Middle East information literacy awareness and indigenous Arabic content challenges

This article reports on researching “Middle East: Information Literacy awareness and indigenous Arabic World Wide Web content challenges”. The research reported upon was conducted in preparation for a training presentation which was delivered as a part of the UNESCO “Training the Trainers” (TTT) in Information Literacy workshop project that was held November 6–8, 2008 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt. Although the concept of Information Literacy is relatively new worldwide, by now it is fairly well understood, practiced and pedagogically supported in the developed world. But, it is still quite a mystery for developing countries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa regions. Therefore, the presentation the authors were invited to deliver at the workshop aimed at creating a much needed broader awareness concerning the concept of Information Literacy, including the somewhat differing definitions which are used in various world regions and cultures, and the concept’s relevance to the advancement of knowledge, research, and the general level of education in the Arabic speaking world. Special attention was paid to these problems in the context of challenges faced by higher education institutions in the Middle East and North Africa regions.The authors discovered that the problem of the scarcity of indigenous Arabic content materials on the World Wide Web is inextricably related to the challenges of increasing the awareness of Middle East and North Africa audiences to the relevance of Information Literacy. The authors endeavor to explain in detail what this inter-relationship is, and why and how the increase of Arabic materials on the Web could then lead to an increase in the awareness of Information Literacy in those Arabic speaking regions.The workshop presentation aimed at explaining and promoting Information Literacy skills, not only to students and researchers, but also to future Information Literacy trainers (the participants at the UNESCO workshop). The language barrier, the Digital Divide, and the lack of adequate Arabic digital content/resources relating to Information Literacy, were all reviewed with the workshop participants, illustrated by real world case examples, and discussed, in an effort to simultaneously try to work toward a consensus approach to teaching and learning the IL concept, and at the same time create a heightened Information Literacy awareness. Rather than simply amplify in detail the technical contents of the workshop presentations the authors made in this article, and with the encouragement of the Review’s editor and guest editor, the authors decided to “tell their story” in anecdotal fashion, sharing with the workshop participants tales of the many challenges they faced in just preparing materials for their presentations – and covering both the presentation format and the presentation content aspects, including explaining why they selected a specific teaching and learning approach, and how they dealt with various delivery and implementation challenges. By so doing, readers faced with similar teaching challenges might be better prepared to respond to the many challenges, both in the context of the preparations they will be required to make as well as in the context of their actual content delivery at their workshops.     

Metaphors for learning: A cognitive exercise for students

The challenge of teaching first-year students basic library skills is to make the process interesting and relevant. In this collaborative project between professor and librarian, metaphors in everyday life were used as a springboard for library research. Through the metaphor project, Honors students learned how to approach a topic, break down its parts, brainstorm searchable words, and make assumptions about ways to research. Most importantly, they learned to evaluate the results of their research to ensure that, in the materials located, they had actually found a real life application of their metaphor.     

Teaching Citations/Referencing: How do Chinese College Student Writers Respond?

This study investigated Chinese college students’ responses to the instruction of citations/referencing. Data included three focal students’ interviews, reflections and writing collected over one-semester-long English writing course at a Chinese university. Through qualitative content analyses, this study shows that the students embraced the importance of maintaining academic integrity, but their development in teaching contexts alternately interacted with multiple factors that hindered (e.g., generic demands) or facilitated (e.g., their perception of their progress) their actual practice of citations/referencing. In the process, teacher mediation was crucial in balancing their unsteady reactions.     

走近唐纳德·肖

议程设置理论之父唐纳德·肖在人民大学新闻学院讲学一周 ,使我们有机会接近他 ,与他面对面交流。他的诗情和激情给学员印象深刻。在他看来 ,做传播研究需要充满激情并且坚持不懈。他认为 ,议程设置第二层的框架理论告诉研究者不仅要关注媒体说了什么 ,还要分析媒体是怎么说的 ,是如何描述事物框架的 ,而影响媒体怎么说的因素包括文化传统等。关于新闻传播教育 ,肖教授认为 ,理论教育和实践训练同样重要 ,而写作是新闻传播者的基本功     

I Believe in a Thing Called Bot: Perceptions of the Humanness of “Chatbots”

The way humans and robots interact is no longer in the realm of fiction, because robots have seemingly gained the ability to respond to others, including humans. Communication research can be at the forefront of examining these interactions. This study used a “chatbot”—run by a researcher—to respond to a pre-generated set of questions asked by participants. An experiment varied the presence of typos and capitalized words in the responses. Significant main effects were found for typos in the responses, which had a negative effect on the perceived humanness of the respondent, as well as other perceptions. These findings, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Intersections: Teaching Research Through a Rhetorical Lens

Use of a rhetorical framework provides an effective tool for teaching undergraduate students the research process. The authors, a reference librarian and a writing instructor, explore a teaching strategy (model) that has evolved through their work in an undergraduate writing course. The three-stage model introduces students to their field of research as eavesdropping on, then entering into, and finally engaging with an ongoing scholarly conversation.     

Librarians' experiences of the teaching role: A national survey of librarians

A Canadian national survey of 788 library staff doing instructional work revealed that most participants expected to be doing some teaching in their workplaces, and the largest proportion of participants have been teaching for more than 10 years. Most instruction continues to take the form of short presentations to groups of learners. On the whole, preparatory experiences are informal—on-the-job experience, reading professional literature, and attending workshops. The majority of respondents identify instructional work as integral to their professional identity, but nearly one-third see this work as a duty or expectation, and a small proportion view it as an imposition. The study results have implications for design of programs that prepare library staff for the workplace, and for library managers who need to support effective instructional practice.     

Library Research Project for First-Year Engineering Students: Results from Collaboration by Teaching and Library Faculty

SUMMARY

This article will discuss three years of collaboration between the Freshman Engineering Program and the Engineering Library of the University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh. This collaboration has resulted in a library research project that is integrated into the freshman curriculum. The project ultimately provides the students with a research structure for presentations in an annual mock professional conference. The mission of the Freshman Engineering Program's academic and advising components is to create a first-year experience that promotes the student's continued pursuit of an engineering degree through commitment to clearly understood and self-declared goals. The goal for the Engineering Library is to introduce library research as a necessary skill-set for successful engineers. The successful outcome of all of these goals requires the collaboration between “teaching” faculty and “library” faculty and results in better prepared, more focused students. Developing and integrating a library research project into the freshman engineering academic curriculum is a significant opportunity for library instruction, and the approach demonstrated here may be transferable to other disciplines.     

Investigation of tenured and tenure-track academic librarians' service satisfaction at public Association of Research Libraries' (ARL) institutions

Service is required for academic faculty life; however, service is less studied than teaching and research. Previous literature shows that service differs based upon faculty rank, gender, race, and discipline. The purpose of this study was to determine whether tenured and tenure-track librarians at public research libraries feel satisfied with their service roles and responsibilities. A service satisfaction questionnaire was emailed directly to 1253 librarians employed at public Association of Research Libraries (ARL) institutions. The authors received 297 survey responses. Follow-up qualitative interviews were conducted with twelve participants to obtain additional depth and clarity of service roles and responsibilities. Quantitative findings indicated that overall service satisfaction varied by gender identity and librarian rank. Due to sample size limitations, future research is needed to evaluate whether service satisfaction also varies by racial and ethnic identity. Qualitative findings indicated participants' understanding of fairness in service is nuanced and that the line between what participants volunteered for versus what tasks they were assigned was complicated.     

Editorial commentary

This article reports on researching “Middle East: Information Literacy awareness and indigenous Arabic World Wide Web content challenges”. The research reported upon was conducted in preparation for a training presentation which was delivered as a part of the UNESCO “Training the Trainers” (TTT) in Information Literacy workshop project that was held November 6–8, 2008 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt. Although the concept of Information Literacy is relatively new worldwide, by now it is fairly well understood, practiced and pedagogically supported in the developed world. But, it is still quite a mystery for developing countries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa regions. Therefore, the presentation the authors were invited to deliver at the workshop aimed at creating a much needed broader awareness concerning the concept of Information Literacy, including the somewhat differing definitions which are used in various world regions and cultures, and the concept’s relevance to the advancement of knowledge, research, and the general level of education in the Arabic speaking world. Special attention was paid to these problems in the context of challenges faced by higher education institutions in the Middle East and North Africa regions.

The authors discovered that the problem of the scarcity of indigenous Arabic content materials on the World Wide Web is inextricably related to the challenges of increasing the awareness of Middle East and North Africa audiences to the relevance of Information Literacy. The authors endeavor to explain in detail what this inter-relationship is, and why and how the increase of Arabic materials on the Web could then lead to an increase in the awareness of Information Literacy in those Arabic speaking regions.

The workshop presentation aimed at explaining and promoting Information Literacy skills, not only to students and researchers, but also to future Information Literacy trainers (the participants at the UNESCO workshop). The language barrier, the Digital Divide, and the lack of adequate Arabic digital content/resources relating to Information Literacy, were all reviewed with the workshop participants, illustrated by real world case examples, and discussed, in an effort to simultaneously try to work toward a consensus approach to teaching and learning the IL concept, and at the same time create a heightened Information Literacy awareness. Rather than simply amplify in detail the technical contents of the workshop presentations the authors made in this article, and with the encouragement of the Review’s editor and guest editor, the authors decided to “tell their story” in anecdotal fashion, sharing with the workshop participants tales of the many challenges they faced in just preparing materials for their presentations – and covering both the presentation format and the presentation content aspects, including explaining why they selected a specific teaching and learning approach, and how they dealt with various delivery and implementation challenges. By so doing, readers faced with similar teaching challenges might be better prepared to respond to the many challenges, both in the context of the preparations they will be required to make as well as in the context of their actual content delivery at their workshops.     

Learning how to teach unfamiliar subjects: developing training on writing for publication and presentation of research for health libraries

Academic librarians with teaching responsibility have traditionally delivered training in discovering and organising information. However, in recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on supporting researchers through all stages of the research lifecycle. While librarians are ideally placed to provide training in writing for publication and presentation of research, very few in the United Kingdom appear to be doing so. However, there are clear benefits to teaching these subjects. Based on feedback from faculty on user needs, the University of Cambridge Medical Library’s training programme was expanded to include training and support in the publication and presentation of research outputs. This article recounts the process by which the new courses were developed, and the techniques used by the library’s teaching staff to gain understanding of conventions and requirements of forms of written communication with which they were unfamiliar. It also evaluates the impact of the new courses, discusses next steps and provides advice for other librarians wishing to develop similar courses. D.I.     

Teaching Legal Research

ABSTRACT

Questions about the importance and viability of legal research and writing as a part of the law school curriculum are not novel. Confronting these questions head-on, however, is a responsibility that should be handled by law librarians. This article addresses the issue of teaching legal research in an academic law library setting. The reasons why the author has pursued an aggressive approach when dealing with legal research instruction are explored. The methods employed to carry out that legal research instruction mandate are examined. creased as legal research and writing are more and more frequently combined and taught by writing faculty.¹ At the same time, the research skills of law students are on a downward spiral. Howland and Lewis document this plunge in an informative survey.² Law librarian Donald Dunn substantiates this decline and attributes it, in part, to “the increased emphasis in law schools on legal writing,”³ in consequence of which, while “legal writing entered the expressway; legal research took the off-ramp.”⁴ Further, law librarians and legal research have even been pummeled by one of America's most popular authors.⁵ In this environment, it may seem unwise to continue to advance the argument that academic law librarians should teach legal research. Notwithstanding the obstacles that face such instruction, law librarians have an obligation to press forward in this important work.⁶ Legal writing instructors have not demonstrated that they have the expertise to provide this instruc-tion.⁷ Likewise, law faculty have demonstrated that they do not have the interest in tackling the task.⁸ Say two authorities on the subject: “Regular faculty members generally do not teach a research course, and when they do decide to teach one, the results are invariably disastrous. Most law faculty members cannot teach legal research because they do not understand it themselves. If compelled to teach the course, they rebel.”⁹ Perhaps it is time for law schools to cede the stewardship for legal research instruction to those information professionals who have been trained and are qualified to teach legal research instruction -law librarians.¹⁰ And it is time for any reticent law librarians to accept the obligation to take a more proactive approach toward teaching legal research.¹¹     

The RFP process: Rational,educational, necessary or there ain't no such thing as a free lunch [1]

The Request for Proposal (RFP) process provides librarians a rational method of finding the right vendor for major contracts because it gives librarians the opportunity to look at all aspects of book and serial purchasing. It allows librarians to select vendors on the basis of customer service, electronic or computing services, and financial condition, as well as discounts and service charges. The educational benefits of the RFP process are so immense that such a process should be considered by libraries whether or not it is mandated by state law. Determining how many and which RFPs will be needed, planning the timeline, selecting the RFP committee, planning on-site presentations, writing the RFP, developing the vendor selection criteria, and evaluating responses are a few of the elements of the RFP process.     

International graduate students in the United States: Research processes and challenges

International students enrolled in graduate programs in the United States struggle with conducting academic research and can benefit from specialized library support. This qualitative study uses critical incident technique to explore how these students complete research assignments and use library and other resources in the process. Many participants described similar research processes, beginning with selecting a research topic and ending with cutting and pasting text from sources deemed to be useful. Two-thirds described using specific library resources—usually online resources—for their research. Some described broader research difficulties, such as coming up with a good idea, and others struggled with more specific skills like data analysis. Half of the participants had received some sort of library instruction, but they did not have particularly positive responses to these sessions. The findings of this study may be of use to academic librarians who wish to better understand international students and improve research support for this user population.     

Presenting Your Best: Web-Based Applications for Library Instruction

Library instruction in academic, health sciences, and hospital libraries is an evolving concept. Content, the intended learner, and various teaching models influence the creation of library instructional tutorials and presentations. Standard programs such as PowerPoint and Keynote are often used to generate these instructional materials. However, new and dynamic web-based presentation applications have the potential to improve the learning experience for patients and health care professionals. This column will briefly touch on library instruction and standard presentation creators, but will mainly concentrate on six web-based applications that can be used for the creation of library instructional presentations.     

Library Resources for American Studies in Taiwan: A Reassessment

Library resources for American Studies in Taiwan were first surveyed in 1969, and were judged inadequate for teaching in all the major fields. Six years later, due to the many changes that had taken place, both in the development of American Studies programs and in the build-up of library resources, a more systematic survey of the library resources was conducted. It indicated that the resources at the individual academic institutions were adequate for teaching at the undergraduate level but inadequate for graduate instruction, writing M.A. theses and faculty research. The total library resources for American Studies in Taiwan were not regarded as adequate for writing M.A. theses or faculty research. In 1993, at the suggestion of the American Institute in Taiwan, the library resources were reassessed. Results of the new survey indicated that the resources had been improved since the 1975 study. However, the improvement at the academic institutions had been slow, uneven, and sporadic, and had not been kept up with the needs of the faculty and students. The total resources for American Studies in Taiwan were considered adequate for graduate instruction, but less than adequate for graduate and faculty research. Based on the findings, recommendations were made to further improve the library, resources for American Studies in Taiwan.     

Museums as Media in the Emergent Global Context

The papers, participants, presentations, and discussions that serve as the source of this special issue of Curator: The Museum Journal bear witness to the fact that museums are not only places to which something radical, even traumatic is currently happening. They are participants, and essentially agents of change, in the stressful, shifting ecology of globalization that has unmoored whole economies, regions and populations. Fundamentally, they are a form of media, in the sense defined by the Oxford English Dictionary. This article summarizes the challenges museums face in pursuing their mission as media, and ends with a few remarks about the need to turn some attention in the future to the topic of research.     

运用阈概念将信息素养教育嵌入环境科学专业的实践及效果评估

[目的/意义] 探索运用阈概念将信息素养教育嵌入环境科学专业课程教学实践的方法,通过对硕士研究生课程作业及其硕士学位论文开题报告的考核,对课程的效果做出评估,进而说明课程的意义。[方法/过程] 嵌入式课程主要包括科研信息资源介绍、文献检索方法及结果分析、参考文献管理技巧、科技论文写作方法和文章从投稿到发表过程介绍。教学效果通过参加嵌入式课程和未参加课程的硕士研究生开题报告比较以及两个年级参加课程研究生的作业和开题报告考核结果的相关性分析评估。[结果/结论] 接受嵌入式课程的硕士研究生,在开题报告的调研深度、写作规范程度、参考文献选刊和引用规范方面比对照组有显著提高,其课程作业和开题报告文献引用的规范程度有很好的线性关系。嵌入式课程对学生科研能力的提高具有积极意义。     

经典文本的阅读偏好与阅读行为研究:以图情档类本科生为例

[目的/意义] 针对大学生不容乐观的经典阅读现状，调研图情档类本科生对经典文本的阅读偏好与阅读行为，为高校开展经典阅读教学提供参考。[方法/过程] 采用问卷调查法，调查中山大学资讯管理学院"批判性阅读与写作"课程学生的经典阅读基本情况、阅读偏好、阅读行为与习惯及其对图情档类经典文本的认同度，并结合学生的课程作业情况进行分析。[结果/结论] 图情档类学生内心更钟爱纸质阅读，但在现实中却又沉迷数字阅读；在阅读过程中喜欢做标记，对翻译和写作等更深层次的阅读行为有畏难情绪；对图情档类经典文本的认同度不高。加强大学生经典阅读的教学方法包括强制性阅读、阶梯式阅读和写作。     

经典文本的阅读偏好与阅读行为研究:以图情档类本科生为例

[目的/意义]针对大学生不容乐观的经典阅读现状,调研图情档类本科生对经典文本的阅读偏好与阅读行为,为高校开展经典阅读教学提供参考。[方法/过程]采用问卷调查法,调查中山大学信息管理学院"批判性阅读与写作"课程学生的经典阅读基本情况、阅读偏好、阅读行为与习惯及其对图情档类经典文本的认同度,并结合学生的课程作业情况进行分析。[结果/结论]图情档类学生内心更钟爱纸质阅读,但在现实中却又沉迷数字阅读;在阅读过程中喜欢做标记,对翻译和写作等更深层次的阅读行为有畏难情绪;对图情档类经典文本的认同度不高。加强大学生经典阅读的教学方法包括强制性阅读、阶梯式阅读和写作。