Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Impact Of Information Literacy Instruction On Student Success: A Multi-Institutional Investigation And Analysis, Joni Blake, Melissa Bowles-Terry, N. Shirlene Pearson, Zoltan Szentkiralyi

Fondren Library Research

The GWLA Student Learning Outcomes task force analyzed the data from over 42,000 first-time, first-year freshmen and over 1700 distinct courses from 12 research institutions to determine the impact(s) of information literacy instruction integrated into course curriculum on several student success measures.

Key findings include:

• Student retention rates are higher for those students whose courses include an information literacy instruction component.
• On average, First-Year GPA for students whose courses included information literacy instruction was higher than the GPA of students whose courses did not.
• Students exposed to library instruction interactions successfully completed 1.8 more credit hours per year than their …

Barriers To Oer Adoption (And Possible Solutions), Amanda Hovious

Texas Conference on Institutional Repositories

Type of presentation: Full Session

ABSTRACT

In 2012, at the World Open Educational Resources Congress in Paris, UNESCO declared that governments within their powers should develop strategies and policies that promote open educational resources (OER) as an avenue toward the universal right of equity of access to education. Though OER has increased exponentially in availability since that time, there remain confounding factors that act as barriers to OER adoption, such as ease of discovery, ease of adaptability and re-use, and uncertainty regarding quality and sustainability. Numerous studies have examined these barriers, and these studies should be of concern to librarians …

Deciphering Signatures For Improved Discoverability Of Etds, Stacey Wolf, Kevin Yanowski

Texas Conference on Institutional Repositories

Ever look at a signature and realize you can’t read the name, even though the letters look almost legible? Now imagine there is not a printed name near that signature. Multiply this issue by 2-4 names per item in a collection of thousands. The University of North Texas Libraries recently ran into this problem when adding metadata to recently-digitized theses and dissertations (ETDs) from the 1930s to 1990s. Deciphering the signatures proved difficult and time-consuming because centralized employee rosters do not exist for every year spanning the scope of the ETDs. Without these rosters, the UNT Library catalogers could not …

We Need To Talk: Educating Internal Stakeholders On Repository Needs, James Williamson, Felicia Williamson

Texas Conference on Institutional Repositories

In creating, managing, and adapting digital collections, managers often face hurdles of technical misunderstanding and sometimes, intimidation. By educating internal stakeholders and creating allies, information managers can facilitate institutional change and are much more able to request and receive funding to pursue innovative programs requiring technical infrastructure.

Felicia Williamson, Archivist at the Dallas Holocaust Museum, will discuss the ongoing efforts to build a more robust technical infrastructure at a small non-profit Museum. Former efforts did not employ metadata standards. Moreover, online access to collections seemed a far off goal. Two main needs emerged: to create and maintain robust metadata and …

Bioethics In The Work Of Ernest Everett Just: + Missing - Some 400 Pages, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Biology + ethics = bioethics. Here we see that Howard University biologist Ernest Everett Just (born 1883, died 1941) connected biology to ethics.

According to Just, various forms of specific biology (including especially cell biology) plus “general biology” are necessary for explaining adequately the origin of ethical behaviors. Social ethical behaviors, especially mutual aid and cooperative interactions with others and the environment, are essential to evolutionary advances among living creatures, ranging from humans to cells. Accordingly, theory of ethics (moral theory) should have roots in biology.

Also, Just wrote an unpublished book-length manuscript—“some 400 typed pages” (Just 1940)—on seeking the …