Education Commons^™

Usability As A Method For Assessing Discovery, Thomas A. Ipri, Michael A. Yunkin, Jeanne M. Brown

Library Faculty Publications

The University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries engaged in three projects that helped identify areas of its website that had inhibited discovery of services and resources. These projects also helped generate staff interest in the Usability Working Group, which led these endeavors. The first project studied student responses to the site. The second focused on a usability test with the Libraries’ peer research coaches and resulted in a presentation of those findings to the Libraries staff. The final project involved a specialized test, the results of which also were presented to staff. All three of these projects led to improvements …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Review Of College And University Archives: Readings In Theory And Practice By Christopher J. Prom And Ellen D. Swain, W. Bede Mitchell

Library Faculty Publications

This review was published in College and Research Libraries.