Higher Education Commons^™

Reconsidering Literacy, Audrey Powers, Marc Powers

Charleston Library Conference

Literacy, until recently, was defined as the ability to read printed text and to understand the nuances of both the form and content of that printed text. More recently there has been a focus on subsets of literacy – data literacy, numeracy, visual literacy, media literacy, etc. – that recognizes the means of communicating ideas and facts are not limited to the printed text and that there are multiple means which may be more powerful ways of communicating in our world. In recent years, higher education has been redefining what it means to be educated – from a focus on …

What Are Students Saying About Their Reference Needs?, Damon Zucca

Charleston Library Conference

Libraries and publishers rely on transactional data to support evidence-based decision making. However, by itself quantitative information does not provide a full picture. To anticipate the evolving needs of our audience we also need to hear from the individual users themselves. In this article, I will review the findings from several recent examples survey-based research into the question of how students use reference materials in and outside of their libraries. What are students actually saying about their needs and preferences when it comes to reference? While some uses cases for reference are moving out of the library into the open …

How Libraries Can Increase The Number Of Opportunities For Students To Engage In High Impact Practices On Their Campus, Mark Dahl

High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries

Small liberal arts colleges often showcase high impact practices like student-faculty research and service learning on their websites. But too often these opportunities are limited to only a few exceptional students on a given campus. Libraries can help provide their communities with more opportunities for students to engage in high impact practices through practicums. Lewis & Clark’s Watzek Library has offered practicums in exhibit creation, software development, archival processing, oral history, data curation and other activities. The practicums are faculty-sponsored and library-led and give the student a mentored practical and intellectual experience. Depending on the practicum, they can involve writing, …

Covid And Sasquatch And Wildfires, Oh My! The Surprising Success Of An Asynchronous Event For First-Year Undergrads, Jenny Bruxvoort, Kate Wimer

High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries

Mysteries of Murdock began as an in-person Pacific Northwest themed mythbusting event for first-year students, helping them feel comfortable in library facilities and with library resources. In light of Fall 2020, we were challenged to reach this population with an excellent online alternative. This lightning talk will share our experience from iterative project management to goal setting to “event” hype. We’ll share our final product as well as brief insights from our assessment data. Attendees will leave understanding how asynchronous events fit in their toolbox of library programming and what elements are critical to making those events high-impact and successful. …

Hip, Hip, Hooray For Writing And Research!, Janet Hauck, Carrie Fry

High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries

The offering of Writing-Intensive Courses is a High-Impact Practice familiar on most college campuses, including Seattle Pacific University’s. In his description of this HIP, author George Kuh states that “the effectiveness of this [writing] practice has led to parallel efforts in such areas as information literacy.” Here is the point at which librarians at SPU have stepped in to craft an innovative campus partnership, realigning our services to bring optimum success to our students. In collaboration with the SPU Writing Program, and inspired by another institution in the region, the SPU Library has opened the Research, Reading & Writing Studio. …

Service Learning As The Foundation For An Undergraduate Librarian-Taught Information And Society Course, Kristen Hoffman, Liz Gruchala-Gilbert

High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries

Service-Learning is an experiential educational practice where students participate in a service project tied closely with course concepts. In Spring of 2019, the presenters co-taught a course as part of the SPU Library’s Information Studies minor. This course utilized service-learning as a framework to understand the ways in which information (especially access to information and information technologies) affects those living in the local Seattle area. In partnership with the City of Seattle, students read and scored grant applications from local organizations working on digital equity projects. In response to their service, students wrote reflection essays documenting their experience and their …

Student Library Employment As A High-Impact Practice, Rick Stoddart

High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries

Student employment in academic libraries mirrors many of the characteristics and positive aspects of high impact practices.

The University of Oregon Libraries is at the beginning stages of re-framing their library student employment experience as a high impact practice. Currently, the UO Libraries are having internal discussions, identifying student employment learning outcomes, and building relationships with campus stakeholders. Additionally, the UO Libraries is working with campus institutional research to pull datasets that may connect library student employment to broader student success metrics such as student retention.

This session will offer a broad outline of how library student employment is a …

Fostering Agency Through Peer-To-Peer Learning: Western Libraries’ Practicum In Integrated Academic Literacies, Emily Spracklin

High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries

This lightning talk will introduce attendees to Western Libraries’ Integrated Academic Literacies Practicum, a 1-credit course designed to help underserved students build agency over their learning and empower participation in academic discourse. Through a partnership with the Hacherl Research & Writing Studio, this course pairs students with peer mentors who provide long-term scaffolding in a variety of academic literacies, including listening, speaking, reading, writing, and research. Students determine their learning goals at the beginning of the quarter (usually based on their coursework) and meet weekly with a peer mentor to practice and reflect on strategies for making progress towards those …

The Engaged Library: High-Impact Educational Practices In Academic Libraries, Joan Ruelle, Deandra Little

High-Impact Practices in Academic Libraries

Keynote address:

High-impact educational practices (HIPs)—as identified by George Kuh and the Association of American Colleges & Universities (2008)—are widely recognized as activities that promote student engagement, student retention, and positive student learning outcomes. How these eleven practices are implemented may vary some, depending on institutional context and priorities, as well as on the learners themselves, but are all meant to create substantive activities that deepen student learning, engagement, and success. A persistent struggle for libraries has been articulating how libraries directly and indirectly contribute to student success, and calls to better measure and articulate the contributions of libraries to …

Pandemic Pivoting: Unf’S 2020 Soars Virtual Conference, Karen Cousins, Andrew Rush, Courtenay Mcleland

Florida Statewide Symposium: Best Practices in Undergraduate Research

The Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS) is the University of North Florida’s highly-anticipated research poster event, organized by the Office of Undergraduate Research and held each April during Research Week – that is, until the pandemic changed our plans last spring. The members of this panel will share why we decided not to cancel the event; how we transitioned from an in-person conference to a virtual conference; how we created the website, uploaded the content, and integrated a judging component; how we later archived the 2020 projects for posterity; how we reaped some unexpected benefits, not …

Developing Critical Thinking With Rhetorical Pedagogy, Elizabeth Ismail

OSSA Conference Archive

The development of critical thinking skills is emphasized as a fundamental attribute of successful graduates (Ritchhart & Perkins, 2005; Willingham, 2008). Some critical thinking textbooks inform students to “see beyond the rhetoric to the core idea being stated” (Moore and Parker, 2009, p. 21); however, other scholars have begun to suggest that rhetoric is intrinsically interrelated to critical thinking and plays a pivotal role in everyday interactions (Saki, 2016). This paper explores the later.

Title Ix Effectiveness At American Universities, Corrine K. Girard

Discovery Day - Prescott

The purpose of this research is to contribute to and improve existing university knowledge of the effectiveness of the University Title IX reporting process. After discussing experiences with Title IX with students at ERAU, it is apparent that there is a negative connotation among university students with this program. This research will build off of the research completed last year in which ERAU Title IX processes were compared to that of Occidental College and CalTech. This research aims to provide clarity to Title IX offices at the University to aid in successfully adapting their program to the needs of the …

Engaging Professional Advocacy Through Community-Based Participatory Research And Community Engagement, Anastasha Homa-Earl

Graduate Student Research Symposium

Community engagement (CE) and service learning are trending in institutions of higher education, with instructors including community-based coursework to encourage applied, experiential learning (Henderson, 2017; Johnson, 2013). Counselors are called to advocate both for their clients and for the counseling profession overall, in addition to their role as change-makers in regards to the accessibility of services (ACA, 2014; ACA 2018). Some research suggests that interprofessional collaboration can be beneficial for addressing social advocacy efforts, and that advocacy and experiential learning can help to develop professional identity (e.g. Mellin, Hunt, & Nichols, 2010; Luke & Goodrich, 2010; Myers, Sweeney, & White, …

The Impact Of Wellness Training On Resilience, Depression, And Anxiety In College Age Students, Jamie S. Myrtle

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Data suggests that mental health disorders in college students are increasing. University personnel seek to help students better manage their mental health through access to campus counseling centers. Slow enrollment growth has placed pressure on university budgets making it difficult to fully fund counseling centers. Therefore, university personnel seek cost-effective interventions to meet the need. Increasing resilience has shown promise in reducing the overall impact of depression and anxiety. The purpose of the current study was to explore the impact of wellness training on resilience, depression, and anxiety to determine the effectiveness of the intervention in improving resilience and reducing …

Determining Human Development Competency Training Needs Of Fcs Extension Professionals, Alligrace Story, Alisha M. Hardman, Marina D. Denny, Geoff Denny

Southeastern Council on Family Relations Conference

Extension agents with Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) programmatic responsibilities come from a variety of backgrounds but are expected to implement educational programs across FCS knowledge areas. This study examined [state] University Extension personnel’s perceived importance of and perceived ability related to human development competencies. There was a significant difference between how specialists (state-level) and agents (county-level) perceived the importance of three of the five human development concepts. Most agents’ perceived their ability across the human development competencies to be average or just above average. Using the perceived importance and perceived ability data from the agents, next steps include piloting …

Organizing And Promoting Campus-Wide Workshops For Digital Badges, Victor Dominguez Baeza

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Academic libraries exist in large part to support learning experiences at the university. The range of services and resources available to graduate students continues to grow in number and in format as various departments on campus develop their graduate support activities. A growing trend at universities is to create programs such as digital badges to capture the “soft skills” students gain outside of the classroom. The digital badges can be offered from the school, a department like the graduate college, or through support services like the writing center, career services, or the library. Libraries, as a department already in contact …

Big Ideas, Individual Effort: Graduate Student Writing Retreats As Accelerator For Dissertation Completion, Michael Harris

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

The University of Memphis promotes itself as a major, urban, research institution, but it lacks one thing: Carnegie Research 1 classification. Recently, the University has set a goal to achieve such designation by the year 2023 and has created and supported numerous programs to assist with the success, recruitment, and retention of graduate students. In support of these efforts, the offices of the Graduate School, the Center for Writing and Communication, and the University Libraries have an important role to play. Separately, each represents a phase in process towards graduation, but together, they can serve as a powerful, holistic tool …

Data Management (Or How I Learned To Love My Data): Reaching Graduate Students Through A Responsible Conduct Of Research Program, Sophia Lafferty-Hess, Ciara Healy

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

At Duke University there is a requirement for all graduate students to take a number of credits in courses called Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). While faculty and staff members can be approved to teach these two hour workshops, librarians at Duke have in the last few years proposed several that cross disciplinary boundaries, such as the workshop on retractions in the science and social scientific literature as well as more discipline focused, such as Scholarly Publishing in East Asian Studies.

For our presentation we would like to focus on developing, delivering and evolving the RCR courses on data management. …

Leverage Campus Resources For First Year Graduate Student Outreach, Mandy L. Havert, Mark Robison

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Graduate student orientation is a time filled with a fire hose of information coming at students transitioning to new communities, new studies and trying to keep it all under control. In partnership with subject-area librarians and the graduate school administration, My colleague Mark Robison (Political Science, Global Affairs) and I are designing a first-year graduate student outreach program that will connect incoming graduate students with their subject librarians to learn resources the Hesburgh Libraries offer along with the services they may not know are available.

Helping Stem Graduate Students Fall Into Research, Diana Hartle, Kelsey Forester

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Each Fall and Spring semester, the UGA Science Library hosts a series of workshops for undergraduate and graduate students during one consolidated week focused on research needs. In the past year, librarians at the Science Library noticed a large and growing need for research and wellness support for our STEM graduate students. This led us to begin to collaborate with the graduate school, University Health Center, and other science and medical librarians. Through this collaboration, we reconstructed our semesterly workshop series to be tailored specifically to STEM graduate students. We offered workshops on citation management, tools for tracking scholarly presence, …

Aligning Existing Library Services To Disciplinary Discourse Practices: Mapping The Intellectual Journeys Of Graduate Students, Elizabeth Kline

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

As universities struggle to find ways to attract top graduate students, one strategy colleges and departments often employ is to create new graduate program offerings. These new graduate program offerings are often driven by a need to support growth in multi-disciplinary areas and the need to stay cutting edge, as well as concerns related to changes in staffing and pressures in the marketplace. As a means of supporting campus, libraries strive to develop new services to support evolving research needs. However, despite developing user driven library offerings, library users are often unaware of said services and, by extension, unaware of …

Tailoring Boot Camps To Graduate Student Needs, Tim Dodge, Adelia Grabowsky, Juliet T. Rumble, Elizabeth J. Weisbrod

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

In an effort to strengthen the academic and career preparedness of graduate students at their public land grant university, library faculty organized a one-day boot camp, featuring workshops focused on research and scholarly productivity skills. Organizers of the boot camp recognized that the needs of their graduate students extended beyond the discipline-specific curricula of graduate programs and the content of library orientations and one-shots. The workshop series they developed, informed by input from graduate students, focused on skills and strategies needed throughout the research lifecycle. Graduate student response to the weekend boot camp was overwhelmingly positive, and attendance has grown …

Science Students And Student Researchers: Outreach Challenges Facing A Satellite Librarian, Mason Brown

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

The CUNY (City University of New York) Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) has a small group of postdoctoral science students who are primarily onsite for lab work. I was asked to develop a series of library workshops that would appeal to both the ASRC students, and the more traditional grad students at the Graduate Center (GC) main campus. Developing seminars that appeal to users as both students and as researchers simultaneously have been a rewarding challenge. I will discuss how I developed and modified these topics over the course of one semester for two different audiences, as well as the …

The Literature Review: A Learning Tool, Olga Koz

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Literature reviews are the source of constant stress among doctoral and master level students and, at the same time, the most popular assignment among instructors. After teaching numerous workshops, webinars, Literature Review Bootcamps, and co-teaching “literature review modules,” I decided to create an interactive web-based learning tool, the Literature Review Design (LRD).

You are welcome to use it before the workshop. Access URL:http://libguides.kennesaw.edu/LRDesign

During this workshop, I will share with you the information about the tool and demonstrate how it was used as a complementary learning aid to scaffold instruction and within the KSU Interactive Research Method Lab. You …

Where They Lead, I Will Follow: Serving Remote Graduate Student Populations, Penny Scott

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

In 2012, the University of San Francisco's School of Management underwent a monumental change in both location and student access to academic services. In that year, all classes and most staff and student services for the MBA and other business graduate programs were relocated to a new site near the Financial District, which is across the city from the main campus. Suddenly, a major group of my service population was no longer on campus near me or near the library! In this poster, I will describe the process I undertook to remain visible and accessible to this important group of …

Brainwork In The Research Lifecycle: Idea Development Activity With Scamper, Vandy Pacetti Donelson

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

This poster demonstrates how to reconceptualize research ideas using the Mind Tool “SCAMPER” developed by Alex Osborn and Bob Erbele.

One of the most intangible aspects of the scholarly research cycle is the act of thinking and reasoning. Much of it is assumed, taken for granted, or simply expected as part and parcel of being an academic in a research university. But thinking, understanding, making sense, processing, synthesizing and developing new ideas pervades all or most of the research activities in which scholars engage.

We need to help make the information in our library systems usable in our digital world …

Surfacing Services For Students As Scholars: A Case Study, Jill Cirasella

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

This poster presents as a case study the recent library reorganization at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The reorganization was initially spurred by the need to divide the library’s large, hydra-headed Public Services and Scholarly Communication unit into smaller, more coherent units. One of the five resulting units is Scholarly Communication and Digital Scholarship, composed of librarians who provide services related to scholarly communication, the institutional repository, data management, digital scholarship, digital preservation, and theses and dissertations. In other words, this new unit provides services that pertain not to the discovery and consumption of knowledge …

Supporting Mba Students In A Team-Based Experiential Learning Environment, Teresa Williams

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

The Lacy School of Business at Butler University (Indianapolis) has embraced an experiential approach for the school’s Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree program by combining traditional classroom instruction with opportunities for students to learn through partnerships with local businesses. Beginning with the MBA Gateway Experience course, graduate students are tasked with conducting team research to present informed recommendations to business owners and community leaders. The related support provided by the Butler Business Librarian for MBA students complements the experiential nature of the program by engaging students with the real-world challenges of collecting and evaluating business information for applied problem-solving. …

Assessing Education Needs Of Graduate Students For Data Management, Judith E. Pasek

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Uncertainty remains as to areas of greatest need for instruction in research data management, and whether perceived needs differ between disciplinary faculty and graduate students. Data sharing requirements of research funders have provided the impetus in recent years for librarians to provide data management services. Instructional approaches ranging from workshops to credit courses are being developed, often without the benefit of first conducting a needs assessment.

A study of education needs in research data management was conducted jointly at the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Wyoming. Graduate students in science-based programs with research thesis or dissertation requirements …

Graduate Occupational Therapy Students & Information Literacy: Does A Research Consultation Increase Information Literacy Skills While Lowering Library Anxiety?, Mary C. Rickelman, Christine Moghimi

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

In today’s academic environment, students equipped with self-regulated learning and information literacy skills have an excellent opportunity for professional success, given our current information-based practices in health care. Information literacy instruction provided to students early in their coursework will aide them in acquiring competency for the remainder of their studies, especially scholarly projects. Along with information literacy issues, library anxiety has been identified in the literature as a contributing factor to poor academic performance in students. The purpose of this study was to explore components of library anxiety, if present, as well as to help students become more comfortable and …