The Lede: Why Information Literacy Matters to Faculty
Many faculty members can easily assume that the ease with which students use SnapChat or gaming indicates a similar ease with other applications, as well as skills in finding and using information. This easy assumption can lead to a set of mis-matched faculty expectations and student realities, misunderstandings that can inadvertently require far more class time than faculty had allotted. Some faculty report a sense of repetitive explanations to student after student, and believe they have witnessed a genuine decline in writing and reasoning ability.
Information literacy matters to faculty members –more skillful students can write better papers, make more articulate classroom presentations, and avoid common mistakes, mis-attribution, and unintentional plagiarism. The Library has recently begun to implement a wide range of modules and materials to teach elements of information literacy. Why? –because supporting teaching and learning is the Library’s primary goal. The short video below (4’40”) explores common erroneous assumptions about students’ abilities to seek and use information. It explains why and how instructors and librarians can work to improve student learning and save instructional time, as well as improve the pleasure teachers can take in their teaching. Librarians and faculty working together can ensure students’ growing information literacy skills will foster success with lifetime learning, and be better-informed citizens and consumers.
Image: Courtesy of The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
A Resource You Should Know About: Library Video Tutorials & Guided Tours
The Library has created and curated over thirty videos and guided tours to help users find resources, get research help, use particular databases, use library technology (such as off-campus database access), and manage citations using Zotero. Six of the videos assist faculty with embedding library content in Blackboard course shells, create reading lists, and learn more about Open Educational Resources (OER).
The videos are two-to-five minutes long, and each has a .pdf transcript. The guided tours present slides and material that allows users to perform searches in side-by-side windows. Pointing students to these videos can help save your time in class and office hours.
All these videos and guided tours can be embedded directly into Blackboard courses and other online materials for immediate, adjacent access to an assignment. (Find out how to embed library content here.) If you tell a student to find writing help with the Online Writing Lab (OWL), you can also point the student to this video to learn more how the Online Writing Lab works. The aim of these videos is to provide the right help in the right place at the right time.
A Resource You Should Know About: Sports Market Analytics
Sometimes a resource or database grows into something much better than it used to be -- see Sports Market Analytics.
Sports Market Analytics (SMA) was formerly known as SBRnet (Sports Business Research Network). It has become a leading provider of sports marketing research in the United States. SMA features market research and industry news in the area of sports business. Contents include industry-developed market research, government statistics, facility reports and news, international market publications, customized research, and directories for governing bodies, college athletic, employment agencies, and marketing agencies.
Coverage includes sporting goods, sports e-commerce, sport marketing, sport sponsorship, sport facilities, sport broadcasting and new media, fantasy sports, eSports, consumer product brand share, demographics, mobile device usage patterns.
SMA includes wide-ranging content including all sports demographics, fantasy sports, online viewing trends, social media, sponsorship, fan market size, and TV viewing trends; Sporting goods, including financial summaries, equipment by product, imports, online purchase trends, total market for apparel, footwear, and equipment; Market segments including college sports, participation, women’s sports, and youth sports.
SMA provides full-text coverage since 2011 and is mobile-friendly. A brief tutorial (.pptx) is available for more details.
The Library has arranged a campus-wide trial of Academic Video Online (AVON) from ProQuest. This provides remote unlimited access to over 63,000 academic videos in numerous subjects prominent in the University curricula. For example, AVON provides 2000+ video resources for the study of Psychology and Counseling. Each video comes with a keyword-searchable transcript right inside the embeddable video player. More information can be found in this online guide from ProQuest. A guide customized for Sacred Heart University Library will be published soon.
The Library wants to hear from faculty about AVON –would it meet your instructional needs? You can give your feedback using this form. The trial will end on February 15, and the Library is committed to a permanent subscription as an alternate to Kanopy Streaming Video.
AVON has been highly recommended by other universities, and it is a well-qualified candidate to meet the University’s growing need for video at and affordable and stable cost.
Citation Management: You Don’t Like Zotero? Here Are Some Alternatives
The Library has featured Zotero because users have found it easy to use, well-supported, and costs nothing (except the time to learn it). But not everyone likes Zotero –tastes and needs vary. Here are three alternative resources that may better meet your research needs:
You can compare side-by-side:
Image courtesy of New York University Libraries
FIND US ON