Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education
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The troublesome guidance towards academic literacy.
Get PDFAccording to research findings, students having graduated from upper secondary school, ought to be sufficiently prepared for meeting the demands of higher education, and for further developing their textual competences within the discipline specific contexts. Nevertheless, according to lecturers and librarians in higher education, students are still in need of guidance in their textual work. The question is what the students need and who are qualified for guiding the students. The overall goal is to promote a meaningful writing process, when assisting the students towards the planned academic learning outcome. The article discusses «Writing courses» as a phenomenon, in light of writing theory and literacy research. According to international research findings, writing in higher education is part of a disciplinary discourse, and disciplinary literacy skills are essential for building textual competences within a specific disciplinary community. Thus the essential factors in guiding students in their writing process, are genre conventions, text organization and argumentation. However, the students also need guidance in searching relevant literature as well as dealing with sources in a correct manner. The article emphasizes the significance of textual knowledge when guiding the students in higher education. However, librarians and lecturers possess different knowledge, and are part of different disciplinary discourses. There is therefore a need for debating what guidance in writing is to be, and how lecturers and librarians can complement each other and together offer constructive and relevant guidance.
Systematiske litteratursøk til salgs: Ny tjeneste fra biblioteket
Get PDFAbstractThe popularity of the review article as a publication type has increased dramatically during the last decades. As the number of single studies published each year has reached staggering heights, the need to summarize or synthesize these has proportionally increased. As one of their core services libraries throughout Norway provides access for their users to as much of the published research as possible. Unfortunately, that is not equivalent to enabling the users to locate relevant research. This is a challenge often requiring a special skill set and expertise in literature searching, both which is often found among specialized librarians. Requests from researchers at OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University (formerly Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences) for assistance from the librarians in performing systematic literature searches was the basis in developing the literature search service described in this article. How a typical request for a literature search is handled, what the product comprises and which aspects that will be prioritized in the future is expounded. Furthermore, the authors describe some of the experiences in launching this service as a service charging the researchers for librarian assistance on an hourly basis. Finally, challenges and unresolved issues are commented on.
Discovery Systems as an Alternative to Stand-Alone Databases: The Example of Primo at BI Norwegian Business School
Get PDFBackgroundDiscovery systems (DS) harvest metadata from various sources into one central index. This data can be searched through thanks to an intuitive interface, which also redirects users to full-text resources in their native databases. This paper aims at evaluating whether the DS Primo can serve as an alternative to specialized databases subscribed to by BI Norwegian Business School.Research designVarious article searches were run in Primo and four databases BI subscribes to. 1200 records were exported to EndNote. The rank order and the source of the records in Primo were kept track of. Some individual records were later checked for metadata.Results Most times, the record describing an article in Primo was not harvested from the article’s native database. When the record source was this native database, subject field’s metadata was identical. Some articles appeared twice due to metadata inconsistencies across harvested resources. Almost all records included one of the subject headings searched for. Keywords were otherwise mostly found in the records’ title. Downsizing being used in various disciplines, unexpected records were retrieved.ConclusionsNot all databases are indexed in Primo Central Index, but its size and coverage make Primo a smart choice as a one-stop search engine, if one uses the available narrowing options. It can to a certain extent function as an alternative to specialized databases for other tasks than systematic reviews, such as exploratory searches, or to get a sense of the available content
Støttetenester for forskingsdatahandtering på UiT Noregs arktiske universitet – erfaringar og forslag til beste praksis
Get PDFThis article describes how support services for research data management have been developed and are run at UiT The Arctic University of Norway (UiT). We go through several areas of interest: technical solutions, researcher involvement, division of labour between different units at our institution as well as co-operation with national and international stakeholders, data curation, skills development, training and curriculum development, dissemination, and policy making. Each section concludes with a set of best practice recommendations
Are Norwegian Librarians ready to share Library Data to improve Learning?
No full textUniversity libraries offer services that generate data about how students and faculty use knowledge sources and engage with teaching and learning. In an era of Big Data there is mounting pressure to use these data, something that challenges the professional ethics of librarians. This paper explores how Norwegian librarians position themselves in relation to the new phenomenon of learning analytics, which would like to process library data to help improve learning and its contexts. A literature review shows that librarians in general are highly sceptical to let any information that is not anonymised out of their hands to be used by other professions. However, library data is increasingly being shared with third parties as part of development of library systems and practices. In a survey presented in this paper Norwegian librarians were asked about their willingness to take part in analytics and data sharing. The findings show that even if librarians in general do not want to share data that reveals personal information, their resistance will depend on the consent of the students, and to which degree librarians themselves are involved in processing and analysis of the data. This study identifies learning analytics as a field the library community should engage with, and the authors give their advice on what should be focussed to sustain librarians’ professional ethics related to use of library data
Creative Approaches to Teaching Graduate Research Methods Workshops
Get PDFEngagement and deeper learning were enhanced by developing several innovative teaching strategies delivered in Research Methods workshops to Graduate Business Students. Focusing primarily on students adopting a creative approach to formulating a valid research question for undertaking a dissertation successfully. These techniques are applicable to most subject domains to ensure student engagement. Addressing the various multiple intelligences and learning styles existing within groups while ensuring these sessions are student centred and conducive to a collaborative learning environment. Blogs, interactive tutorials, online videos, games and posters, are used to develop student’s cognitive and metacognitive abilities. Using novelty images appeals to a groups’ intellectual curiosity, acting as an interpretive device to explain the value of adopting a holistic rather than analytic approach towards a topic
Students’ learning outcomes from cross-collaborative supervision in information seeking processes during work placements
Get PDFThis article presents student experiences and learning outcomes in information literacy (IL) and evidence-based practice (EBP) following interdisciplinary supervision of their assignments by nurse educators, nurse supervisors and librarians in real clinical settings.The article is based on qualitative and quantitative text analysis of 102 individual student logs, qualitative text analysis of 36 student group assignments, feedback from an evaluation form and 285 blog and wiki comments from students, nurse educators, nurse supervisors and librarians. It is analysed according to the first five steps of the EBP model of and feedback from an evaluation form.The students’ learning outcomes in information literacy improved by using the EBP model. By the end of the project period, 83 % of the students had integrated a focus on research-based knowledge into their work placement assignment. The interdisciplinary joint supervision and a related blog and wiki communication forum had significant influence on this outcome space. The preparation programme for the students on campus, before work practice placements was developed collaboratively between the nursing education programme and the Learning Centre and library.There is very little existing research on the effect of cross-collaborative supervision in IL where both physical and digital tools have been used in work placements. This challenges established routines and ways of conducting supervision in IL in both the library and nursing education, because of the need to collaborate more tightly than before
Embedded Peer Inquiry Specialists: A Gateway to Information Literacy
No full textPeer-assisted learning has been embraced by higher education as a way to boost student success. At the same time, academic librarians have found embedded librarianship to be an effective way to develop students\u27 information literacy skills. The embedded librarianship model, however, is difficult to scale. The UCLA Library is testing a program that combines embedded librarianship with peer learning to solve some of the challenges associated with those models.The program works by embedding a student who has completed a General Education (GE) lecture course back into the current year\u27s course to help students with research and writing assignments. The embedded student, called an "Inquiry Specialist,” is nominated by that course\u27s faculty. The program launched in 2015 in five courses that serve a total of 830 students. Assessment is ongoing and includes: 1. IRB-approved study that will compare data (grades, retention, first-generation status, etc.) from students who connected with an Inquiry Specialist with those who did not; 2. Information literacy pre- and post-assessments; 3. Analysis of course evaluations; 4. Student survey.Results indicate that the combined model is an effective and scalable gateway to information literacy. During the first six weeks of Fall, 830 students (15% of the freshman class) attended a 40-minute library orientation. Approximately 20% of the 830 students subsequently sought additional help from the Inquiry Specialists. An analysis of course evaluations demonstrated that students in courses with an Inquiry Specialist rated their improvement in library and research skills 25% and 19% higher, respectfully, than students in courses without an Inquiry Specialist. Student scores on the information literacy quiz increased by an average of 9%. When surveyed, 68% of students said the Inquiry Specialists were “Very Helpful” (36%) or “Helpful” (34%). Plans are underway to double the size of the program in the 2016-17 academic year