‘The constant rejections hurt’: Skills and personal attributes needed to successfully complete a thesis by publication

The thesis by publication (TBP) is an increasingly popular approach to doctoral education that sees candidates publishing their research during their candidature, and including these outputs in their final thesis submission. Responsive to the realities of modern academia, a TBP provides doctoral candidates with opportunities to engage in the scholarly publication process, and to build their research portfolio. As the TBP gains further traction in many fields and countries, there is a need to better understand the skills and attributes needed to complete a TBP successfully. This paper draws on the views of 246 recent doctoral graduates of Australian universities to identify the skills and attributes they felt supported their success. Their responses have implications for the development and refinement of institutional policies and programs that are sensitive to the needs and experiences of doctoral candidates seeking to publish during candidature and create a TBP. As editors, peer‐reviewers, and publishers see a growing influx of papers sole‐ or co‐authored by doctoral candidates in response to the trend toward TBP, they may find themselves involved in supporting students to develop the skills and attributes needed to successfully publish during candidature.     

Graduate Student Space and Service Needs: A Recommendation for a Cross-campus Solution

Focus group methodology was used to investigate graduate students' cross-campus technology, space and service needs. Although the library provides valued services and spaces, graduate students need enhanced and more equitable support for their roles as teachers and scholars. Librarians can provide leadership and act as advocates for graduate student needs in partnership with other campus stakeholders.     

Developing and using a rubric for evaluating evidence-based medicine point-of-care tools

Objective:

The research sought to establish a rubric for evaluating evidence-based medicine (EBM) point-of-care tools in a health sciences library.

Methods:

The authors searched the literature for EBM tool evaluations and found that most previous reviews were designed to evaluate the ability of an EBM tool to answer a clinical question. The researchers'' goal was to develop and complete rubrics for assessing these tools based on criteria for a general evaluation of tools (reviewing content, search options, quality control, and grading) and criteria for an evaluation of clinical summaries (searching tools for treatments of common diagnoses and evaluating summaries for quality control).

Results:

Differences between EBM tools'' options, content coverage, and usability were minimal. However, the products'' methods for locating and grading evidence varied widely in transparency and process.

Conclusions:

As EBM tools are constantly updating and evolving, evaluation of these tools needs to be conducted frequently. Standards for evaluating EBM tools need to be established, with one method being the use of objective rubrics. In addition, EBM tools need to provide more information about authorship, reviewers, methods for evidence collection, and grading system employed.

Highlights

• Eleven of the fourteen previous evidence-based medicine (EBM) tool evaluations were based on clinicians evaluating tools based on their perception of the products'' ability to answer a clinical question.
• EBM tools'' evidence summaries are not updated as often as products claim.
• Although many EBM tools claim to be evidence based, only 74% of the 70 evaluated treatment summaries included graded evidence.

Implications

• To offer the best tools for users, medical libraries should evaluate EBM resources regularly, including the quality of the evidence provided.
• Medical librarians have a role to play in evaluating the quality of EBM products and can develop assessment tools to aid in this evaluation.

     

How can Booktok on TikTok inform readers' advisory services for young people?

Libraries provide readers' advisory services to young people to foster reading for pleasure. The Booktok community on TikTok is a resource that can be drawn upon to support promotion of books with this demographic. A hybrid content analysis of 116 TikTok videos explores presence of hashtags, authors and books, and recurring themes promoted in Booktok videos. Popular hashtags build community and promoted authors and books are a small and select group. Young people use Booktok to provide recommendations, explore reader experience and emotional response, generate reader community and identity, discuss fictional characters and places, develop and promote writing, and discuss personal library management and being a reader in the family. Libraries' reader advisory services for young people can use these findings to employ language of the discourse community for insider signposting of the library's physical space and give greater primacy to the emotional response evoked by books and reading.     

The effects of the Healthy Steps for Young Children Program: results from observations of parenting and child development

The Healthy Steps for Young Children Program (HS) is designed to provide support for new parents through the pediatrician's office. We present findings of the effect of HS on the quality of mother–child interaction, security of attachment, and child behavior using observational data from two of the HS sites that utilized a randomized treatment design. Results indicated that mothers participating in Healthy Steps were more likely to interact sensitively and appropriately than mothers in the comparison group at the second assessment point (age 34–37 months) but not at the first assessment point (age 16–18 months). There were no differences in child outcomes at either time point when the cross-sectional data were analyzed. However, the results of the longitudinal analysis (which included families who participated in the home observations at both Time 1 and Time 2) indicated that Healthy Steps participation was associated with greater security of attachment and fewer child behavior problems.     

Strategies for incorporating cultural competence into childbirth education curriculum

Cultural competence affects all interactions with prospective parents and families. Childbirth educators need to assess their own cultural competence, beginning with an understanding of their own background and how it affects interactions with families. The purpose of this article is to enhance the incorporation of cultural competency, cultural awareness, and cultural sensitivity into the childbirth education curricula. Methods for enhancing cultural competence in a multicultural global society are discussed. Strategies are also presented to address the challenges of assessing parents and families of diverse cultures and their beliefs, traditions, and special needs in the plan of care.