Information Competencies seminar for graduate students.

With the Faculty of Graduate Studies, last year we created a one-credit seminar for graduate students that includes different modules such as database searching, developing a current awareness profile, using bibliographic management software (EndNote). It is divided into 5 hands-on sessions of 3 hours each that take place in the library lab. We have offered it twice to social sciences and humanities students.

Goal:

• Provide skills development opportunities for graduate students who do not have the basic information skills needed to successfully conduct their research.

Assessment:

Since this is a credit course, students have to fill a form to assess the seminar at the end.

Information literacy instruction initiatives.

It would be too long to describe here all the information literacy initiatives on campus but just to say that we work collaboratively with faculty and give a lot of integrated instruction sessions to undergraduates and graduate students. We have developed a section on our website to describe the information literacy initiatives on campus (in French):

We also participate with the university centre for teaching and learning in offering workshops to faculty (ex.: EndNote, use of statistics and longitudinal surveys), including participating in giving the workshop on pedagogical strategies to prevent plagiarism. We have also started offering instruction to administrators and professionals (for example, psychologists from our Student Services unit) on developing current awareness profiles.

Goals / Assessment:

NA

Tutorials adapted from others.

We have adapted a general information literacy tutorial developed by another university. Ours is called InfoSphère UdeM ( ). Some libraries have developed short specialized tutorials with Viewlet (animation) on specific databases. An example of this would be the CINAHL tutorial:
http://www.bib.umontreal.ca/SA/tutoriel/default.htm.

Goals / Assessment:

NA

Calypso: digital objects management system.

We have digitized many slides, mainly from the collections of our Architecture Library, and we have acquired the software ContentDM (OCLC) to manage these images and provide easy access to them. We named our system Calypso. This search interface includes Web 2.0 features such as searching by facets and search suggestions (“did you mean…?). This new environment facilitates the retrieval and use of images by students (use in papers, portfolios) and faculty (presentation in class).
http://calypso.bib.umontreal.ca/

Goals / Assessment:

NA

Online self-test based on SAILS.

We have translated and adapted for our needs the Kent State / ARL SAILS information literacy questionnaire and we have formatted the questions in WebCT quiz format (course management system used at our university). Departments and professors who wish to use some of the questions as self-test in their online course can do so. The Faculty of Education has used a selection of those questions as a self-test for new students entering undergraduate programs in their faculty. For those questions, we have added feedback to the answers (not present in the SAILS instrument).

Goals / Assessment:

See above.