Information Literacy Commons^™

Modeling Collaborative Research Practices With Zotero, Julian Kilker

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The early stages of research when students explore topics and evaluate resources are critical. Yet researchers can be overwhelmed by evaluating sources, organizing resources and notes, and working with collaborators. During these stages it is particularly important to model meaningful research relationships to support student success. I address these challenges by having students explore Zotero, a free “research assistant” application and web portal, as they work on structured research assignments. While Zotero is known as a powerful citation manager, my practice focuses on its features that are most relevant to storing, organizing, and sharing resources while working on both informal …

Introduction, Samantha Godbey, Susan Wainscott, Xan Goodman

Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mining For The Best Information Value With Geoscience Students, Susan Wainscott, Joshua W. Bonde

Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Action Research As Inquiry For Education Students, Samantha Godbey

Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Library Instruction And Themed Composition Courses: An Investigation Of Factors That Impact Student Learning, Erin E. Rinto, Elisa I. Cogbill-Seiders

Library Faculty Publications

Many academic libraries partner with English composition in order to teach first year students skills related to academic research and writing. Due to the partnership between information literacy and first-year writing programs, it is important to evaluate how these programs can best support one another. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of two factors on student information literacy skill development: library instruction and section theme—defined here as class sections of the English 102 (ENG 102) program developed around a central topic selected by the instructor. A random sample of annotated bibliographies from 95 sections of ENG …

Libraries & Student Success, Melissa Bowles-Terry

Library Faculty Presentations

What makes a difference in student success? The framing questions for this presentation are:

1. What makes students stay in college and finish a degree? What prevents them from finishing?

2. What can librarians and faculty do to increase students' chances of succeeding at learning and at earning a degree?

This presentation will address high impact practices identified by George Kuh and adopted by the AAC&U, and give some examples of how libraries can support those high impact practices. It will also address student engagement, as measured by tools like the National Survey of Student Engagement or NSSE, and how libraries can …

Curriculum Mapping At Unlv Libraries: Strategic Integration Of Library Instruction, Nancy E. Fawley

Lied Library Open House for the 2014 American Library Association Conference

Curriculum mapping is a strategy to integrate information literacy into the undergraduate curriculum by identifying key courses within the disciplines for targeted, library instruction.

Librarians identify high impact, beginning, middle and end-level courses within their disciplines. These may or may not be courses they currently work with.

Information competencies are introduced at a beginning level, then reinforced (mid-level) and enhanced (end) throughout a student’s academic career in an intentionally scaffolded manner. Assessment strategies are included the map, as well.

Librarians use curriculum maps to inform decisions on courses and content taught so instruction efforts are not duplicated.

Assessment Of First-Year Composition Students' Information Literacy Skills, Erin E. Rinto

Lied Library Open House for the 2014 American Library Association Conference

One of the ways we have been assessing the information literacy skills of our first year students is through developing and applying rubrics to a sample of annotated bibliography projects from the required English Composition course at UNLV. The annotated bibliography assignment consists of a paper proposal and the annotations for 5 sources the student plans on using in their final research paper. The "source evaluation rubric" was applied to each individual annotation (totaling 1358 annotations) and the rubric examined the extent to which students were using the evaluative criteria of currency, relevance, and authority when selecting and evaluating an …

Welcome To The University Libraries Poster Session!, Erin E. Rinto, Melissa Bowles-Terry, Rachelle Weigel, Nancy E. Fawley, Rosan Mitola, Amanda Melilli, Amy Jo Hunsaker, Jennifer L. Fabbi

Lied Library Open House for the 2014 American Library Association Conference

Over the past eight years, the UNLV Libraries have led and contributed to campus initiatives to revise the undergraduate curriculum and student learning outcomes at UNLV. Through formal and informal leadership roles, librarians helped to create the University Undergraduate Learning Outcomes (UULOs) in the areas of Intellectual Breadth and Lifelong Learning, Communication, Inquiry and Critical Thinking, Global/Multicultural Knowledge and Awareness, and Citizenship and Ethics and a revised model for general education.

In Fall 2011, the Faculty Senate approved a vertical pathway of key courses, which serve to integrate and assess the UULOs from a student’s first year of college through …

Unlv Libraries: Partners In Student Learning, Melissa Bowles-Terry

Lied Library Open House for the 2014 American Library Association Conference

The University Libraries play a central educational role at UNLV. Librarians offer workshops for faculty on assignment design and research on student learning. The workshops emphasize learning outcomes, active learning, and assessment of student learning. Institutes leverage UNLV Librarians’ expertise with facilitation and information literacy learning outcomes.

Learning Outcomes for Faculty Institutes:

• To understand how research-based learning approaches support student success.
• To articulate goals and learning outcomes for research assignments in order to communicate expectations to students and form the basis for assessment of student work.
• To investigate research-based learning activities that integrate library and information resources.
• To discover technology …

Career Information Literacy For Students’ Interview Success, Amanda Cox, Lateka Grays

Library Faculty Presentations

Cross Campus Relationship Building

• Seek unique opportunities

• Cross-promotion opportunities

• Problem Solving

• Appreciation by leadership

Serving Those Who Serve: Outreach And Instruction For Student Cadets And Veterans, Nancy E. Fawley, Nikki Kyrsak

Library Faculty Publications

Student cadets and veterans new to college have unique academic needs, and the abrupt switch from civilian to Corps life for new students at a military university can be challenging. Likewise, transitioning from military life to civilian life as a veteran student can be overwhelming. The libraries at Norwich University and The University of Alabama are supporting programs to assist new students in the transition from civilian to Corps life and from military to civilian life, respectively. While these students are at different stages of their military careers, cadets and veterans have common attributes that inform library support and instruction, …

Developing And Applying An Information Literacy Rubric To Student Annotated Bibliographies, Erin E. Rinto

Library Faculty Publications

Objective – This study demonstrates one method of developing and applying rubrics to student writing in order to gather evidence of how students utilize information literacy skills in the context of an authentic assessment activity. The process of creating a rubric, training scorers to use the rubric, collecting annotated bibliographies, applying the rubric to student work, and the results of the rubric assessment are described. Implications for information literacy instruction are also discussed.

Methods – The focus of this study was the English 102 (ENG 102) course, a required research-based writing course that partners the instructors with the university librarians …

Plagiarism Pitfalls: Addressing Cultural Differences In The Misuse Of Sources, Nancy E. Fawley

Library Faculty Publications

As a branch campus of an American university operating in the Middle East, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar must take into account the cultural differences that pertain to plagiarism and the misuse of sources before the school can begin to develop methods to address and prevent the problem. Differences in educational philosophies, students’ previous scholastic training and cultural differences in individual motivation are all factors that must be considered