Showing posts with label student scholarship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label student scholarship. Show all posts

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Week 13: More LOEX Paper Writing, English 101, and a Fun Surprise!

Though it may not sound jam-packed, this week certainly was. Between juggling LOEX writing, teaching, and assisting patrons at the reference desk, I was definitely kept on my toes! Anne Marie and I have spent several hours fine tuning the LOEX paper, working from a modified outline I used for my presentation at the Iowa Library Association/ACRL conference. Originally we were concerned about being too long-winded, but between the two of us we have been able to be clear and concise (and stay within the required word count limit).

We also continued our work with English 101, finishing up the unit about scholarly research in preparation for their paper deadline. What is unique about this class is that essentially, the entire class writes the "same" paper. They create the same research question, analyze the same resources, take the same notes, and craft their thesis statement together. Even their bibliography is provided from the start. What is left is the writing of the paper. By extracting these elements and doing them together the students really learn the process before jumping in and trying to start from scratch on their own. By giving students this foundation, they are better prepared for assignments later in the semester, and later in their college careers, as they advance to the next level of research writing. In this last class period with the students and librarians together, we explicitly defined the connections between the different articles they dissected before. In making a chart and examining the similar factors and measures of success (factors: student engagement/involvement, metacognitive skills, locus of control, action behaviors, relationships with faculty, relationships with peers; measures of success: degree attainment and the amount of time it takes to earn the degree, cumulative grade point average), students noticed much overlap between the articles. We also worked together to define unfamiliar terms, and crafted a thesis statement together ("Engagement, internal factors, and relationships positively influence college students’ success as measured by cumulative GPA, and timeliness to graduation .").

This week I also received a fun surprise in my email inbox. I was very excited to hear that the American Library Association, New Members Round Table selected Indiana University’s IU ALA-SC as Student Chapter of the Year for our work in 2010. Having served as president in 2010 I was very excited that the efforts and activities of the membership and board were recognized. I, along with the current President, am looking forward to heading to the Annual conference in New Orleans to accept the award and represent Indiana University and the IU School of Library and Information Science!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Article 4: Promoting and Archiving Student Work through an Institutional Repository: Trinity University, LASR, and the Digital Commons

Nolan, C. W., & Costanza, J. (2006). Promoting and archiving student work through an institutional repository: Trinity University, LASR, and the Digital Commons. Serials Review, 32(2), 92-98. doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2006.03.009

Institutional repositories (IR) have typically focused on faculty scholarship. Trinity University, along with Carleton, Dickinson, and Middlebury Colleges, began an IR featuring student work in order to promote student scholarship, and help students and faculty better understand copyright issues and alternative publishing. ProQuest hosts the server, manages the accompanying software, and makes the libraries' content shared and searchable by each institution; each library independently manages it's own Digital Commons site. Traditionally, IRs have focused on faculty publications; the new idea of the student IR required education of faculty, students, and staff, though students were more receptive to the IR, noting the discoverability of their work to future employers and graduate schools. The students submit their senior papers/projects via web form to the Liberal Arts Scholarly Repository (LASR). Each institution determines collection guidelines. Some considerations for those institutions interested in beginning something similar include staffing and financial expenses, marketing the concept to the institution, collaborative work with other institutions, determining scope (which types of work are included?), pre-publication and copyright concerns in regards to future publishing, ownership and copyright, formats accepted, length of preservation commitment, metadata, migration as platforms/formats change, and departmental concerns from around campus. By developing the IR as a consortium, LASR was able to receive vendor discounts, sharing of student work throughout all participating institutions, and has the potential for sharing procedures, collection policies, and metadata creation. Authors utilizing the IR receive statistics detailing the use of their work.