a citation management system, for embedded librarianship and assessment. It explores student reception of this approach and maps Zotero’s capacities to represent citations to learning outcomes and information literacy frames that instruction librarians assess.
Design/methodology/approach – The librarian worked with a course using Zotero group libraries for collaborative work, used Zotero to communicate with students and assess their information literacy skills and surveyed the students to determine their perception of librarian participation via Zotero.
Findings – Using Zotero’s features made it possible to formatively and summatively assess student work quickly, and students were receptive to librarian participation via Zotero.
Practical implications – This suggests that librarians facing difficulty embedding in online courses or those seeking to assess student work may wish to explore Zotero as a sustainable solution to both challenges.
Originality/value – This paper posits a solution to common challenges for online embedded librarianship and suggests a new technique for assessing student information literacy in a context that supports information literacy
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Teaching for Transfer: Reconciling the Framework with Disciplinary Information Literacy
This article explores the tension between information literacy as a generalizable skill and as a skill within the disciplines. The new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education addresses many challenges facing the previous ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, but the tension between disciplinary expertise and generalizable skills remains. Viewing the documents through the lens of teaching for transfer—that is, instruction that enables students to utilize knowledge and skills gained in one context in other situations—offers a useful approach. Exploring the Framework from the point of view of teaching for transfer addresses both practical and theoretical challenges. This viewpoint respects both the generalizable nature of information literacy and the highly contextual nature of its application in an academic setting
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Creating Connective Library Spaces: A librarian-student collaboration model
The new academic library is a dynamic space where users and unique resources come together to produce new ideas. Libraries have struggled to be relevant spaces that attract students yet are more than simple study halls. The library as a connective space is one solution. This idea is not just about providing study space or collections space or even their juxtaposition, but about coming up with innovative ways to harness their proximity. The library wanted to develop spaces that foster both intentional and informal learning and are grounded in strong disciplinary identities for the sciences and the arts. At the University of Colorado Boulder we used service learning in a student collaboration model to generate novel approaches to library spaces. Two parallel areas of the library, the Science Commons and the Arts Commons, were reinvented to showcase the digital and analog library resources that inform their respective subjects. In this project, the library particularly hoped to harness the synergy between science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and art and design (which, when combined with STEM is known as STEAM) to develop spaces that promote an atmosphere of creativity. The Science Commons highlights the digital collections and the research and innovation they support; while the Arts Commons exposes the aesthetics of the library\u27s print collection and the artwork it inspires. Both rely on student involvement and a commitment to the new library as a connective space that by connecting users to the library’s resources will facilitate informal learning activities: discovery, exploration, and self-directed research
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Widening the Threshold: Using Scholarship as Conversation to Welcome Students to Science
This chapter discusses how the ACRL Frame for Information Literacy "Scholarship as Conversation" can be used to support information literacy while engaging all students, but particularly underrepresented students, in science. It takes both a theoretical and reflective approach as well as providing some practical suggestions about how to apply the ideas
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From Studio Space and Makerspace to Workplace: Adapting Instruction and Outreach to Fit the Needs of Practitioners from Art to Engineering
This paper discusses the specialized instructional needs of creative practitioner communities and consequent tensions students of applied fields face related to their place in the academy. By drawing on the literature of workplace information behavior and exploring the multiple communities of practice that creative practitioners navigate, we suggest information literacy approaches that acknowledge and accommodate their unique needs. If librarians acknowledge an
inherent multidisciplinarity, wide ranging use of sources, tacit knowledge, and
information use in specialized creation spaces, they can teach information literacy skills that are transferable and meet workplace affordances and needs. This
leads to information literacy instruction that resonates with students in these fields and positions them to better succeed in their chosen fields
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Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Transfer of Information Literacy Skills
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Research Practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars
In fall 2017, the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) Libraries joined with ten other university libraries to conduct an Ithaka S+R study investigating the research practices and needs of civil and environmental engineering faculty. Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit organization doing research and strategic guidance for colleges, universities, libraries, museums, scholarly societies and other institutions that support higher education. This study was part of their ongoing research support services program on how the practices of scholars vary by disciplines.
The report shares findings from exploratory semi-structured interviews with civil and environmental engineers from CU Boulder. Themes from the interviews include the diversity of the field, the data practices of scholars, the value of different kinds of sources, and how these scholars communicate their findings and conclusions. Finally, we provide recommendations for improving services and support for civil and environmental engineers
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The Ecology of Information Literacy: Modes of Inquiry, Location, and Assessment in a Biology Department’s Writing Class
Like many universities, the University of Colorado Boulder’s (CU’s) curriculum contains capstone courses enabling undergraduate students to develop skills in employing written communication in post-graduation, professional work. Frequently, capstones focus on writing genres within certain disciplines. Such is the case for one writing class housed within CU’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO 3940: Written Communication in the Sciences). The class adheres with curricular priorities EBIO formulated in response to calls for enhanced STEM learning.1 Building upon the department’s priorities, faculty teaching EBIO 3940 aim for students to move beyond mere grammatical and stylistic correctness into a critical understanding of writing’s purposes within STEM. To build that awareness, many learning activities have been designed to teach students how to extract information from peer-reviewed research reports and critically assess its accuracy, authority, and breadth. However, too few of EBIO 3940’s students were showing prowess in such skills, despite information literacy (IL) sessions. Students were able to perform searches competently, but we noted that they lacked the ability to apply deeper analyses. As noted by Feekery and Emerson, the class was perating under the premise that IL skills and writing skills were largely independent; we were teaching IL as a series of procedures, rather than as concepts deeply enmeshed within writing and reasoning.2 Farrell and Badke similarly call “to position IL as [an] integral part of disciplinary socialization.”3 We saw a need to act toward integrating IL within the students’ STEM education and to guide them toward enculturation in their disciplines.4 Once socialized into disciplinary practices in the sciences, “good writers will clearly and concisely convey information, support their statements with data, incorporate credible outside sources as needed, and properly cite information from outside sources.”5 When planning sessions for EBIO 3940, we redesigned our instruction to give students opportunities to participate in scholarly conversations so they can join the community of scientists.</p
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Students as Wikipedia Teachers Creating an Authentic Peer Learning Experience with a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
Wikipedia has become a core part of the information landscape, and many librarians have added Wikipedia-related discussions and activities to their teaching. At the same time, gaps in Wikipedia coverage due to its largely White and male editorship has spawned a proliferation of edit-a-thons designed to add representative content to Wikipedia, notably the Art + Feminism editing community and events.1 This chapter explores a first-year seminar course centered on Wikipedia where students not only authored an article, but also organized an edit-a-thon they publicized, managed, themed, and created training materials for.</p
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Inorganic is Still Good for You: Building a Structured Group Mentoring Program for Librarians
Naturally, libraries want their new librarians to succeed, and recognize that high quality mentoring will help accomplish that goal. However, ensuring mentoring for new librarians, whether they are in faculty positions or not, is harder than it sounds. Many envision a traditional one-on-one mentor- ing relationship, and when such relationships grow organically out of pre- existing positive professional relationships they can be very rewarding for both mentor and protégé. Nevertheless, relying on these relationships to develop organically carries with it natural inequities in access to mentoring for new librarians who have not had the good fortune to meet and bond with a senior colleague. As conceptions of mentoring shift toward build- ing professional networks rather than a teacher/student dynamic, structured group mentoring can address some of the inherent weaknesses of tradi- tional informal mentoring structures. In response to internal assessments highlighting the need for an equitable, scalable approach to mentoring, the University Libraries at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) developed a structured group mentoring program for librarians of all ranks.</p