Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

One Journal Issue, Two Activities, Three Views: Information Creation As A Process, Nancy R. Curtis

Library Staff Publications

Since we have shifted most of our serial subscriptions from print to digital format, our students encounter “scientific journals” as abstractions, not as the tangible objects familiar to their instructors. Furthermore, since students interact with journals via bibliographic databases, they lose access to visual cues indicating the nature of individual works. I presented two learning activities to early career undergraduate science students. The first introduced them to different online manifestations of the same issue of a scientific journal, and prompted them to consider how each format meets specific information needs. In the second, students examined a variety of information products …