Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Connecting With Community: Developing Skills Through Community Research, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

Learn how to empower students through primary resources! Teach students how to research their communities, past and present, in order to understand their place and meaning in the world.

On this residential campus, the library has found ways to connect students with the surrounding community via primary sources. In one workshop, students researched the campus neighborhoods, as they were once home to working class families, but are now primarily occupied by students. In using Ancestry Library, Sanborn maps and other websites, students not only connect with the past, but also begin to understand the college’s role and value within the …

The Research Skills Of Undergraduate Philosophy Majors: Teaching Information Literacy, Heidi Gauder, Fred W. Jenkins

Heidi Gauder

This article presents a case study of how one school introduced a one-credit course for philosophy majors focused on effective searching for and critical evaluation of primary and secondary sources. The course curriculum is based on departmental learning outcomes and is also aligned with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) standards.

Undergraduate Research Needs: Faculty-Librarian Collaboration To Improve Information Literacy In Policy Papers, Michelle C. Pautz, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

To improve the quality of semester-long policy projects of upper-division political science students, a faculty member and research librarian collaborated to reframe the assignment in hopes of improving students’ research skills and information literacy, revising the traditional one-way model of faculty sending students to the library to get information. The outcomes over the course of two semesters have been promising. Citations in two sets of student papers showed a remarkable increase in the number and quality of sources used. This suggests that when faculty work with librarians throughout the semester, such collaboration can improve students’ information literacy and thus their …

Tracking For Outreach: Using Data For Cross-Unit Purposes, Heidi Gauder, Hector Escobar

Heidi Gauder

Purpose: Since creating an information commons a couple years ago, this library’s research team has been coordinating data gathering methods with the writing center. With both units using standard check-in procedures at a shared desk and hosting in-depth consultations in a shared space, it made sense to share technologies. Since Spring 2015, we have logged students for research consultations with software that is commonly used by writing centers, tutoring and other academic support units. We are not only able to count the number of consultations, but we are also able to record cross-referrals with the writing center, calculate average consultation …

Using Peers To Shed Light On Service Hours For Librarians, Hector Escobar, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

Purpose: Public service hours for many academic librarians have changed within the last decade. As reference statistics have declined, so have job descriptions changed. We often hear terms like outreach, liaison work, embedded librarianship, consulting hours, scheduled appointments. etc., for what used to be normal desk hours. With a changing service model, comes accountability. How do institutions account for these new forms of work and duties that have replaced traditional service desk hours? How does this feed into performance or merit review?

The purpose of this short paper is to shed light on the roles of librarians at medium-sized universities, …

Let’S Chat: Assessing Virtual Reference Service For Optimal User Experience, Heidi Gauder, Margaret Barkley

Heidi Gauder

Both librarians and student employees staff our virtual reference service, so ensuring consistent and quality chat transactions is important. Sample transcripts from fall 2014 were evaluated, and a fall 2015 follow-up analysis reviewed service improvement efforts. This poster will highlight how a simple scale can be used to assess virtual reference service.

“It All Starts With A Smile”: Training Student Employees In A Learning Commons Environment, Heidi Gauder, Patricia Meinking

Heidi Gauder

This poster will present the results of a survey that invited respondents to share information about student employees in learning commons environments, including training techniques, estimated training hours, and training content. This study aims to offer benchmarks for student employee training, with a goal of improving services in a learning commons environment.

Strengthening Skills: Hosting A Research Boot Camp, Stephanie Soule, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

Instruction librarians and an academic department formed a community of practice and developed a three-day research “boot camp” for graduate research assistants. The students gained critical research skills, which benefited their department, while the librarians experimented with new instruction techniques.

On The “Write” Path To Student Learning: Library And Writing Center Collaboration, Hector Escobar, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

This case study outlines considerations needed for libraries and writing centers to collaborate effectively and describes benefits derived from this arrangement.

Sketching Success: Assessing Learning Outcomes With Concept Maps, Heidi Gauder, Fred W. Jenkins

Heidi Gauder

Learn how one library uses concept maps to conduct both quick and in-depth assessments of student learning. This technique evolved into a more formal assessment with pre- and post-testing for both one-shot instruction sessions and semester-long research classes. After transcribing the concepts to spreadsheets, librarians standardize the terms and map them to ACRL Information Literacy Standards for more rigorous analysis and assessment. Discover how concept maps can be easily utilized for assessment.

Integrated Service Spaces: New Ways Of Assessing Collaboration., Hector Escobar, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

Many academic libraries have participated in the growing trend in creating unified service desks, where users visit one desk to get help from a variety of library and other campus services. The University of Dayton’s Roesch Library, however, is exploring a different model. It is piloting a service that lends itself to true integration with external departments. Although unified service desks offer the convenience of one-stop assistance, the various units may still act as silos. Service integration facilitates better cross-training and less confusion for students who may need multiple forms of help in one common area. The library began to …

All Majors Welcome: Library Internships And Career Development, Heidi Gauder, Katy Kelly, Colleen Hoelscher

Heidi Gauder

The academic library can play a crucial role in experiential learning, particularly through student internships. This library is one of the larger units on campus to employ student workers and we spend many hours training them to handle questions at service desks, assist with cataloging functions, help digitize materials, and a variety of other tasks. In 2011, we built on that idea of student workers and partnered with the University Honors Program to offer customized experiential learning through paid internships. These internships allowed us to spend additional time with students in preparation for their chosen careers or graduate school, helped …

Results For Résumés: Managing Undergraduate Library Interns, Katy Kelly, Colleen Hoelscher, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

The academic library can play a crucial role in experiential learning for undergraduate students. In 2011, librarians at the University of Dayton built on the idea of student workers and partnered with the University Honors Program to offer customized experiential learning through paid internships. Librarians work one-on-one with students from a variety of disciplines. With experiences tailored to student interests, the library setting becomes a real world laboratory for skills training within the undergraduates’ disciplines or career interests. This article will describe the variety of experiences offered, resources needed, and ways of measuring and assessing for an effective internship program. …

Portfolio Power: Assessing Student Research & Writing, Katy Kelly, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

This session will describe the process and results of an instruction team’s pilot project to analyze student writing portfolios using ACRL standards. Following the English Department’s existing portfolio review methods, the team assessed portfolio samples from a class that received library instruction, as well as a second batch of samples from a class that did not. The team identified four specific learning outcomes, which were measured with a rubric. Outcome results indicated differences as well as similarities between the samples. This pilot helped refine the assessment process and it offered possibilities for changing the content of future library instruction sessions.

Old School And New School: Engaging Undergraduates In Discipline- Based Research, Heidi Gauder, Fred W. Jenkins

Heidi Gauder

Cross-unit collaboration and curriculum integration became a reality when librarians were approached by academic departments to teach a course about conducting discipline-specific research skills. At this university students are required to demonstrate general and discipline-specific information literacy competencies, which are determined by the departments and programs, not by the library; in reality most of the departments and programs adopt the general information literacy competencies for both sets of competencies.

Two departments, however, had 1-credit hour research courses on the books; in one case, the course had been taught over a weekend by a faculty member and in the other case, …

Mapping For Change: Re-Imagining Assessment With Concept Maps, Heidi Gauder, Fred W. Jenkins

Heidi Gauder

Facilitate student creativity and assess information skills at the same time with concept maps. Learn how to administer these easy assessments and analyze them for evidence of learning. The presenters will demonstrate how this assessment technique can be used in multiple situations and how it is possible to transform these maps into results that can be easily understood by stakeholders.

Engaging Undergraduates In Discipline-Based Research, Heidi Gauder, Fred Jenkins

Heidi Gauder

Purpose – This article aims to describe the standards-based approach used to build the International Studies Research Methods (INS250) course, a discipline-specific, credit-based class taught by librarians. This writing-intensive course emphasizes information literacy and critical thinking skills, which were developed using written assignments, class presentations, multiple assessment methods, and web-based applications. Design/methodology/approach – This paper will review the literature about discipline-specific, credit-based information literacy (IL) courses and outcomes. It will also analyze the INS250 course structure and map ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education to learning outcomes for the course. Findings – The paper finds that, in the …

“You Look A Little Young To Be In College”: Preschoolers And Academic Libraries, Amanda Black, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

Learn how one academic library facilitates learning at the pre-school level through targeted programming opportunities. Working with preschool teachers, this library developed age-appropriate activities for children to experience an academic library environment. The Ohio Early Learning and Development Standards were utilized in describing the learning outcomes associated with the activities. This poster will show how academic libraries can provide outreach to the community with fun learning experiences for the youngest of users.

Using Assessment To Leverage Collaboration With The Campus Writing Center, Heidi Gauder, Hector Escobar

Heidi Gauder

Purpose Like many academic libraries, the University of Dayton’s Roesch Library houses a writing center. Currently located on the Library’s 2nd floor, it will soon move and become integrated with the library’s reference service. Since the writing center operates independently from the library (e.g., it is staffed by students and reports to different campus administrators), the library reference team, comprised of tenure-line faculty librarians, wanted to better understand writing center services. Given that research and writing are often intertwined, the library was particularly interested in learning how the writing center addressed the evaluation, integration and attribution of sources, tasks similar …

Write Together: Assessing Writing Center Data For Library Collaboration, Heidi Gauder, Hector Escobar

Heidi Gauder

Two academic support units, the library and the writing center, will be co-located on the library’s first floor starting Fall 2014. With a mandate to integrate services, the library was particularly interested in learning how the writing center addressed the evaluation, integration and attribution of sources, tasks similar to the work of reference librarians. Learn how we analyzed the writing center’s consultant reports in order to gain a deeper understanding of their work and prepare for a more effective service integration.