Receptivity to Library Involvement in Scientific Data Curation: A Case Study at the University of Colorado Boulder

Increasingly libraries are expected to play a role in scientific data curation initiatives, i.e., the management and preservation of digital data over the long-term. This case study offers a novel approach for identifying researchers who are receptive toward library involvement in data curation. The authors interviewed researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and, after analysis, created eight design personas. Each persona represents an aggregation of researcher attributes and can be used to target strategic relationships for nascent or emerging data management initiatives. These personas are applicable to any academic library seeking to provide data curation support

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&rsquo;s (CU&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s priorities, faculty teaching EBIO 3940 aim for students to move beyond mere grammatical and stylistic correctness into a critical understanding of writing&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;to position IL as [an] integral part of disciplinary socialization.&rdquo;3 We saw a need to act toward integrating IL within the students&rsquo; STEM education and to guide them toward enculturation in their disciplines.4 Once socialized into disciplinary practices in the sciences, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;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

Bridging Two Cultures: Undergraduate Biology Instruction through the Lens of Archives and Special Collections

Conference Proceeding for https://osf.io/view/HumforSTEM2018

Going beyond the textbook: The need to integrate open access primary literature into the Chemistry curriculum

Abstract Unrestricted, open access to scholarly scientific literature provides an opportunity for chemistry educators to go beyond the textbook, introducing students to the real work of scientists. Despite the best efforts of textbook authors to provide information about recent research results, textbooks are not a substitute for learning to use the primary literature. Chemical educators can use open access articles to develop research-related skills, to foster curiosity, and to cultivate the next generation of scientists. It is becoming increasingly important for chemical educators to teach undergraduates how online journals are changing the nature of chemical research. Some institutions can not afford online subscription costs, and open access journals can be an important resource to provide practical experience. Open access publications eliminate the barriers to the central work of scientists providing chemistry educators (whether at well-endowed or economically limited colleges) with the key resources for enhancing student learning through current, relevant research.</p

The Ecology of Information Literacy: Modes of Inquiry, Location and Assessment in a Biology Department’s Writing Class

Many universities require science majors to enroll in writing classes with a disciplinary focus; these offer opportunities to meaningfully integrate information literacy instruction (IL) into disciplinary curricula. Writing in a discipline’s genres can assist science majors in joining that discipline and encourage students to move beyond following textual conventions to developing a critical awareness of genres’ purposes and content. At our university, we are addressing ways in which such classes can enable students to become familiar with the use of credible, disciplinarily acceptable lines of reasoning and sources of evidence. Priorities in both writing and IL align well. The Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) underscores habits of mind critical to IL, including curiosity, flexibility and metacognition, which parallel the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The Framework’s transfer of focus in IL from procedural instruction to conceptual instruction gave us an opportunity to engage students in critically and reflectively locating, evaluating, analyzing, interpreting and using information and a chance to collaborate with faculty in a deeper and more intellectually engaging way. Together, these frameworks can provide a vision for IL’s value in WAC/WID. Following the CWPA/ACRL frameworks, we integrated IL into a biology department’s WID class. We developed a three-tier process (inquiry, location and assessment) of learning activities, and co-led class sessions in the university’s library. Students responded positively, transferring higher-order skills to new contexts—as well as producing high-quality scientific writing. Our reflection and assessment suggests that the sessions worked but revealed new challenges