The Library would like to learn from faculty how we can best support the course-related information needs of first year students. We know there are some faculty who bring their students into the library year after year, while others bring their students once and then do not return with new classes. We have anecdotal evidence that while the instruction sessions are seen as an essential component of a course for some faculty, others do not perceive it that way. In order to better support student and faculty needs in this area, we must have reliable data on the impact of library instruction on student information gathering and critical thinking skills. The first step in this process is to better understand how faculty use and perceive library instructional services.
Help the Brown University Library improve its instruction program for all users, in particular first year students.
Help explain the findings of other research projects, including contextualizing quantitative results from LibQUAL+.
Survey of first year seminar faculty, survey of librarians responsible for instruction for those same first year seminars, accounting of instructional services employed for the courses. Initiative is ongoing for the 2007-2008 academic year. We have completed the fall semester data collection and will collect data from the spring 2008 semester in May. The data will be evaluated over the summer of 2008 and communicated broadly before the start of the Fall 2008 semester.
This project utilizes patent searching to teach transferable, lifelong learning information research competencies. While it specifically supports a course in the Brown Engineering Division required for all first-year engineering undergraduates, its usefulness extends to all those who would like to learn about the basics of patents and patent searching. The tutorial materials cover U.S. and worldwide patents and patents applications databases, such as the USPTO and esp@cenet. A scenario is presented upon which the video tutorials are based. Camtasia screencasts with audio and text demonstrate searching strategies presented along with text guides to searching and citing patents.
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/libweb/screencasts/patentsearching.php
How to approach using a database by exploring the difference between searching by keyword versus by controlled vocabulary.
The importance of identifying features of a database such as truncation or field searching to expedite the search strategy and knowing the limitations in content retrieval inherent in any database.
About the process of creating a search strategy from the overall statement of information need and refining it.
Student learning is assessed as part of an introductory Engineering course. We are in the third year of assessment, and continually revise and supplement the program.
EasyBorrow provides a single user interface for requesting books from four shared resource systems. We use WorldCat as our starting point. Instead of passing the OpenURL from WorldCat directly to our link resolver, we intercept it and use the ISBN to 1) do a look-up in our catalog (we redirect if a circulating copy is available), 2) query our III INNReach catalog, 3) query two Sirsi-Dynix URSA consortium catalogs, and 4) default to our ILLiad system if the request can't be placed in one of the direct borrow systems. Instead of having to navigate different proprietary systems, each with its own search interface and login method, the user now searches once in WorldCat, authenticates once, and easyBorrow goes to work behind the scenes. http://dl.lib.brown.edu/its/software/easyborrow/
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OCRA - online course reserves - is a locally developed full-bodied course reserves management application. Faculty use OCRA to submit requests for both traditional and electronic reserves (in all formats), to track and edit their requests, and to reactivate course reserves from one semester to another. The system utilizes the Library's context-sensitive linking application to deliver information about full text availability at the point at which requests are made. Students have access to a simultaneous view of all course reserve formats (in-library reserves, electronic text, audio and video streaming) and the system embeds links to this view in MyCourses (Brown's WebCT service). A staff interface allows staff in the Library and in Computing & Information Services to manage course reserves workflow for all formats.
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/its/software/ocra/
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During the '06/'07 academic year, a pilot project was undertaken to videotape and place online all of the lectures from three different courses. The three courses included in the project were an organic chemistry class with 250 students, an introductory biochemistry class with 205 students, and an American Sign Language class with 20 students. In total, 91 lectures were videotaped and made available via OCRA, the online course reserves system, and via VFNow, a video on demand system. Each of the files was linked to the course WebCT page. Response to the project was positive from the students as the files were downloaded over 3500 times.
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/reserves/student/videolectures.php?task=list
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