Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Supporting Teaching With Primary Sources At Illinois Wesleyan University, Meg Miner

Scholarly Publications

This report contains a summary of IWU’s participation in Ithaka S&R’s Supporting Teaching with Primary Sources study.[1] That work is “an exploratory examination of the pedagogical practices of humanities and social sciences instructors teaching with primary sources at the undergraduate level. The goal of the study is to understand instructors’ undergraduate teaching processes toward developing resources and services to support them in their work.”[2]Five Illinois Wesleyan University faculty teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences were interviewed for this project. Based on the analysis of the interview transcripts, the findings are grouped as follows: the value and purposes of teaching …

For-Profit Managers As Public Fiduciaries: A Neo-Classical Republican Perspective, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

This Article examines the fiduciary duties of for-profit managers in modern liberal society. To arrive at the right "mix" of these duties, it compares the fiduciary duties implied by a standard descriptive model of our society with two competing normative models: Lockean libertarianism on the "right" and neo-classical republicanism on the "left." This comparison shows that all three versions of liberalism, even the one with a Lockean nightwatchman state, require far more extensive duties than we now expect, including a professionalization of management itself. And it shows that the version of liberalism with the most expansive state, neo-classical republicanism, requires …

Melville's Billy Budd And Plato's Republic: Sea Captains And Philosopher-Kings, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

This article shows how Melville's Billy Budd, rightly one of law and literature's most widely studied canonical texts, answers Plato's challenge in Book X of the Republic: Show how "poets" create better citizens, especially better rulers, or banish them from the commonwealth of reasoned law. Captain Vere is a flawed but instructive version of the Republic's philosopher-king, even as his story is precisely the sort of "poetry" that Plato should willingly allow, by his own republican principles, into the ideal polity. Not surprisingly, the novella shows how law's agents must be wise, even as their law must be philosophical, if …

Conflicting Philosophies: Two Librarians And A Presidential Bibliophile, Meg Miner

Scholarly Publications

This case study explores how one personal interest of President Minor Myers, jr.—that of a life-long book collector—influenced the University’s library collections and its leaders. Myers arrived with a desire to make IWU a nationally recognized, Phi Beta Kappa–affiliated institution. As one tactic for achieving these goals, Myers actively engaged in library collection development through practices shaped by his methods of book collecting. Bulk acquisitions—through gifts-in-kind and lot purchases—and a prohibition on weeding aided in his pursuits. His vision for the library challenged the style of the first university librarian (UL) who resigned two years after Myers’ arrival. The actions …

Portrait Of A Collector: Reflections On An Influential Bibliophile, Meg Miner

Scholarly Publications

The purpose of this essay is to bring together disparate information on Myers’ book collecting habits. President Myers used both the objects of his collecting and the intellectual ideas they represent in the course of his presidential responsibilities. This work offers an overview solely of this aspect of Myers’ activities, in both written records and oral histories, and is not an attempt to analyze the entire arc of Myers’ tenure. The following contains an overview of this project, a summary of collectors’ characteristics, generally, and an exploration of the specific type of collector Myers was based both on documentary evidence …

Portrait Of A Collector: A View From The Shelves Of Minor Myers, Jr., Meg Miner

Scholarly Publications

The purpose of this essay is to provide an analysis of the books that President Minor Myers, jr. collected and that were subsequently transferred to Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) after Myers’ death. For reasons that will be discussed below, keeping Myers’ collection in its entirety at IWU was not practical or desirable. Most of the collection was dispersed at auction and a brief discussion of that event and of the decisions about what to retain conclude this work. Even though most of his books are no longer at IWU, it is still possible to appreciate the breadth of Myers’ book …

Three Legs On The Stool: Service Learning Projects, Community, And Library, Karen Schmidt, Deborah Halperin

Scholarly Publications

Illinois Wesleyan University’s Action Research Center launches many different service learning projects in the Bloomington-Normal community. Often these projects originate from the community, and employ the action research model that imbeds the participant-researcher in the organization or program that is being studied. The IWU library has seized on opportunities to integrate library research and critical thinking skills into service learning projects. Some are obvious - working with faculty and students in senior seminar classes to assist with research papers and presentations - while others are more subtle. Using a service learning project as a case study, the authors discuss the …

Faculty Self-Archiving, Stephanie Davis-Kahl

Scholarly Publications

Authors' accepted manuscript version of a book chapter from Making Institutional Repositories Work (Charleston Insights in Library, Archival, and Information Sciences), Burton B. Callicott, David Scherer, Andrew Wesolek (eds), Purdue University Press, 2016. Available for purchase and Google Books.

Intellectual Entrepreneurship: A Frame For Engaging Undergraduates In Scholarly Communication, Stephanie Davis-Kahl

Scholarly Publications

Author's accepted manuscript of a chapter published in Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication: Implementation (Kevin L. Smith and Katherine A. Dickson, eds.), Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Digital Preservation Strategies For A Small Private College, Meg Miner

Scholarly Publications

Well established “best practices” in digital preservation (DP) do little to address day-to-day realities in repositories that cannot dedicate funds or staff to DP workflows. What can a Lone Arranger do to ensure good stewardship for born digital and digitized institutional records before a complete preservation system is in place?

Developing The Writing-Information Literacy Nexus: Results Of A Three-Year Illinois Wesleyan Mellon Grant, Chris Sweet, Joel Haefner

Scholarly Publications

This presentation summarizes some of the successes and challenges of a 3-year Mellon Grant that targeted both Writing and Information Literacy in the disciplines. Grant activities included collaborative assignment design, pedagogical workshops, enhanced writing tutor training, and additional professional development opportunities.

What Makes Lawyers Happy? A Data-Driven Prescription To Redefine Professional Success, Lawrence S. Krieger, Kennon M. Sheldon

Scholarly Publications

This is the first theory-guided empirical research seeking to identify the correlates and contributors to the well-being and life satisfaction of lawyers. Data from several thousand lawyers in four states provide insights about diverse factors from law school and one’s legal career and personal life. Striking patterns appear repeatedly in the data and raise serious questions about the common priorities on law school campuses and among lawyers. External factors, which are often given the most attention and concern among law students and lawyers (factors oriented towards money and status—such as earnings, partnership in a law firm, law school debt, class …

Ala Emerging Leaders Poster Presentation 2015, Elizabeth Boatright, Crystal Boyce, Sarah Espinosa, Rebecca Marrall, Angela Kent

Scholarly Publications

This poster represents the work of an Emerging Leaders (EL) Team tasked by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Publications Committee to investigate whether RUSA should create resources for 21st-century reference and user services librarians interested in the concept of “library as publisher.” Within this report, readers will find a proposed definition of library publishing, the results of an environmental scan of support provided by library and affiliated professional associations, results of a survey gauging interest in library publishing services, and recommended next steps for RUSA.

Pre-Print - Secret Shopping As User Experience Assessment Tool, Crystal Boyce

Scholarly Publications

Secret shopping is a form of unobtrusive evaluation that can be accomplished with minimal effort, but still produce rich results. With as few as eleven shoppers, the author was able to identify trends in user satisfaction with services provided across two entry-level desks at Illinois Wesleyan University’s The Ames Library. The focus of this secret shopping program was on user experiences, rather than whether correct answers were given by student employees working at the desks. Overall, users were satisfied or very satisfied with their experiences, though user feedback identified one desk as providing consistently better service.

Secret Shopping As User Experience Assessment Tool, Crystal Boyce

Scholarly Publications

Secret shopping is a form of unobtrusive evaluation that can be accomplished with minimal effort, but still produce rich results. With as few as eleven shoppers, the author was able to identify trends in user satisfaction with services provided across two entry-level desks at Illinois Wesleyan University’s The Ames Library. The focus of this secret shopping program was on user experiences, rather than whether correct answers were given by student employees working at the desks. Overall, users were satisfied or very satisfied with their experiences, though user feedback identified one desk as providing consistently better service.

Practice Makes Perfect: Updating Borrowing Policies And Procedures At A Small Academic Library, Crystal Boyce

Scholarly Publications

In 2011, staff from the undergraduate libraries at the College of William & Mary came together to evaluate circulation policies related to borrowing periods and billing. In an attempt to better align the policies across each unit, and with the intention of creating a more consistent user experience, new policies were proposed and implemented in the fall of 2012. These changes were found to dramatically decrease staff time necessary for billing, while improving user satisfaction with the borrowing policies. Significantly fewer books went into billing, suggesting no adverse effects on collection maintenance.

What’S In The Box? Introducing Research Environments To First-Year Students, Crystal Boyce

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Truth-Justice Tradeoff: Perceptions Of Decisional Accuracy And Procedural Justice In Adversarial And Inquisitorial Legal Systems, Justin Sevier

Scholarly Publications

Two studies provide empirical support for Thibaut and Walker’s (1978) theory that inquisitorial and adversarial dispute resolution systems are associated with different psychological values: the pursuit of truth and the pursuit of justice. Study 1 suggests that, in civil and criminal disputes, the adversarial system is perceived to produce less truth than it does justice, and less truth than does the inquisitorial system. Conversely, the inquisitorial system is perceived to produce less justice than it does truth, and less justice than does the adversarial system. Study 2 examines how legal outcomes moderate litigants’ perceptions of the truth and justice produced …

How Do The Courts Create Popular Legitmacy?: The Role Of Establishing The Truth, Punishing Justly, And/Or Acting Through Just Procedures, Justin Sevier, Tom R. Tyler

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Starting From Scratch: Meaningful Integration Of Information Literacy Through Collaborative Course And Assignment Design, Chris Sweet, Meghan Burke

Scholarly Publications

Instruction librarians are all too familiar with well-intentioned research papers and assignments that reduce information literacy to a simplistic checklist (must include 4 peer-reviewed sources) or set of skills (use interlibrary loan, cite materials properly). Librarians and classroom faculty should recognize that information literacy cannot just be magically imparted to students through a single assignment or library instruction session. Becoming information literate requires repeated practice in a variety of contexts. How often have you wished for the opportunity to just sit down with a faculty member and start from scratch when designing an assignment –or even better- an entire course? …

The Hidden Structure Of Fact-Finding, Emily Spottswood

Scholarly Publications

This Article offers a new account of legal fact-finding based on the dual-process framework in cognitive psychology. This line of research suggests that our brains possess two radically different ways of thinking. “System 1” cognition is unconscious, fast, and associative, while “System 2” involves effortful, conscious reasoning. Drawing on these insights, I describe the ways that unconscious processing and conscious reflection interact when jurors hear and decide cases. Most existing evidential models offer useful insights about the ways that juries use relevant information in deciding cases but fail to account for situations in which their decisions are likely to be …

Library Publishing And Undergraduate Education: Strategies For Collaboration, Stephanie Davis-Kahl, Michael Seeborg, Isaac Gilman

Scholarly Publications

Library-based publishing services are increasingly common as libraries seek to provide alternatives for the dissemination of scholarly and creative work. Connecting these services to the educational mission of libraries' institutions is vital for publishing programs' success and sustainability. This panel of librarians and faculty from liberal arts colleges will discuss the educative and advocacy roles that their library publishing programs have developed, and suggest best practices for librarians wishing to implement their own publishing programs. Isaac Gilman's slides are available via CommonKnowledge.

Information Literacy & Scholarly Communication: Mutually Exclusive Or Naturally Symbiotic?, Stephanie Davis-Kahl, Kim Duckett, Julia Gelfand, Cathy Palmer

Scholarly Publications

Learn specific strategies used by librarians in a variety of roles to successfully develop coherent, campus-wide scholarly communications and information literacy initiatives. Our goal is to expand the scope and culture of collaboration around scholarly communication activities using information literacy as a lens through which to view our outreach, education and advocacy activities. Programmatic efforts to change undergraduate education, instructional activities for the classroom, and new models and roles for subject liaisons will be presented.

The Value Of Library Publishing & Undergraduate Education, Stephanie Davis-Kahl

Scholarly Publications

Please join us for a special session at ACRL 2013 in Indianapolis to learn about three different library-led publishing programs – digital monographs at Utah State University, undergraduate journals and conferences at Illinois Wesleyan University, and technical reports at Purdue University – and the impact they have had on each university’s broader mission. By lowering barriers and creating opportunities to publish across the entire continuum of scholarly content, these libraries have found new ways to support faculty research, the student experience, and the public university’s role in the state. At Utah State, the library has enhanced its University Press by …

Service-Learning And Information Literacy: Creating Powerful Synergies, Christopher Sweet

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Omission Suspicion: Juries, Hearsay, And Attorneys’ Strategic Choices, Justin Sevier

Scholarly Publications

Attorneys understand that presenting evidence consists of a series of strategic choices. Yet legal scholars have not studied whether jurors are sensitive to the trial strategy that underlies those choices. Do jurors question why an attorney has omitted what jurors consider the “best” evidence of some trial fact and has instead put forth weaker evidence? Do they attempt to understand the motivation behind that choice, and does that affect their legal judgments?

Six original experiments explore these questions in the context of hearsay evidence. The experiments reveal a ubiquitous finding: Jurors carefully scrutinize a party’s strategy for presenting hearsay, and …

Intellectual Property And Attribution In A Cross-Cultural Context: Understanding International Students’ Attitudes Towards Citation And Plagiarism, Christopher Sweet

Scholarly Publications

Beliefs regarding intellectual property and attribution in the United States vary greatly from those held in other parts of the world. International Students studying in the U.S. for the first time often struggle in writing classes with the when, why, and how of academic attribution and citation. Following the cultural norms of their home countries, these students often end up unintentionally plagiarizing portions of their writing. This presentation will examine cultural variations in regards to intellectual property and attribution. It will also provide guidelines for helping instructors and librarians who work with international students in writing courses.

The Role Of Information Literacy In Service Learning Courses: A Case Study And Best Practices, Christopher Sweet

Scholarly Publications

Service Learning is a quickly growing movement within higher education that empowers students to utilize classroom knowledge to solve a problem or effect a change within their local community. Information Literacy is critical for getting students to understand the “why” and “how” that should ground all service learning projects. This presentation will begin with an overview of the service learning movement. Next, I will present a case study of my experiences as an embedded librarian in an Environmental Studies Senior Seminar. The presentation will conclude with a summary of emerging best practices for incorporating information literacy into service learning courses.

Selecting, Implementing And Teaching A Web-Scale Discovery Tool, Christopher Sweet

Scholarly Publications

In the fall of 2010, Illinois Wesleyan University reviewed all the major web-scale discovery tools available to libraries. We chose to be a beta-test site for EBSCO’s Discovery Service (EDS) and conducted usability testing with students. We eventually purchased EDS and did a full roll-out this past fall semester. This presentation will address the philosophy behind web-scale discovery along with our experiences regarding selection, testing, implementation, evaluation, and teaching. The presentation will also include live search demonstrations using Wesleyan’s EDS interface.

Wikipedia And The Wisdom Of The Crowds: Re-Thinking Knowledge Creation, Reliability And Expertise In The Age Of Wikipedia, Christopher Sweet

Scholarly Publications

In the span of 10 years Wikipedia has grown to include 3.8 million articles. The site currently receives almost 3 billion page views per month in the United States. Wikipedia’s success is due largely to its reliance on crowdsourcing to create and distribute information. This Non-Org will address questions such as: What is the wisdom of the crowds? How is Wikipedia shaping today’s information landscape? How reliable are Wikipedia articles? and How should higher education respond to Wikipedia?