Education Commons^™

Collaborating With Teaching Faculty On Transparent Assignment Design, Melissa Bowles-Terry, John C. Watts, Pat Hawthorne, Patricia Iannuzzi

Library Faculty Publications

In light of a campus-wide curricular change at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the University Libraries created Faculty Institutes to build capacity for effective teaching and assessment practices campus-wide. The UNLV Libraries Faculty Institutes are multi-day workshops designed and delivered by librarians to help teaching faculty create courses and assignments that are research-rich and closely aligned with the newly launched General Education learning outcomes. This chapter provides the situational factors leading to the overhaul of General Education at UNLV and how librarians leveraged this opportunity to maximize their role as experts in information literacy and instructional design. This …

Vendor Of The Month: A Marketing Collaboration, Lateka Grays, J. Cory Tucker

Library Faculty Publications

Marketing library resources remains an important issue despite library reductions in staff and collections budgets. In order to maintain or expand marketing programs, libraries could do well tapping into the expertise available through the vendors supplying resources to libraries. A case study of a library marketing program called, “Vendor of the Month,” at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas explains the collaboration between the library and its vendors to increase awareness and use of selected electronic resources.

Information Literacy Opportunities Within The Discovery Tool Environment, Nancy E. Fawley, Nikki Krysak

Library Faculty Publications

Discovery tools such as Primo, EBSCO Discovery Service, Summon, and WorldCat Local aim to make scholarly research more intuitive for students in part because of their single interface for searching across multiple platforms, including the library, fee-based databases, and unique digital collections. Discovery tools are in sync with the way many undergraduates look for information because they offer a more “Google-like” experience in contrast with previous methods of research that required first knowing which database to use, then searching each one differently according to its specifications. However, broad searches across multiple formats with different systems of controlled vocabulary force instructors …

Guidelines For Media Resources In Academic Libraries (2012), Mary S. Laskowski, Cyrus Ford Zarganj, Nancy E. Friedland, Jacqueline Fritz, Jim Holmes, Lora Lennertz Jetton, M. Claire Stewart, Joe M. Williams

Library Faculty Publications

Technology used in teaching, learning, and research has created new challenges and opportunities for managers of college and university library media resource collections and services.

Moving images, sounds, and still images have become increasingly important in teaching, learning and research, and academic librarians are working closely with other agencies on campus to support faculty and student information needs. In some institutions, librarians have become true partners in the delivery of instruction, working with faculty, technologists, and instructional developers to create “new learning communities.”

Most academic libraries collect media, and these materials are as vital and diverse as any print collection …

Hitch Your Wagon To Institutional Goals, Anne E. Zald, Michelle Millet

Library Faculty Publications

The landscape of accreditation and accountability in higher education is in a period of rapid change, coalescing around issues identified in the 2006 report of the Spellings Commission, “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education.” Information literacy librarians need to connect their instructional efforts to the institutional strategies and initiatives that address continuous improvement whatever their source, e.g. accreditation agencies, funding bodies such as state legislatures, institutional participation in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), University & College Accountability Network (U-CAN), or internal initiatives of the institution’s administration. The challenge for instruction librarians is great, requiring …

Notes From The Field: 10 Short Lessons On One-Shot Instruction, Megan Oakleaf, Steven Hoover, Beth S. Woodard, Jennifer Corbin, Randy Hensley, Diana K. Wakimoto, Christopher V, Hollister, Debra Gilchrist, Michelle Millet, Patricia A. Iannuzzi

Library Faculty Publications

Librarians teach. It might not be what we planned to do when we entered the profession, or it may have been our secret hope all along. Either way, we teach. We teach users of all types, including students, faculty, and our co-workers. We teach in multiple venues including classrooms, reference desks, face-to-face, and online. While the variety of teaching audiences and environments are endless, one teaching scenario remains quintessential: the one-shot library instruction session. No one knows better than librarians the limitations of this format, yet it remains central to our teaching efforts.

Why Would They Try? Motivation And Motivating In Low-Stakes Information Skills Testing, Jeanne M. Brown, Carrie A. Gaxiola

Library Faculty Publications

In 2008 the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) University Libraries piloted the Educational Testing Service’s standardised test of information, communication, and technology (ICT) skills (iSkills) in spring and autumn 2008. In the course of administering the test we explored motivational strategies, a critical component in low-stakes, low-personal-consequences testing. Motivational strategies included providing feedback on test performance, highlighting the value of the test for the individual student, and appealing to the student’s willingness to improve the overall performance of the institution. We addressed ways to motivate students in order to enhance their level of participation in and performance …

Whipping Up The “Why Paper”: Inquiry Into Diverse Perspectives, Jennifer L. Fabbi, P. S. Mcmillen, Abigail Hawkins

Library Faculty Publications

Students are introduced to various databases that provide access to alternative perspectives and to an advanced organizer designed to foster critical evaluation of sources.

In a Valuing Cultural Diversity course, required for all undergraduate education majors, students are asked to write a "Why" paper to investigate and understand alternative perspectives, looking particularly at the perspectives of a cultural group different from their own.

Cooking Up Concept Maps, Abigail Hawkins, Jennifer L. Fabbi, P. S. Mcmillen

Library Faculty Publications

Concept maps allow students to visually work through an idea for potentially useful search terms.

A common roadblock students experience in the research process is identifying central concepts in their research questions and devising useful ways to reframe search terms. Concept mapping is one instructional strategy that can be used to help students better identify the central concepts in their research questions and expand on other ways these concepts are articulated in the literature.

New Avenues For Integrating Information Literacy Into The Curriculum, Abigail Hawkins Gonzales, P. S. Mcmillen, Jennifer L. Fabbi

Library Faculty Publications

A generally understood mission of library instruction programs is to promote information literacy (IL) and critical thinking across the curriculum. The majority of programmatic IL collaborations with higher education core curricula are found in introductory composition or communication courses. Other more unconventional avenues offer potentially more effective ways to teach students the basic IL concepts and skills. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), conversations with College of Education faculty helped librarians identify a strategic and unique point of entry for IL instruction. Using the ADDIE model as a conceptual framework, librarians and an instructional designer met with the …

Assessment Tool Or Edutainment Toy, Patrick Griffis

Library Faculty Publications

The use of Clickers as a tool for library instruction has been growing in popularity because library instructors view this technology as a mechanism to foster interactivity within library instruction sessions in order to increase overall student engagement. However, a newly emerging area of interest for library instructors is the use of Clickers as a tool for library instruction assessment. This paper posits some of the viewpoints of various instructors using Clickers including the viewpoints of library instructors. The central question considered in this paper is whether Clickers are an effective and feasible tool for library instruction assessment. This examination …

Success Factors And Strategic Planning: Rebuilding An Academic Library Digitization Program, Cory K. Lampert, Jason Vaughan

Library Faculty Publications

This paper discusses a dual approach of case study and research survey to investigate the complex factors in sustaining academic library digitization programs. The case study involves the background of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries’ digitization program and elaborates on the authors’ efforts to gain staff support for this program. A related survey was administered to all Association of Research Libraries (ARL) members, seeking to collect baseline data on their digital collections, understand their respective administrative frameworks, and to gather feedback on both negative obstacles and positive inputs affecting their success. Results from the survey, combined with …

Cultivating The Librarian Within: Effectively Lntegrating Library Lnstruction Into Freshman Composition, Jesse Ulmer, Nancy E. Fawley

Library Faculty Publications

It has become common practice for library instruction to be included in lower-level college composition courses. Students are typically required to visit the library once or twice a semester to receive instruction on how to find books and journal articles for an upcoming writing assignment that incorporates formal research. But does this current model of instruction truly address course outcomes that seek to produce students who are information literate, critical thinkers and life-long learners? Faculty who teach such courses are often reluctant to surrender precious class time to a librarian, but this paper argues that the merging of bibliographic instruction …

Reforming The Undergraduate Experience, Diane Vanderpol, Jeanne M. Brown, Patricia A. Iannuzzi

Library Faculty Publications

This chapter examines common objectives in some of the major initiatives in higher education. It highlights the role of librarians and libraries in higher education reform

Instruction And Program Design Through Assessment, Anne E. Zald, Debra Gilchrist

Library Faculty Publications

True to the intention of this chapter, we begin with learning outcomes and use them as the chapter's organizational structure. Learning outcomes represent what we want you to be able to do as a result of active engagement with this material. Within each outcome we include a short discussion of each topic along with many examples and practical applications of the concept under discussion. We hope that this format illustrates the concepts in a holistic manner and facilitates your understanding and learning.

A Collaborative Voyage To Improve Students' Career Information Literacy, Angela Farrar, Lateka Grays, Diane Vanderpol, Amanda Cox

Library Faculty Publications

Librarians, a member of the Hotel College faculty, and a member of the Career Services staff at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas collaborated in the design, implementation and evaluation of a non-traditional research assignment asking students to demonstrate real world information literacy skills.

Session attendees will explore the process by which the traditional librarian-teaching faculty member collaboration grew into a richer project involving a non-traditional partnering. Attendees will be guided through a discussion on levels of collaboration and an audit of potential non-traditional partner opportunities at their own institutions.

Attendees will examine the product of this partnership: an assignment …

Government Information Research, Susie Skarl

Library Faculty Publications

Prior to the mid-1990s, much government information lay outside the mainstream of library catalogs and core indexes and, consequently, was greatly underutilized. Finding government information required negotiating cumbersome search tools, specialized indexes, and separate call number systems. By the end of the 1990s, government information had become more accessible on the World Wide Web. Although the Internet has made searching and finding government information less taxing for patrons, most still require instruction from library staff in order to satisfy their needs in the best possible manner.

The Nuts And Bolts Of College Writing, Priscilla Finley

Library Faculty Publications

Unusual for a style handbook, Nuts and Bolts embeds writing advice in essays that identify rhetorical structures as tools for "shaping your ideas, questions and convictions to share with others." While it offers suggestions that will help writers fine-tune their sentences and paragraphs, it has a lot to say about the machinery of college writing on a grander scale--the switches, transformers, and fans which must function well before a unit can be bolted together.

Teaching Revising And Editing: An Annotated Bibliography, Priscilla Finley

Library Faculty Publications

The most recent of six annotated bibliographies compiled by Speck and others covering facets of writing instruction, editing, and publishing, this work presents single-paragraph annotations of books, journal articles, and ERIC documents from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Apart from noting that the six books in the series should be considered as a whole, the editors do not explicitly discuss selection criteria.

Don’T Drown — Catch The Wave: Instruction At The Valley Library, P. S. Mcmillen

Library Faculty Publications

As many readers will no doubt be aware, librarians at OSU have done one-to-one and classroom instruction tor many years. However, 3S the information landscape changes, so do the students' needs tor learning how to navigate that ever-changing landscape. The rapidly increasing migration of print resources to electronic form removes many of the contextual and visual cues that alerted earlier users to the authority, accuracy, comprehensiveness, point of view, or other indicators by which to judge the quality of information sources. As the experts in the organization, access, and dissemination of information, librarians have stepped forward to teach students how …

The Visual Learner And Information Literacy: Generating Instruction Strategies For Design Students, Jeanne M. Brown

Library Faculty Publications

In this presentation I will address three questions:

1. Who is the visual learner, and are our students – i.e. students in design disciplines – visual learners

2. Does the ACRL Information Literacy Program recognize alternate approaches to information

3. What strategies can we use to reach design students

Journal Selections: Let’S Support Our Students’ Futures, Eva Stowers, Lesley J. Johnson, Susan L. Meacham

Library Faculty Publications

Dietetic educators concur that use of professional journals in the undergraduate curriculum promotes student reading skills, exposes students to current research, enhances computer skills and prepares dietetic students for the real world environment. Those of us in educational institutions are continually asked to review our university library holdings; prioritizing on the basis of department selections, cost, rate of inflation, use by faculty and students and availability through interlibrary loans and other document retrieval procedures. No doubt, those in industry and clinical and private practice are also watching their budgets and are asked to review expenses for professional publications.

Information Research Strategies (Imt 220) And Fluency With Information Technology (Cse 100): Two Approaches To Teaching Use Of Technology, Anne E. Zald, Nana Lowell, Zoe Clelland

Library Faculty Publications

The University of Washington has recently initiated two approaches to teaching technology and information resources via the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) and Computer Science and Engineering (CSE). The courses developed by the respective departments, IMT 200 2 and CSE 100, offered specialized instruction, regarding computer use and the availability of information resources. These courses were offered during Winter 1999 and Spring 2000 quarters, allowing for the evaluation of their success over time, and comparison to courses that were unaccompanied by this type of information resource instruction. Questionnaires were administered to students in IMT 220 and CSE 100 …