Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Creating Informed Learners In The Classroom, C Maybee, Michael Flierl, Rachel Fundator

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

In this interactive workshop, participants will develop strategies rooted in informed learning for partnering with disciplinary instructors in higher education courses to advance students’ information practices and learning. Informed learning is an approach to information literacy that describes how students may use information in situation-specific ways to learn (Bruce, 2008). Highlighting how information-focused learning activities are an integral part of the learning process, informed learning emphasizes the need for students to learn about using information at the same time they are learning about subject content. A curriculum design model for developing instruction grounded in informed learning, informed learning design supports …

Student Information Use During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Heather A. Howard, Annette Bochenek, Zoeanna A. Mayhook, Trena Trowbridge, Steven Lux

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Since early 2020, life for students has changed tremendously. It has been a time of stress, turmoil, and trauma for students. Researchers from a large Midwestern university wanted to determine how student information use has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the results of a mixed-methods study undertaken in 2021 using surveys and follow-up focus groups to determine if and how student information use has changed. To answer this, we explored student use of news sources, social media sources, political affiliations, and information responses, coupled with to what extent these factors demonstrate or impact potential changes in information …

Engineering Technology Programs And Technical Standards: Investigating Library Access And Course Integration, Margaret Phillips, Paul B Mcpherson, Danielle Leclerc

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Due to ABET accreditation requirements and industry expectations, integrating technical standards into Engineering Technology (ET) curricula is crucial for student success. However, previous studies have shown that faculty report access and knowledge challenges in working to integrate standards into ET course content. Additionally, academic librarians have long acknowledged there are many issues with providing access to standards to campus users, such as high costs and extensive digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. The purpose of this study is to conduct an environmental scan of library websites at institutions with ET programs to investigate library-provided access to standards and to survey ET …

Integrating The Entrepreneurial Mindset Into The Engineering Classroom, Lisa Bosman, Margaret Phillips

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

CONTRIBUTION: This paper highlights one approach to fostering the entrepreneurial mindset in the engineering classroom. BACKGROUND: Entrepreneurship and innovation are currently trending topics in engineering education and will continue developing for the foreseeable future. INTENDED OUTCOMES: The guiding research question is: How can an entrepreneurial mindset focused learning experience improve student self-regulation, seeing value, and lifelong learning through metacognitive reflections? APPLICATION DESIGN: The study is implemented within a five-week module focused on developing the entrepreneurial mindset as part of a required course on supply chain management technology. The supporting pedagogical interventions include authentic learning, information literacy, a mix of low …

Integrating Online Discussions Into Engineering Curriculum To Endorse Interdisciplinary Viewpoints, Promote Authentic Learning, And Improve Information Literacy, Lisa Bosman, Kurt Paterson, Margaret Phillips

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Engineering is very much an applied discipline where math and science concepts, skills, and tools can be used to design products or processes with new and/or increased value. Research suggests active learning is an effective method for teaching and learning in the engineering classroom. Moreover, students continue to express increased satisfaction when taught using this experiential pedagogical approach. One approach to active learning gaining traction in the engineering classroom is the use of online discussions. The purpose of this paper is to offer a structured approach for engineering educators to develop online discussion prompts aimed to prepare engineering students for …

Workplace Information Needs Of Engineering And Technology Graduates: A Case Study On Two Continents, Margaret Phillips, Michael Fosmire, Marco Schirone, Christina Johansson, Frederick Berry

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

In this research category, work-in-progress study, the authors conducted eleven semi-structured interviews of employers (five from the United States and six from Sweden), in order to determine the information literacy skills and habits needed by engineering and technology graduates. The authors found similar information needs at both the Swedish and American corporations. They found that, while the core information literacy principles of identifying an information need, locating, accessing, evaluating, integrating, and documenting are valuable skills for students to have, they need to be translated to accommodate the socially constructed information landscapes of each corporation and the more fluid and subtle …

On-The-Job Information Literacy: A Case Study Of Student Employees At Purdue University Archives And Special Collections, Tracy Grimm, Neal Harmeyer

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This chapter presents Purdue Archives and Special Collections as a case study in growing an organizational culture committed to teaching information literacy parallel to classroom learning through student worker experiential learning. While student employment or internships may not traditionally be considered co-curricular activities, Purdue University Archives and Special Collections provides an environment not only for students to gain pre-professional experience but also expertise, confidence, and competence in information; for many students, this preparation has resulted in careers in museums, archives, libraries, and cultural heritage institutions. The result is a new approach to student employment: one designed to establish an environment …

Student Information Use And Decision-Making In Innovation Competitions And The Impact Of Librarian Interventions, Heather A. Howard, Dave Zwicky

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

At a large Midwestern university, librarians work closely with an annual undergraduate agricultural innovation competition to guide students through the process of conducting market research and assessing patentability. In 2018, the authors conducted an exploratory study using focus groups of students who had participated in that year’s competition in order to learn how students find and use information in a competition setting, to evaluate the impact of library support on the students’ success, and inform further assessment activities. Results showed that students used information from the library and from their own research, notably seeking out first-hand expertise, to practice evidence-based …

Mapping Industry Standards And Integration Opportunities In Business Management Curricula, Margaret Phillips, Heather Howard, Alyson Vaaler, David E. Hubbard

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Industry standards have a significant impact on business as a means to eliminate waste, reduce costs, market products (e.g., for quality, safety, interoperability) and lessen liability (Thompson, 2011). Consequently, an understanding and the ability to use standards, agreed upon practices among interested or vested parties, is a critical workplace competency for those engaged in business and industry. To have a workforce competent in the use of standards, higher education curricula must be developed to integrate standards education at appropriate points within the curriculum. Despite the importance of standards, they are not universally integrated into the college and university curricula.

Given …

Thoughts On Patents And Information Literacy, Dave Zwicky

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Patents are an under-used information source, in part because of an often-narrow focus by patent librarians on the tools and techniques of patentability searching. This approach can ignore a range of potential applications of patent information, using patents in their contexts as technical, design, historical, legal, and commercial documents. This paper suggests the adoption of a flexible approach, viewing patents and patent information in the greater context of information literacy, including that of the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, more commonly known as the ACRL Framework.

The Value Of Standards For Teaching, Research, And Facilities Use At Princeton And Purdue, Anya C. Bartelmann, Margaret Phillips

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This PowerPoint presentation was delivered as part of the 2019 ASME Library Advisory Board Annual Meeting.

Integrating Technical Standards Into Et Curricula To Meet Abet Standards And Industry Needs, Paul B Mcpherson, Margaret Phillips, Kyle Reiter

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

With technical standards affecting nearly every aspect of our daily lives, from computers to the components and materials used in car engines, it is critical that undergraduate students are educated on the importance of standards and provided with opportunities to locate and apply relevant technical standards to real world situations. In addition, with ABET accreditation requiring students to have a “basic understanding and familiarity with,” and experience “using” codes and standards, faculty need to consider how such material can be naturally integrated into the curriculum.

At Purdue University, education about codes and standards has been integrated into the mechanical engineering …

How Do Professional Engineers Use Information Compared To Undergraduates, And How Can Libraries Prepare Students And Support Engineers For Future Success?, Margaret Phillips, Michael Fosmire, Kristin Petersheim, Laura Turner, Jing Lu

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Librarians at Purdue University seek to develop engineering graduates who are effective information users. Similarly, information specialists at Caterpillar Inc. are concerned with how well new hires are prepared for the information landscape at work as practicing engineers. Librarians from Purdue University and Caterpillar partnered to create and disseminate a survey to compare how students and practicing engineers seek and use information in the research process. Within a framework that asked survey participants to think about information use in a recently completed project, responses highlighted several gaps in information literacy training, including the use of external standards and internal document …

Standards Are Everywhere: A Freely Available Introductory Online Educational Program On Standardization For Product Development, Margaret Phillips, Michael Fosmire, Paul B Mcpherson

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The collaboration between the Purdue Libraries and the Purdue Polytechnic Institute on standards education goes back to the 1980’s.[i] With a shared goal of preparing students for success after graduation, the Libraries and (then) Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) devised activities and instruction to show students that they will need to be able to find information ‘beyond the textbook’ to solve the problems they will face in the workplace. They will need specific information that relates to their particular circumstance, whether it is a material property, production technique, or an industry standard.

In recent years, the Libraries and Polytechnic …

Effective Methods Of Engineering Information Literacy: Initial Steps Of A Systematic Literature Review And Observations About The Literature, Margaret Phillips, Amy Van Epps, Nastasha Johnson, Dave Zwicky

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Background – There is a body of information literacy (IL) literature applied to undergraduate engineering students, much of which discusses different methods for teaching, such as classes/one-shots, online tutorials, gaming, and other interventions. It is important for librarians to know which methods of teaching engineering information literacy (EIL) are most effective for student learning, in order to make efficient and effective use of student and librarian time.

Purpose/Hypothesis – The authors reviewed the existing literature to find indications of the most effective methods for teaching and/or integrating EIL, both in face-to-face and online instruction.

Design/Method – The authors have completed …

Information Literacy In Engineering Technology Education: A Case Study, Margaret Phillips, Dave Zwicky

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Information literacy is a vital component of engineering and engineering technology programs, as evidenced by its alignment with the engineering design process, and as required by ABET, the body that accredits all engineering and many engineering technology undergraduate programs. However, information literacy in engineering technology and applied engineering curricula is understudied when compared with information literacy in engineering programs. This paper describes a case study of information literacy integration into an undergraduate mechanical engineering technology design course, with a focus on patent information and patent searching. Online pre- and post-assessment data for four semesters were analyzed, showing improvements in student …

Mapping Information Literacy Using The Business Research Competencies, Heather A. Howard, Nora Wood, Ilana Stonebraker

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Purpose

Librarians in higher education have adopted curriculum mapping in an effort to determine where effective information literacy instruction can help fill gaps in curriculum and prepare students both for coursework and for future research demands. While curriculum mapping has been utilized widely across academia, few studies have considered business curriculum and the development of information literacy instruction. This paper will provide an overview of the current landscape of curriculum mapping across business courses at two institutions and will provide a replicable methodology for other institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors will examine two case studies at large research …

Spatial Information Literacy For Digital Humanities: The Case Study Of Leveraging Geospatial Information For African American History Education., Nicole Kong, Cornelius Bynum, Chrystal Johnson, Jennifer Sdunzik, Xiaoyue Qin

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The rise of “digital humanities” and the “spatial turn” in the humanities has generated many new insights in the study of culture, history, literature, and arts. Within this research trend, the library's geospatial service can play an active role by introducing spatial information literacy and technology. In this article, we use the information literacy framework to explore the library's role in supporting digital humanities by introducing a successful collaboration involving a librarian and history and education researchers in hosting a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)-funded summer institute for school teachers. Our results suggest that the framework has opened a …

Realizing Critical Business Information Literacy: Opportunities, Definitions, And Best Practices, Ilana Stonebraker, Caitlan Maxwell, Kenny Garcia, Jessica Jerrit

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

What does it mean to be an ethical businessperson, and how does an ethical businessperson create, locate, organize, and evaluate business information? Critical business information literacy (CBIL) is the application of social justice to business information literacy. This article seeks to define, discuss, and realize CBIL by tracing the literatures of critical librarianship, critical management, and corporate social responsibility. To establish best practices, the authors drew upon applications of CBIL at four institutions of different size, geography, and scale. The intent is to provide spaces and foundations for further CBIL application and discussion.

Beyond The One-Shot: Intensive Workshops As A Platform For Engaging The Library In Digital Humanities., Nicole Kong, Susan Powell

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This article explores how librarian participation as instructors in week-long intensive classes—a common workshop format in Digital Humanities (DH)—can advance a variety of library objectives, while also uniquely supporting the DH community. Intensive workshops fall between the one-shot session and credit course formats more commonly found in library instruction. Drawing on case studies from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) instruction at DH institutes at the University of California Berkeley and Purdue University, the authors explore the origins of librarian involvement, course topics, pedagogy, and library services. Based on their instruction experiences in the DH summer institutes and student surveys, the authors …

Patent Information Use In Engineering Technology Design: An Analysis Of Student Work, Margaret Phillips, Dave Zwicky

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

How might engineering technology students make use of patent information in the engineering design process? Librarians analyzed team project reports and personal reflections created by students in an undergraduate mechanical engineering technology design course, revealing that the students used patents to consider the patentability of their ideas, to explore the state of the art in given areas of technology, and to inspire creative problem solving. These results have implications for future patent-related instruction and for conducting information literacy outreach to engineering and engineering technology departments.

Information Literacy Supporting Student Motivation And Performance: Course-Level Analyses, Michael Flierl, Emily Bonem, Clarence Maybee, Rachel Fundator

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This study examines the effects of information literacy (IL) on student learning and motivation in university courses. We investigated student course-level learning gains and student perceptions of their learning environments by examining data from over 3,000 students in 102 course sections across seven colleges. Results provide evidence of the following: 1) students who synthesize information and communicate the results tend to perceive higher levels of motivation than students who do so less often; 2) there is a significant positive relationship between synthesizing information and communicating the results and course level learning gains. Our results point to the efficacy of IL …

Library-Sponsored Case Competitions: Best Practices And Assessment Of Learning Gains, Ilana Stonebraker

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The Parrish Library Case Competition is an annual library-administered, library-sponsored case competition where teams of undergraduate students compete against one another to make better evidence-based decisions for business problems. This article includes a description the case competition as a resource for other libraries interested in sponsoring similar case competitions as part of their information literacy programs. Students who participated in the case competition saw their learning grow as assessed through questionnaires and focus groups. Students who had not taken an information literacy course perceived their understanding as lower than those who had taken a course.

Toward Informed Leadership: Teaching Students To Make Better Decisions Using Information, Ilana Stonebraker

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Studies have shown that introducing additional information without context leads to worse decision making. Informed leadership is the purposeful integration of information into decision management. This article reframes information literacy as decision management using elements of evidence-based management. It highlights strategies such as decision awareness, process creation, and decision practice and approaches for purposeful application in the information literacy classroom.

Pilot Data Information Literacy Competencies Matrix Scaffolded Across Undergraduate, Graduate And Data Steward Levels, Megan R. Sapp Nelson

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Initial work in identifying data management or data information literacy skills went as far as identifying a list of proposed competencies without further differentiation between those competencies, whether by discipline, complexity, or use case. This article describes a significant innovation upon existing competencies by identifying a scaffolding (built upon existing competencies) that moves students progressively from undergraduate training through post graduate coursework and research to post-doctoral work and into the early years of data stewardship. The scaffolding ties together existing research that has been completed in research data management skills and data information literacy with research into the outcomes that …

Student See Versus Student Do: A Comparative Study Of Two Online Tutorials, Ilana Stonebraker, M Brooke Robertshaw, Jennifer D. Moss

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This study examines the impact on student performance after interactive and non-interactive tutorials using a 2 × 2 treatment-control design. In an undergraduate management course, a control group watched a video tutorial while the treatment group received the same content using a dynamic tutorial. Both groups received the same quiz questions. Using effect size to determine magnitude of change, it was found that those in the treatment condition performed better than those in the control condition. Students were able to take the quiz up to two times. When examining for change in performance from attempt one to attempt two, the …

Designing Rich Information Experiences To Shape Learning Outcomes, Clarence Maybee, Christine Susan Bruce, Mandy Lupton, Kristen Rebmann

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Students in higher education typically learn to use information as part of their course of study, which is intended to support ongoing academic, personal and professional growth. Informing the development of effective information literacy education, this research uses a phenomenographic approach to investigate the experiences of a teacher and students engaged in lessons focused on exploring language and gender topics by tracing and analyzing their evolution through scholarly discourse. The findings suggest that the way learners use information influences content-focused learning outcomes, and reveal how teachers may enact lessons that enable students to learn to use information in ways that …

Developing A Practical Framework For Information Literacy Program Evaluation, Paul Bracke, Clarence Maybee, Sharon Weiner

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This paper was presented at the Library Assessment Conference held in Arlington, VA October 31–November 2, 2016.

Purpose. The Purdue University Libraries, like many academic libraries, face increased expectations for demonstrating their value and impact. This has not only led to an expectation of the increased use of metrics to demonstrate impact, but also a more fundamental imperative that libraries more clearly articulate their contributions to educational and research outcomes of their campus communities (value). At Purdue, the Provost implemented a new program review process in July 2015, while the Libraries were simultaneously going through the process of developing …

“It’S In The Syllabus”: Identifying Information Literacy And Data Information Literacy Opportunities Using A Grounded Theory Approach, Clarence Maybee, Jake Carlson, Maribeth Slebodnik, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Developing innovative library services requires a real world understanding of faculty members' desired curricular goals. This study aimed to develop a comprehensive and deeper understanding of Purdue's nutrition science and political science faculties' expectations for student learning related to information and data information literacies. Course syllabi were examined using grounded theory techniques that allowed us to identify how faculty were addressing information and data information literacies in their courses, but it also enabled us to understand the interconnectedness of these literacies to other departmental intentions for student learning, such as developing a professional identity or learning to conduct original research. …

Flipping The Business Information Literacy Classroom: Redesign, Implementation And Assessment Of A Case Study, Ilana Stonebraker

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

A team of librarians at Purdue University transformed a business information literacy course from a traditional lecture, 40-student class into multiple sections of a flipped, 70-student classroom to meet the request that the successful course be required for all 500 undergraduate students. Scaling up required the adoption of flipped learning techniques for better utilization of library teaching resources. This case study provides key insights for others implementing credit classes or integrating similar content into one-shots or embedded work. It also describes the assessed results determined through student feedback (focus groups) and student performance (pre/post-tests).