Showing papers by "Megan Oakleaf published in 2011"

Are They Learning? Are We? Learning Outcomes and the Academic Library

Abstract: Since the 1990s, the assessment of learning outcomes in academic libraries has accelerated rapidly, and librarians have come to recognize the necessity of articulating and assessing student learning outcomes. Initially, librarians developed tools and instruments to assess information literacy student learning outcomes. Now, academic librarians are moving to a larger scale assessment approach: the articulation and demonstration of library impact on institutions of higher education. This article considers six questions relevant to the assessment challenges librarians face in coming years: (1) How committed are librarians to student learning? (2) What do librarians want students to learn? (3) How do librarians document student learning? (4) How committed are librarians to their own learning? (5) What do librarians need to learn? (6) How can librarians document their own learning?

All Together Now: Getting Faculty, Administrators, and Staff Engaged in Information Literacy Assessment

Abstract: Trinity University has established effective strategies for engaging faculty, administrators, and staff in information literacy instruction and assessment. Succeeding in an area in which many libraries struggle, the Coates Library at Trinity University offers a model for libraries seeking to actively engage their campuses through 1) establishing a common definition of information literacy; 2) developing workshops and grants; and 3) engaging in campus-wide information literacy assessment using rubrics. Furthermore, a survey of Trinity faculty, administrators, and staff reveals facilitators and impediments to campus acceptance of collaborative information literacy activities that can inform the evaluation efforts of librarians at other institutions.

Education for eScience Professionals: Job Analysis, Curriculum Guidance, and Program Considerations

Abstract: Large, collaboratively managed datasets have become essential to many scientific and engineering endeavors, and their management has increased the need for "eScience Professionals" who extend librarianship into solving large scale information management problems for researchers and engineers. This article focuses on understanding the dimensions of work, worker, and workplace, including the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for eScience professionals. We used focus groups and interviews to explore the needs of scientific researchers and how these needs may translate into curricular and program development choices. A cohort of five master's students also worked in targeted internship settings and completed internship logs. Results showed that students worked in three major areas: data management, communications between technical and non-technical staff, and science-related functions. We organized this evidence into a job analysis that can be used for curriculum and program development at schools of information and library science. We conclude with suggestions that the emerging eScience profession comprises a promising educational and research focus for information and library science in the coming decade and that science and R&D labs are an underappreciated setting for productive librarianship. Keywords: LIS education, curriculum, advising, scientific data management, eScience professionals, focus groups, interviews In the 2003 report entitled "Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure," members of a blue ribbon National Science Foundation panel wrote, "Absent systematic archiving and curation of intermediate research results (as well as the polished and reduced publications), data gathered at great expense will be lost" (Atkins, et al., 2003, p. 11). This challenge has become reality even more quickly than the panel expected. Researchers in fields ranging from high energy physics (Becla & Lim, 2008), to climate change (Meehl, et al., 2007), to proteomics (Nesvizhsku & Aebersold, 2004) are struggling with the size and complexity of the datasets they and their colleagues generate and analyze. Yet these large, complex, often collaboratively managed datasets have become absolutely essential to successful discovery. Whether using the term "eScience," which was coined in Britain and is used extensively across the world, or "cyberinfrastructure" - the term preferred in the U.S. - the use of large-scale datasets and the immense information technology infrastructure that supports them has become fully entwined with the contemporary practices of science and engineering. The problems arising from collecting, organizing, indexing, archiving, and sharing large datasets have increased the need for interdisciplinary information professionals who offer a mixture of science or engineering knowledge together with the capabilities taught in a range of educational programs in information and library science. These emerging "eScience professionals" may serve as the vanguard of a new professional area of librarianship that solves large-scale information management problems for researchers and engineers with innovative tools and techniques. Following the eScience definitions of Borgman (2007, p. 20) and Hey and Trefethen (2003), we define an eScience professional as an individual who facilitates access to information infrastructure by scientists and other researchers. In this article, we explore this idea and report on a program of research in which we interviewed researchers and sent a small cadre of information professionals-in-training on guided internships in scientific laboratories. We have analyzed the resulting data to triangulate on the areas of knowledge and skill that eScience professionals must possess, and from these knowledge and skill areas offer suggestions and possibilities for curriculum and program development. Background In 2001, John Taylor was the Director General of Research Councils at the Office of Science and Technology in Great Britain. …

What's the Value of an Academic Library?: The Development of the ACRL Value of Academic Libraries Comprehensive Research Review and Report

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of the process undertaken in the US during 2009/10 in developing a major report on the value of academic libraries. A summary of the key findings and recommendations from the report are also provided. While very much focused on the US situation, the author feels the findings may well have resonance elsewhere, including Australia.

Staying on Track with Rubric Assessment: Five Institutions Investigate Information Literacy Learning

Abstract: Like many AACU consequently, they typically do not teach and assess them as a focus of their courses and activities. Second, librarians - who do focus on teaching information literacy - often do not have the access to students in ways or settings most conducive to meaningful assessment activities. Third, because information literacy is often not taught in courses or cocurricular activities, existing information literacy assessments are frequently limited to survey and test formats that can be administered by librarians remotely. However, information literacy is an especially complex and context-dependent concept that is not easily assessed using these common fixed-choice methods.THE INFORMATION LITERACY VALUE RUBRICThe development of an information literacy VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubric was a significant advance in information literacy assessment because it addressed these obstacles to information literacy assessment. First, naming information literacy an "essential" learning outcome, the ability to locate, evaluate, and use information was elevated to a position valued by faculty, cocurricular professionals, and, of course, librarians. Second, the information literacy VALUE rubric established an expectation that this outcome will be assessed in the context of existing student learning activities and assignments - activities and assignments that are both complex in nature and steeped in authentic contexts.RAILSRecently, the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded $400,000+ in funding to support a three-year project called RAILS (Rubric Assessment of Information Literacy Skills). The RAILS project is designed to support the rubric assessment of information literacy outcomes at institutions nationwide. During the 2010-2011 academic year, five institutions participated in RAILS: a branch campus of a public university (2,800 FTE); a private, faith-based liberal- arts college (4,500 FTE); aprivate, liberal- arts college (6,400 FTE); a public, land-grant, high-research activity university (29,000 FTE); and a public college that focuses on workforce development and offers high-school completion, certificates, and associates degrees (30,000 FTE). To begin, librarians from each institution took part in intensive rubric training. As a part of their training, librarians learned to customize the information literacy VALUE rubric to fit the unique needs of their institutions and formed plans to test their rubrics. Using the rubric, they gathered 100+ artifacts of student learning to assess and selected ten participants (faculty, cocurricular professionals, and other librarians) to serve as raters. Intensive rubric revision, norming, and scoring sessions for all raters were then scheduled. During the scoring sessions, each of the ten participants rated all one hundred student artifacts and input rubric scores for each student into an assessment management system that facilitates rubric usage. …

Do the Right (Write) Thing: Engaging in Academic Library Value Research

Abstract: 204 Last fall, ACRL published the Value of Academic Libraries Comprehensive Research Review and Report. Since then, many librarians have cited the report’s literature review; even more have commented on the variety of recommendations and the breadth of the research agenda laid out in the report. The literature review captures our past efforts to explore the return-oninvestment and impact of academic libraries; the recommendations and research agenda give direction to our future work in articulating and increasing academic library value. Although the report is a static document, the library value conversation can be dynamic. The report can serve as a foundation for a lively professional and scholarly dialogue, but how might librarians engage and develop that dialogue? Certainly, ACRL can take a role in the library value conversation; it is already doing so by commencing a major initiative around academic library value issues complete with presentations, partnerships, professional development offerings, and grant proposals. But librarians, individually and in concert with others, can also engage rigorously in the value conversation. Librarians and library science faculty can collaborate; in addition, librarians can also seek research partnerships with other higher education stakeholders including institutional researchers, higher education associations, and grant funders. Large-scale, rigorous research studies can be initiated whenever possible. Such studies are often perceived as “objective”, apolitical, and generalizable to multiple academic library contexts. They can also deliver the holy grail of “statistical significance.” However, large-scale studies represent Do the Right (Write) Thing: Engaging in Academic Library Value Research