Cornell undergraduate information competency initiative.

This initiative is funded by a grant from Cornell University Library and the office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. It encourages Cornell faculty to explore creative and effective ways to engage students by integrating research skills into the classroom and the curriculum through the redesign of undergraduate courses. This Initiative supports the university’s goal of improving undergraduate education by providing faculty the funding, opportunity, and the assistance of campus academic partners to transform the curriculum by creating authentic and engaging research assignments to incorporate into their courses. At least five Cornell faculty will be selected to participate throughout the 2008-2009 academic year. Faculty are expected to attend an orientation, an intensive one week Institute to be held on campus (week of June 16, 2008), and occasional events throughout the year. Each faculty member will receive $1,500 in support of scalable and sustainable changes to the curriculum, including departmental implementation, developing teaching tools that incorporate information competencies, research skills, and use of campus information resources as integral components, and assessing the impact of research assignments on student learning and faculty teaching. At the Institute, faculty will discuss a range of topics related to developing effective undergraduate research-based assignments. In partnership with consultants from the University Library, the Center for Learning and Teaching, and Academic Technology Services and User Support, faculty will more fully develop the research assignment for their own course that challenges undergraduates to use the Library's print and digital resources and to engage in the process of scholarly discovery. After the Institute, faculty will continue to work with these academic partners to develop and refine these courses and assignments throughout the year. This pilot program is modeled on the University of California at Berkeley’s prestigious Mellon Library/Faculty Fellowship on Undergraduate Research. For more information about the Mellon Fellowship see http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MellonInstitute/, particularly the project overview and factsheet at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/mellon/overview/projectintro.html and the video testimonials from participants at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/mellon/publicity/videoclips.

Goals:

• Create the programmatic structures at Cornell necessary to enhance undergraduate research and information competencies.

• Engage faculty, librarians, and academic technology staff in the establishment of a shared infrastructure for the teaching of undergraduate research.

• Embed research-based learning approaches in an array of courses and enable instructors to redesign courses to better connect faculty research and teaching, and to allow creative student discovery and mastery of research competencies.

Assessment:

The program is in progress and will debut this summer. We hope to assess this using surveys and analysis of the outcomes of the revised assignments/classes.

Business / Applied Economics WIKI. (Mann Library)

At Mann Library, our Management and Public Policy Librarian has created a library wiki for the Applied Economics and Management department (see link below) that houses useful information and resources, tutorials and workshop information and exercises which allow class participants to comment and complete exercises in and out of class. This tool allows her to create a subject-specific portal for her audience and allows her audience of undergraduate business students, faculty and staff to comment and complete exercises during workshops and classes. Linked from this site and available in our blog pilot installation is her business blog which not only keeps her audience up to date on the latest news and resources available to business students but also serves as an information literacy tools connecting issues in current business news to the library's tools and resources.
http://wiki.library.cornell.edu/display/applebp/LIBRARY+WIKI+FOR+AEM

Goals / Assessment:

NA

Instruction librarians’ training program.

Library Instruction Partner Program (LIPP), Library Instruction Committee members, and a select group of other instruction librarians have partnered with the Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT) and completed a 4 part train-the-trainer series which we video taped. CLT staff have worked with regular teaching faculty for years on techniques for improving their classroom teaching. The sessions focused on how to plan, how to observe teaching and how to provide effective feedback. We are planning to create an online application form and announce this new service sometime in February. We have evaluation forms from CLT and other material to facilitate the process.

Goals:

• Strengthen librarian teaching skills.
• Incorporate technological applications in library instruction.
• Include outcomes based active learning techniques.

Assessment:

NA

Courses in research methodologies.

Cornell Librarians are involved in teaching two new innovative credit courses this semester. The Cornell Library has expanded an existing 1-credit research strategies course previously offered only through the Latino Studies Program. This semester the course is also offered through the Africana Studies and Research Center. ASRC/LSP 101 Research Strategies Course: This course will introduce students with research interests in Africana and Latino Studies to search strategies and methods for finding materials in various formats (print, digital, film, etc.) using information databases such as the library catalog, print and electronic indexes, and the world wide web. Instructors will provide equal time for lecture and hands-on learning. The second course is Writing 142: Writing and Research in the University: This new course provides an introduction to college research that emphasizes use of media and information databases such as the library catalog, print and electronic indexes, and the worldwide web. Students will learn how to convert information into an argument, synthesize and acknowledge research sources, find their own voice in academic writing, and share their findings with their peers. Short written assignments will culminate in a research paper on a topic that draws upon students’ own background and experiences, such as urban and rural environments, education and health, poverty and social opportunity, popular media, immigration and ethnicity. No previous experience with new research media is required. This course is unique to the university in that each student in the course will be paired with a student mentor provided by the university (not a volunteer) with whom one-third of their class time will be spent (one full 50-minute session per week). The mentor sessions will include such activities as work on class assignments, brainstorming for ideas, help in enabling electronic and print research, tutoring focused on strengthening writing through revision.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/asrc_lsp101.html

Goals:

• Strengthen student research skills.

• Enhance students ability to evaluate information resources.

• Build new collaborations across the University.

Assessment:

So far the assessment has been through observation of students completing in-class assignments and exercises. Students will be graded on their final research assignments and a course evaluation will be administered at the end of the semester.

LibGuides include Web 2.0 features.

Cornell has recently subscribed to LibGuides. There are a number of fresh, exciting, and innovative approaches to library instruction incorporated into the guides. LibGuides also includes a number of Web 2.0 features.
http://guides.library.cornell.edu

Goals / Assessment:

NA

Vodcasts covering library research concepts. (Olin Library)

Librarians Michael Engle and Kaila Bussert created "Research Minutes," a vodcast series for undergraduate students covering library research concepts. The series transforms a web-based research guide, Research Strategy: A Tutorial, into short, 90-second vodcasts with music and images. Simulating the reference desk interview, each segment brings together a librarian and a student to discuss common research issues such as how to identify scholarly articles and substantive news articles. For example, in the segment about identifying scholarly articles, we illustrate the audio points with images of a scholarly article and the important components -abstract, author affiliations, specialized vocabulary, and the bibliography. So far, two segments are finished (as MP4 files) and ready to be distributed via the library website, the university's course management system, and commercial sites like YouTube.

Goals / Assessment:

NA

Digital image instruction assistant. (Fine Arts Library)

Over the past 5 or 6 years many libraries have assumed responsibility for the funding of digital image databases, i.e. ArtStor, CAMIO, Scholar's Resource, and more. With ownership comes a sense of responsibility to support an appropriate level of use of these collections. In 2006 an experimental and temporary position was created titled Digital Image Instruction Assistant. This position is collaboratively supported and managed by the Fine Arts Library and a departmental image repository, traditionally known as the "slide library." The main focus of the position is to support faculty users as they make the transition from analog to digital images, for use in the classroom. These resources require sophisticated searching, downloading and manipulation skills in order to create high resolution and high impact classroom presentations. These are not skill sets that can be conveyed during a typical reference transaction at the library, at a reference desk. Therefore, the individual in this position is considered a mobile unit, often meeting with a faculty member in his or her office. During the first 18 months of this trial position, more than 150 one-on-one faculty consultations, averaging 70 minutes each, have occured. It's a pleasure to note that this new service has been very well received by the faculty. When not conducting digital image coaching sessions, this new staff member adds content to an image instruction blog (see below).
http://imageinstruct.library.cornell.edu/

Goals:

• Increase use of digital image resources.

• Enable faculty to use digital resources in the classroom.

• Create a blog to enhance awareness of digital image resources, either freely available or provided by the library through subscriptions.

Assessment:

We have been so busy providing this new service we have not yet officially measured its success. We do have anecdotal evidence that it is working in the form of a thick folder full of thank you notes from a number of faculty members. As well, ArtStor tracks use statistics. Cornell's use of ArtStor is double that of its peer institutions. We contribute this rate to the success of this outreach and instruction effort.

Large-scale blog project to support university. (Mann Library)

Cornell University Library (CUL) and Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) co-sponsored a blog pilot as a first step in developing a centrally-supported blog service. The pilot enabled CUL and CIT to evaluate the feasibility of supporting blogs for teaching, research, and communication. The audience was all faculty and staff (and students using blogs for academic purposes) at Cornell University using blogs for teaching, research, learning and communication. We tested a pilot implementation of WordPress Mu. The pilot ran through the spring (2008) and was then evaluated. We’ve done several successful joint projects with CIT, so when we were both looking for solutions to the proliferation of standalone blog software installations (chiefly Wordpress), it made sense to join together. CIT handled the project management and technical and policy infrastructure and support, and the library helped provide support, technical help and documentation. The pilot evaluation results were positive from both academic and staff users, though we're finding they are still exploring how best to use blogs for various purposes. The blogs were used for reflection and sharing of resources outside of class, outreach and communication (both internal and external), and personalizing student programs and staff services. Currently, the blog service is open only to faculty, staff, and graduate students for academic, communication, and group collaboration blogs; undergraduates can be enrolled via a course, but it's not open to the entire university in general. We may do so in the future, but free alternatives are widely available. We have around 60 blogs in the installation so far, some new but most migrated from the pilot. We are still working out details of the production service but will certainly continue to offer it.
http://edublogs.org/campus/

Goals / Assessment:

See above

Library and IT deeply integrate resources into Blackboard.

Cornell University Library and Cornell Information Technologies have completed two phases of integrating Library resources and services into Blackboard. In phase I we added links to the Library Gateway and the Ask a Librarian service to the main menu of all new Blackboard courses. We installed the RefWorks building block. This building block allows Bb users to link to specific RefWorks accounts and create new accounts from the Bb Tools menu. It also allows instructors to add links to existing RefWorks accounts in any of the Blackboard content areas. Documentation was created explaining the functionality of all the new additions. We conducted an extensive communication initiative to make students and faculty aware of the Blackboard and Library Resources & Services integration. Librarians and CIT staff collaborated on teaching the "Blackboard Getting Started" workshops for instructors. We also began work on a plan for gathering metrics to measure the use of these resources and services in Bb. Phase II involved the use of Bb for managing all Library reserves. Faculty can make Library reserve staff course builders so they can add reserve material to an existing Bb course. If the instructor is not using Bb the Library will create a Bb course and add the reserve material to it for the instructor. We are now beginning to brainstorm ideas for phase III.

Goals / Assessment:

See above

LibGuides redefine approach to providing library resources. (Uris Library)

Cornell has recently subscribed to LibGuides, and this software allows us redefine our course library guides. Guides created with this software have Web 2.0 interactive communication links. Below is a URL for the web guide that I have created for a for-credit course that I am co-teaching this semester, Writing 142. I will continue to add new content to this guide throughout the Spring 2008 semester.
http://guides.library.cornell.edu/content.php?pid=4251

Goals / Assessment:

NA