Implementation of the cognitive apprenticeship model for enhancement of advanced searching skills in a pharmacy academia rotation

Background:Pharmacy students are primarily taught literature searching skills didactically during their Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum. To effect change in the area of advanced literature searching skills, a pharmacy librarian joined with two Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) preceptors to design and implement a crash course on applied systematic searching skills for a cohort of four students.Case Presentation:Through the cognitive apprenticeship model, a Systematic Searching Crash Course (SSCC) was implemented among a cohort of four academic APPE students. Students developed search strategies using controlled vocabulary and free text, translated their searches into multiple databases, and used citation management software to build libraries of evidence. Additionally, the cohort blindly peer reviewed each other''s search strategies, wrote literature reviews, and finally conducted a search together without input from the pharmacy librarian.Conclusions:Review of the pre-/post-course self-assessment taken by the cohort indicates the SSCC is a success in terms of improving student confidence in accessing and synthesizing primary literature. As the crash course is further refined and implemented, there may be more opportunity to embed the course into didactic curriculum and residency programs and to potentially reproduce it for other health science disciplines.     

Advancing nursing students' transition to scholarship: embedding a librarian into the Advanced Nursing Research course

Background:Nursing students often prioritize learning clinical skills rather than research skills, possibly inhibiting their growth as scholars. Supporting nursing students'' learning of information literacy skills has been shown to impact nurses'' involvement with research after graduation. This suggests a need for developing innovative information literacy teaching strategies that can enable nursing students to better understand the process of research and how to apply research to practice.Case Presentation:This article describes the implementation of the embedded librarian project at the course level at the University of Memphis. A librarian was integrated into the Advanced Nursing Research course, a semester-long course for graduate nursing students, for the fall 2020 semester. This case shares the embedded librarian project''s implementation and evaluation strategies.Conclusions:The embedded librarian project aided students'' acquisition of information literacy skills at the University of Memphis. Students reported that the embedded librarian project helped them complete assignments for their research course. Using an embedded librarian service within the graduate nursing curricula model may enhance scholarship among future nurses.     

You Can Lead Students to Sources,but Can You Make Them Think?

ABSTRACT

In developing and teaching a new first-year psychology course that integrates information literacy skills, a librarian and a psychologist learned the importance of teaching critical thinking skills explicitly, rather than implicitly. Students learned how to use the library resources and learned concepts in psychology, but until critical thinking was taught explicitly, students did not understand the value of what they were learning. In this article, implicit versus explicit learning is defined, and psychological principles are applied to demonstrate how critical thinking can be used to teach library and information skills.     

Impact of embedded librarianship on undergraduate nursing students’ information skills

Background:One-shot library sessions have numerous drawbacks; most notably, they rarely have a long-term impact on students’ research behavior or skill sets. Library literature notes that when students interact with an embedded librarian, their skills improve. While close partnerships with subject faculty are important, librarians must also assess students’ skill sets to determine the impact of these teaching efforts.Case presentation:During the course, the embedded librarian used various activities and assignments to teach information-seeking skills, with the expected outcome of increased skill sets. This IRB-approved research project focused on measuring and assessing students’ information-seeking abilities before and after interacting with the embedded nursing librarian. Changes in students’ information fluency skills were measured using pre- and post-tests.Conclusions:The study results provide evidence of the benefits of the embedded librarianship model. Continued measurement of students’ skills acquisition is important to enable librarians and library administrators to show the positive impacts the library has on student learning and success.     

Increasing student engagement using an Amazing Race–style competition

Background:Game-based learning is a successful strategy for teaching various concepts to students, from general orientations to more in-depth material. Pharmacy students in a first-year lab course were introduced to library and drug information resources through a lecture-style class in their first week of school, which was ineffective in terms of engagement. To combat this issue, the pharmacy liaison librarian advocated for moving this class session later in the semester and proposed a game-based activity to replace the lecture.Case Presentation:“The Amazing Race: Drug Information Edition” was inspired by a well-known TV competition that involves completing several stages (called “legs”) of challenges to finish the race. The librarian developed questions designed to make students use various parts of the library website as well as two drug information databases. Students competed in teams, and the first three teams to complete the race were awarded small prizes. The race was first implemented in 2018, and modifications were made to the 2019 iteration based on student feedback.Conclusions:Despite several challenges, the race was well received by both the students and the course instructors and increased engagement with introductory library and drug information material. The activity has enhanced the librarian''s relationship and collaboration with the course faculty and made a positive impression on the students.     

Using the Internet to Teach U.S. Business Research to Students of English as a Second Language

Abstract

The American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) has an extensive English as a second language (ESL) program for graduate students. As a component of the content-based aspect of this program, students have a semester-long project involving finding information about a U.S. company and its place in its industry. The students must include information about corporate finance, marketing, corporate history, and an industry and competitor analysis. A business librarian at another institution created a website for a course in competitor analysis. A business librarian at another institution created a website for a course with a similar assignment; this website included hot links to sources of U.S. corporate and industrial data. This article discusses the structuring of the course, the creation of the website, the collaboration between the classroom instructor and the business librarian, and the effects of the website on the quality and quantity of the ESL students' research.     

Information Literacy in Music History: Fostering Success in Teaching and Learning

ABSTRACT

The article describes the collaborative process between the authors in adapting course assignments in undergraduate music history courses to demonstrate actual learning of content and information literacy skills. Although the inclusion of the information literacy standards is an important step in developing critical thinking skills, other factors impede students to perform well such as lack of knowledge on how to structure a research paper or not understanding how to properly cite the information. By monitoring student performance, the faculty and instruction librarian can make changes to improve student learning and the acquisition of critical thinking skills.     

Integrating information literacy into the curriculum

This article describes a two-week graduate course on information literacy, developed and taught by a librarian and a professor of industry and technology, and intended for teachers and librarians in elementary and secondary schools. Information literacy is not only the content of the course but also the basis of its structure: active, student-centered learning with several group assignments helps students develop skills in finding information, analyzing and interpreting it, and putting it to practical use. Both pedagogical and evaluation methods reflect recent educational reforms, and the team teaching provides a model of collaboration between teachers and librarians.     

Information intervention in the pharmaceutical sciences

Professional guidelines state that higher-order thinking skills are a desirable outcome of pharmacy education. In this context, courses in pharmaceutics at the University of Southern California are taught in a learner-centered manner that requires use of chemical reference sources and interpretation of physicochemical information for drug molecules. To facilitate these activities, a librarian worked with faculty to design a class on reference sources and primary literature. Students believed the librarian instruction was beneficial. After the intervention, faculty fielded fewer information-related questions and the librarian received more sophisticated questions. The class emphasizes the importance of collaboration between librarians and faculty in achieving these results.     

Enhancing Library Instruction to Undergraduates: Incorporating Online Tutorials into the Curriculum

ABSTRACT

Librarians can replace or supplement traditional in-class instruction with course-specific online tutorials. The literature demonstrates how tutorials customized for specific courses are more beneficial than tutorials on basic research skills. Many authors discuss creating online tutorials but do not design one devoted to a specific course. With increasing demand for instruction services, online tutorials can ease staffing concerns prevalent at many libraries and otherwise enhance the quality of instruction and its application to varied learning styles. Using the Blackboard course management system, the authors created an online tutorial tailored to the required World Civilizations course at the University at Buffalo. The tutorial incorporated elements of successful online tutorials described in the literature: clear terminology, a quiz for self-assessment, opportunities for active learning, and individual e-mail feedback between students and librarians, and applied them to a specific course. The authors discuss student and librarian reaction to the tutorial and make recommendations for how the tutorial can be improved and implemented in everyday instruction services.     

OER evaluation as a means of teaching information literacy in individual and small group settings

ABSTRACT

Open education resources represent a great opportunity to reduce textbook costs, but many of them have not been evaluated for quality. Librarians and former students in an introduction to engineering course collected and evaluated open education resources to supplement the course textbook in future semesters. Both searching for and evaluating these resources created opportunities for the librarians to evaluate information literacy skills of these students and to provide instruction to improve these skills.     

Librarian-Lead Tutorial for Enhancement of Pharmacy Students' Information-Searching Skills in Advanced Experiential Rotations

Pharmacy schools across the United States expose students to literature searching and evaluation mostly during required didactic drug information courses. The majority of Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) students do not utilize library-available electronic resources on a regular basis, and their didactic experience alone is not sufficient to make them successful in their advanced experiential drug information (DI) rotations. This pilot study demonstrates an improvement of students' perceptions regarding information searching and evaluating abilities as the result of their participation in a small group tutorial with a reference librarian, thus indicating effectiveness of the tutorial in refreshing and enhancing database knowledge skills.     

A multidisciplinary approach to information and critical appraisal instruction

The formulation of clinical decisions based on evidence requires the ability to locate information and evaluate it critically. A ten-week critical appraisal course for third-year medical students, taught cooperatively by library and Department of Medicine faculty, integrates education in the selection, evaluation, and application of information to patient care. The course is distinctive in that information management skills are taught by a multidisciplinary team in a problem-based format as part of the compulsory medical curriculum. Medical faculty provided instruction in reading and evaluating research methodology, as well as statistical analyses in published reports, using clinical scenarios and related journal articles at weekly sessions. Library faculty provided instruction in locating pertinent research on a sample clinical problem using standard printed and computerized indexes and local library resources, and presented criteria for selecting the most useful and significant works from those retrieved. Library faculty also met individually with students to provide instruction in online literature searching. Based on formal evaluation and informal feedback, the course was well received; it effectively presents the literature search as an integral part of critical appraisal of the medical literature and of the clinical decision-making process.     

Gamification of a Mobile Applications Lecture in a Pharmacy Course

Abstract

This report describes a librarian’s development of an interactive and competitive trivia game using Poll Everywhere, an audience response system software. The trivia game was implemented during a live lecture session on drug information mobile applications taught to first-year pharmacy students. To add a fun and engaging reference for students, the librarian decided to model the game after HQ, a free trivia gaming app. Development of the session, student response, changes to future iterations, and lessons learned by the librarian are described.     

Integrating evidence-based practice and information literacy skills in teaching physical and occupational therapy students

Background: To ensure that physical and occupational therapy graduates develop evidence‐based practice (EBP) competencies, their academic training must promote EBP skills, such as posing a clinical question and retrieving relevant literature, and the information literacy skills needed to practice these EBP skills. Objective: This article describes the collaborative process and outcome of integrating EBP and information literacy early in a professional physical therapy and occupational therapy programme. Methods: The liaison librarian and a faculty member designed an instructional activity that included a lecture, workshop and assignment that integrated EBP skills and information literacy skills in the first year of the programme. The assignment was designed to assess students’ ability to conduct a search independently. Results: The lecture and workshop were successful in their objectives, as 101 of the 104 students received at least 8 out of 10 points on the search assignment. Conclusions: The teaching activities developed for the students in this course appear to have achieved the goal of teaching students the EBP research cycle so that they might begin to emulate it. The collaboration between the faculty member and the librarian was integral to the success of this endeavour. Future work will include the evaluation of students’ long‐term retention of information literacy objectives.     

Promotion and Knowledge of Online Patent Literature Search to Enhance Scientific Output in Tanzania: Case of Two Universities in Zanzibar

Abstract

This study examines the promotion and knowledge of online patent literature search among students, librarians, and instructors to enhance university scientific output in Zanzibar. The study was guided by four key questions: What is the level of awareness of students, instructors and library staff about patent documents as source of information? To what extent do students and instructors access online patent databases? What is the library experience in training students about online patent literature searching?, and what are the challenges facing library and instructors in promoting patent literature search? The study used survey approach whereby questionnaire and interview were used to collect data. The recent literatures regarding online patent literature searching were also critically reviewed. A survey was conducted at two Universities in Zanzibar namely the State University of Zanzibar and Zanzibar University, whereby 20 library staff, 10 instructors and 140 undergraduate students from the School of Computing and the Faculty of Engineering were involved in this study. The findings show that more than three quarters of respondents were either partially aware or not aware at all about the existence of free online patent databases. Likewise, the majority of students had no enough skills of patent literature searching. However, usually the library organizes training on general online literature searching skills but patent literature searching was not effectively taught and a big challenge observed in this study regarding promotion of patent literature searching is inadequate patent searching skills among library and instructors. Based on the findings, the study proposed several recommendations to rectify the existing problem.     

A collaborative approach to teaching genetics information sources

Rapid advancement and new information sources in many academic fields offer expanded opportunities for collaborative teaching Campus-wide programs, such as UWired, are effective in stimulating collaborative teaching, but efforts of individual faculty members and librarians can also produce effective courses This article describes how bioinformatics sources were introduced to students in a human genetics course taught by a professor and a librarian at the University of Tennessee Course content, learning objectives, and student assignments are covered, as well as roles of the professor and librarian m teaching the course The librarian attended each class session, which proved effective in integrating him into the course and expanded his knowledge of how genetics information is used by researchers     

Information needs of students in Israel — A case study of a multicultural society

Students turn to a variety of sources when searching for information for their academic assignments. This study uses findings from a survey given to 151 Israeli students attending a university in Israel. A questionnaire comprising 12 questions was administered regarding their information needs, information behavior, and difficulties in searching and writing an academic assignment. A special emphasis of the study was on the multicultural environment of the Israeli students and its effect on their information behavior. Results show that there is a significant difference between native language groups with regard to the use of search engines, the use of library services, and in the patterns of conducting their academic assignment.     

Paper Trail: One method of information literacy assessment

Assessing students' information literacy skills can be difficult depending on the involvement of the librarian in a course. To overcome this, librarians created an assignment called the Paper Trail, where students wrote a short essay about their research process and reflected on what they would do differently. Through reviewing and grading these papers, librarians determined whether students understood the difference between the library catalog and article databases, evaluated the students' search terms to see if they used effective topic keywords and Boolean operators, and learned more on how the students reflected on their research process.     

Using Blogs and Wikis in a Graduate Public Health Course

Blogs and wikis are examples of Web 2.0 technology that facilitate collaboration in the online world. In the health sciences, the emergence of these social tools potentially increases the risk of generating harmful or biased information. Therefore, it is the health professional's responsibility to have the skills to critically appraise Web content that has not undergone traditional peer review. This was the focus in a three-credit graduate Urban Public Health course taught by a librarian and was addressed with assignments using blog and wiki technology within the course management tool Blackboard. The assignments fostered comprehension of the issues surrounding blogs and wikis as they relate to public health.