Author Archives: vew908

Student Research Assistants in Library and Information Studies Research

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by Cara Bradley, Teaching and Learning Librarian
University of Regina Library

Student research assistants (RAs) play an important (and often unsung) role in the conduct of academic research. I imagine that many of you, like me, have both been a research assistant yourself (while completing a degree) and also hired student research assistants to help with your own projects.

I’ve been thinking a lot about student research assistants lately. This reflection has been prompted by my recent experience:

– applying for a Tri-Agency Grant*, an application process that emphasizes the “development of talent” and HQP (Highly Qualified Personnel)

and

– hiring and supervising a student research assistant

To be quite honest, I feel like I’ve done a “good-ish” job at these two endeavours, but not definitely not a great job. I’ve been trying to figure out why, and to learn what I can do to improve in the future.

As I think this through, I’ve been struck by the somewhat unique position of librarians seeking to hire students to assist with their research. Faculty in the disciplines have access to a pool of potential applicants who have studied in their field, and can usually draw a clear line between the student research assistant’s experience and the development of HQP. Unless you work at one of the few Canadian universities with a MLIS (or equivalent) program, you do not have ready access to students with an interest and/or background in your LIS, and the line between the student’s experience and HQP can seem more difficult to draw.

Further reading has led me to the conclusion (a conclusion unfortunately reached after I submitted my grant application) that I’ve been too limited in my thinking about “development of talent.” Rather than stressing about how to create mini-librarians out of those who have no desire to be such, I need to think more broadly about the experience and training that I can provide to student research assistants. Extensive navigation of the labyrinthine Tri-Agency web sites eventually led me to the (well-hidden) Guidelines for Effective Research Training, in which SSHRC asserts that research training should “build both academic (research and teaching) competencies and general professional skills, including knowledge mobilization, that would be transferable to a variety of settings.” The site goes on to list some of these “valuable skills”:

• research methods and theories;
• publication and research communication;
• knowledge mobilization and dissemination;
• teaching in diverse settings and with various technologies;
• digital literacy;
• data management and analysis;
• research ethics;
• interdisciplinary research;
• consultation and community engagement;
• project and human resources management;
• leadership and teamwork; and/or
• workshops and conferences.

Hey, wait a minute! Those are exactly the kinds of skills that my grant-funded student research assistant would develop. This was a light-bulb moment for me. Although the grant application necessarily focuses on the details and minutiae of the proposed research project, I need to take a step back from this when describing the kinds of transferable skills that students would gain through working on my project. This insight will also help me to better engage and communicate with my research assistants, supporting them to realize and articulate their experience in ways that will benefit them in future research and employment environments.

I’ve also benefited from my reading of some of the literature around faculty-student mentoring relationships, as I’ve found that this relationship more closely reflects what I hope to offer student research assistants. In particular, Lechuga’s conceptualization of faculty as “allies, ambassadors, and master-teachers,” strikes a chord with me. He writes that the faculty he studied served as

allies to their students and took a supportive approach in working with them. Participants were apt to focus on the specific individual needs of their graduate students, either academically or otherwise. This finding is in line with other research on faculty-student relationships that has demonstrated the importance of providing personal support through formal and informal interactions

He goes on to describe another faculty role as that of “ambassador”:

In their role as agents of socialization, faculty served as ambassadors of the profession by imbuing students with a sense of professional responsibility and introducing them into the culture of academe.

Lechuga’s research on the faculty/student relationship has inspired me to expand my understanding of how I can support the growth and development of my student research assistants.

Now let’s hope that grant comes through!

* for those outside of Canada, the Tri-Agencies includes the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and are the major government funders of research in Canada.

Reference
Lechuga, V.M. (2011). Faculty-graduate student mentoring relationships: mentors’ perceived roles and responsibilities. Higher Education 62(6): 757-771.

Doing Research as a Procrastinator

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by Kristin Hoffmann, University of Western Ontario

I procrastinate.

I procrastinate with my research, and in many other aspects of my work. For example, I started writing this post at 1:43pm the day before it was due. At the same time, I needed to work on a mostly-unfinished presentation for a 40-minute workshop that I was delivering the next morning, and I hadn’t yet started compiling the data for a report that was due to colleagues at the end of the week.

I get things done, but I often do them at the last minute.

I used to berate myself all the time, and feel very, very bad about my tendency to procrastinate. Then I heard a podcast with Mary Lamia, author of What Motivates Getting Things Done: Procrastination, Emotions and Success, and now I’m starting to re-frame my procrastination in way that is helpful, not shameful:

I’m motivated by deadlines.

Here is Mary Lamia’s definition of procrastinators:

“People who are primarily motivated to complete tasks when their emotions are activated by an imminent deadline. They are deadline driven.”

The idea is that our emotions are what motivate us to get things done. For some people, the emotions that motivate them come from having a task to do and wanting to complete it. For people who procrastinate, the emotions that motivate us come from deadlines.

Other characteristics of people who procrastinate include:

• Being energized and getting increased focus as a deadline gets closer,
• Feeling like they lack motivation and concentration when they try to get something done ahead of time,
• Having ideas percolating in the background, which come together as the deadline approaches.

I can see all of these in myself, and it’s been quite a revelation for me in thinking about my approach to research. In the last six months, a colleague and I have taken a research project from idea to ethics application to data gathering to analysis—thanks, in large part, to the motivation brought on deadlines. I’ve had other research ideas and papers in various stages, but I haven’t touched any of them for months; they haven’t had deadlines.

I’ve often talked with other researchers about the benefit of having external deadlines, such as conference presentations or submission deadlines. I’m realizing that my particular challenge is to figure out how to reproduce the emotional motivation of deadlines when an external due date doesn’t exist. I don’t need to feel bad about procrastinating, I just need to accept that I’m motivated by deadlines.

References and Further Reading

Lamia, Mary. What Motivates Getting Things Done: Procrastination, Emotions and Success. Rowman & Littlefield. 2017.

Blog posts by Mary Lamia at Psychology Today:
• Getting Things Done, Procrastinating or Not, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201703/getting-things-done-procrastinating-or-not
• The Secret Life of Procrastinators and the Stigma of Delay, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201708/the-secret-life-procrastinators-and-the-stigma
• How Procrastinators Get Things Done, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201709/how-procrastinators-get-things-done
• Why You Should Hire a Procrastinator https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201712/why-you-should-hire-procrastinator

Podcasts:
• CBC Tapestry, Procrastination 101, aired November 26, 2017, available at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/procrastination-101-1.4416658
• Success.com, Ep. 85: What Type of Procrastinator Are You?, aired October 17, 2017, available at https://www.success.com/podcast/ep-85-what-type-of-procrastinator-are-you

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Making a Database Demo Meaningful

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by Kaetlyn Phillips and Tasha Maddison
Saskatchewan Polytechnic

Librarians from Saskatchewan Polytechnic interact with the Practical Nursing program at various touch points during the students’ two years on campus. In semester two of the program, to support a case study assignment, the Library provides instruction on evidence-based, comprehensive, point-of-care drug databases. The assignment requires that students determine which prescribed medication is causing problems for the patient. Previous sessions involved an instructor-led demonstration, leaving time for independent exploration of the databases with no formally structured student activity. After considering student and instructor feedback from 2016, the librarian identified that instruction could be more meaningful for students, which in turn would add value to the information and lead to greater student success.

To create a more effective teaching strategy, librarians added hands-on active learning activities. These activities incorporate problem-solving, role-playing, and discussion components which increase student engagement (Rush, 2014). By incorporating active learning, the session shifted from a librarian-centred to student-centred learning environment. In the revised session, after a demonstration and independent practice, students discussed their personal preferences. This active learning component enabled students to gain familiarity with all database options and select one based on their information needs.

After the discussion, students were given 20 minutes to complete a “Medical CSI” game. It required students to form groups of three, with each group member using a different database. Students analyzed a profile listing the patient’s age, gender, conditions, current afflictions, and prescriptions. The profile featured an unexplained symptom and students used the drug databases to find the underlying cause. If a group was able to find the answer to the mystery on all three databases, they won a prize or could choose from the ‘Box of Mystery’– a collection of prizes ranging from candy to printer credit to bookmarks. In addition, the Medical CSI game appealed to students by creating a game-based learning environment, but also incorporated problem-based learning, which involves students working in teams to analyze and solve a problem (Ferrer Kenney, 2008). The addition of competitive elements created a game-based activity, furthering the active learning environment by including collaboration, peer discussion, role-play, and creativity, which increase student motivation and engagement with the materials (Rush, 2014).

To conclude the lesson, participants were asked to complete a quick assessment. The ‘Exit Slip’ used the 3,2,1 format, and participants were asked to list three things they learnt, two things they enjoyed, and one thing to improve for future sessions. Feedback from the exit slips was positive, with 10 of the 13 exit slips mentioning enjoyment of the activity for its hands-on approach and unique problem. Additional comments praised the rewarding of prizes, especially the ‘Box of Mystery’.

While the changes to the lesson are considered a resounding success, the session was not flawless. One problematic element was students’ hesitancy to form teams. This problem has been identified in research literature discussing game-based instruction and team activities (Watson et al., 2013; Turner, Ketchum, Ratajeski, & Wessel, 2017). The cause of this hesitancy is unclear, and could be related to a mix of factors including physical space, class dynamics, or pre-existing beliefs about library sessions. The easiest solution to these issues is incorporating more active learning activities, which will serve to change the pre-existing attitudes students and faculty have about library sessions. In addition, consulting with the program instructor about the session and expected group can provide the librarian with a better understanding of the class dynamic.

References
Ferrer Kenney, B. (2008). Revitalizing the one-shot instruction session using problem-based learning. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 47(4), 386-391. Retrieved from https://journals.ala.org/index.php/rusq.

Rush, L. (2014). Learning through play, the old school way: Teaching information ethics to millennials. Journal of Library Innovation, 5(2), 1-14. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/journaloflibraryinnovation/.

Turner, R.L., Ketchum, A.M., Ratajeski, M.A., Wessel, C.B. (2017). Leaving the lecture behind: Putting PubMed instruction into the hands of the students. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 36(3), 292-298. doi:10.1080/02763869.2017.1332267.

Watson, S.E.; Rex, C.; Markgraf, J.; Kishel, H.; Jennings, E.; & Hinnant, K. (2013). Revising the “one-shot” through lesson study: Collaborating with writing faculty to rebuild a library instruction session. College & Research Libraries, 74(4), 381-398. doi:10.5860/crl12-255

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Researcher Degrees of Freedom

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by Marjorie Mitchell
Research Librarian, UBC Okanagan Library

I recently learned about the concept of researcher degrees of freedom. The idea is that, as researchers, we make many decisions about the data we collect and how we analyze it (Simmons, Nelson & Simonsohn, 2011) and that these decisions have a direct impact on the results of our research. Obviously. And this is what begins to make this concept so powerful. I’ve been familiar with the idea of researcher bias, but this is a more subtle concept. I want to make it clear that I am not talking about deliberate falsifying of research results, but about the real choices a researcher who has gathered data, in any form, is faced with making during the journey from research question construction through gathering data through publication. Some of these choices include what data is being gathered and what is not, how to handle data outliers, how to group or cluster points of data when looking for significance or impact, and so on.

The concept has been around for some time and has been explored in the fields of medicine, psychology, and more widely in the sciences, where researchers were finding they could not replicate the results from published research studies. It’s spawned a whole area of research on false positive results, publication bias (more papers are published that show positive results than show negative results), selective reporting of results, and an “Open Science” network.

Evidence-based practice, no matter what field or discipline, has been one method of critically analyzing research results. It’s a valuable tool, but only one of many that can be applied. I, personally, would like to see more credit being given for rigorously trying to replicate previously conducted research. I would also like to see the publication of more null-results reports. It is incredibly handy to know a particular path is not a useful path to follow. I have to admit, I don’t know whether I’m ready to participate in the registration of my research methods in advance of collecting data. “A registration is useful for certifying what you did in a project in advance of data analysis, or for confirming the exact state of the project at important points of the lifecycle, such as manuscript submission or the onset of data collection” (Centre for Open Science, 2018). This certainly raises the bar for research.

We have a journal club in my library where we meet to discuss recent articles from the library literature. I am pleased with the “skeptical eye” we often apply to the articles we read, but I wonder whether our critical and skeptical reading ultimately makes us less biased researchers.

More often than not, it is challenging to attempt to make these decisions in advance of conducting out research. I admit to thinking “I’ll just have a look at the results of my survey before I commit to an hypothesis.” Often my research never reaches the publication stage but our research will ultimately be stronger if we try to make these decisions in advance.

I continue to look for new lenses to apply to the research I do and to the research I consume. It has not been my intent to criticize the people doing research but to discuss the challenges and struggles I wrestle with as I continue down a research path. I hope this concept will be of interest to others as well.

References
Center for Open Science. (2018).OSF FAQs What is registration? https://cos.io/our-services/top-guidelines/

Dickersin, K., Chan, S., Chalmersx, T. C., Sacks, H. S., & Smith, H. (1987). Publication bias and clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials, 8(4), 343-353. doi:10.1016/0197-2456(87)90155-3

Kepes, S., Banks, G. C., & Oh, I. (2014). Avoiding bias in publication bias research: The value of “null” findings. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(2), 183-203. doi:10.1007/s10869-012-9279-0

Pickett, J. T., & Roche, S. P. (2018). Questionable, objectionable or criminal? public opinion on data fraud and selective reporting in science. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(1), 151-171.
doi:10.1007/s11948-017-9886-2

Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1359-1366. doi:10.1177/0956797611417632

Stahl, D., & Pickles, A. (2018). Fact or fiction: Reducing the proportion and impact of false positives. Psychological Medicine, 48(7), 1084. doi:10.1017/S003329171700294X

Pickett, J. T., & Roche, S. P. (2018). Questionable, objectionable or criminal? public opinion on data fraud and selective reporting in science. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(1), 151-171. doi:10.1007/s

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Writing in the library: A story of exasperation

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by Tegan Darnell, Research Librarian
University of Southern Queensland, Australia

As a research librarian doing a work–based Doctorate, with some work time dedicated to research, I thought I would find time to write. I even have time in my electronic calendar set aside for research activities. What I have found, however, is that a university Library is no place to write.

We work in an open plan office space, surrounded by our colleagues and in particularly close proximity to members of our work team. It is a great space to work together, to chat about incidentals, or encourage communication. I do not dislike it. In fact, I rather enjoy it when I’m busy answering inquiries or responding to urgent issues.

I have tried all the things to try and write.

I have tried:
• headphones
• headphones with loud music
• headphones with soft music
• wearing a hoodie
• wearing a hat

and even

• sitting under my desk with a laptop.

It doesn’t help. People can see me. They know I am there. They can say ‘Excuse me’, tap me on the shoulder, or send me an email – and they know that I just got it because it popped up in my notifications and they can see my computer screen…

It is no place to write.

I tried writing in the Library space. Surely, I thought, this would be the ideal place to write.

The private study carrels were all taken, so I sat down on a lounge with my laptop actually in my lap, ready to go.

“Hi! How is your research going?” someone asked within fifteen short minutes.

Shortly after returning to my writing, some students started moving the furniture around to set up a table for a group project. A few minutes later, the security gates went off. A small child took up residence on the lounge opposite me, rolling around on the seat. A student (and parent) snapped at the child and dragged them away by the arm.

The Library is no place to write.

Research writing takes focus. It takes time – dedicated time – and concentration. I have none of these resources in abundance.

I get out of the Library.

On campus is a small, abandoned office with carpet that lifts off the floor under the chair. The corridors here are silent, and no one ever pops in for a visit. There is no name on the door. There is no phone connection. This room is not connected to the heating or air conditioning system and has its own noisy air conditioner on one wall. I leave it turned off.

I turn off my email, and turn on an alarm to let me know when I can have a break to check for urgent messages.

Forty-six minutes of writing.
_____________
Bing dong bee ding! Bing dong bee ding!

This article gives the views of the author and not necessarily the views the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Research Ethics for Canadian Academic Librarians and Archivists

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by Lise Doucette
Assistant Librarian, University of Western Ontario

Background
Researchers at Canadian universities must follow the research ethics guidelines set out by the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (aka TCPS2), and this of course includes academic librarian and archivists who are conducting research. TCPS2 was developed by the Panel of Research Ethics, a group created by the three federal research agencies (SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR) and composed of Canadian researchers.

TCPS2 guidelines are based on three interdependent and complementary principles: respect for persons, concern for welfare, and justice. Respect for persons involves respecting the autonomy of potential and actual participants, and seeking free, ongoing, and informed consent. Concern for welfare includes minimizing risks to participants, and providing potential participants with enough information about risks so that they can make an informed decision about their participation. Justice means treating people fairly and equitably, and designing the study such that processes like recruiting practices and inclusion criteria do not unfairly include or exclude certain groups (in particular, vulnerable groups).

Many academic librarians and archivists have practitioner, research, and service responsibilities. So how does research ethics relate to each of these roles?

As an individual researcher
It’s likely that at some point in your career you’ll want to do research involving students, faculty, or other librarians/archivists, using methods like interviews, surveys, or observational research. Before beginning your research, you must obtain approval from your research ethics board by submitting an application with details of your research project and methodology based on the board’s guidelines. Universities generally have two research ethics boards (for medical and non-medical research) comprised primarily of researchers at that institution, as well as research ethics officers and administrative staff.

The two most important things I recommend as a researcher: first, learn how to write a good research ethics application. Consult with colleagues who have previously submitted successful applications, and follow the board’s guidelines carefully. Make it exceedingly clear to the board what potential participants will experience in your study. Second, build the research ethics approval process into your timeline. When you’re excited about your research project, you want to get started, and it can be frustrating to be waiting for approval. Plan ahead as much as possible – for example, if you want to interview undergraduate students, submitting your ethics application in March may mean that it’s approved just as students are in the April exam period and then leaving for the summer. Work backwards from your desired study date and build in extra time for the ethics approval process.

As a member of the academic community at your institution

At some universities, librarians and archivists have a seat on the non-medical research ethics board. This is a great service opportunity. By serving on the board at Western for two years, I learned a lot about the amount of thought and care board members put into reviewing the applications from the potential participants’ viewpoints, as well as what types of issues regularly require revision in order to be approved. After reviewing and providing feedback on dozens of applications, I also learned what kind of language (concise and clear!) makes these applications easy for board members to read – remember that board members will be reviewing applications from researchers in many disciplines. It can be a fascinating and rewarding experience that will help you to better design your own research studies to meet ethical requirements.

If your university doesn’t have a seat on the board for librarians or archivists, consider approaching the research ethics office or the Chair of the non-medical research ethics board to discuss the possibility. Some groups (such as librarians/archivists and other academic departments in my own institution) have multiple people assigned to the same seat. With 12 meetings of the board per year, four librarian or archivist members each attend three of the meetings per year and also review delegated (low-risk) applications outside of meetings.

As a practitioner
As practitioners, especially those of us who do work related to assessment or user experience, we often conduct studies in our own libraries to better understand our users and make improvements to our online and physical spaces and services. TCPS2 states that “quality assurance and quality improvement studies … do not constitute research for the purposes of this Policy, and do not fall within the scope of REB review” (TCPS2 Article 2.5). This means that studies undertaken to make improvements to library services or resources, when there is no intention of publishing and sharing the results more widely, do not need to be reviewed by the research ethics board

In such situations, I would encourage colleagues to set the same ethical standards for themselves for internal studies as they do for more formal research projects, and to apply the concepts of respect for persons, concern for welfare, and justice to their recruitment and methodology. Thinking through these concepts as they apply to different aspects of your study will help you design a better study and feel more confident that human participants are being treated ethically.

Learning more

• Read the policy: Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
• Your local research ethics board may require that you complete TCPS2 training before becoming a board member or before submitting a research ethics application. It’s freely accessible online, and the exercises are based on realistic research situations: https://tcps2core.ca/
• Read this previous Brainwork post: Ethics are for Everyone
• Read books about research ethics (here’s a list of suggestions)
• Pick up any social sciences research methods textbook – there should be a chapter on research ethics

This article gives the views of the author and not necessarily the views the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Two Years Post MLIS: What I’m Glad I Learned and What I Wish I Knew

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by Megan Kennedy
Leslie and Irene Dubé Health Sciences Library
University of Saskatchewan

I graduated from UBC iSchool (SLAIS) nearly two years ago. In many ways my time at SLAIS feels like it was just yesterday and in many others, library school feels like a distant memory – time really does fly! I thought I would take this opportunity to reflect on some of the things I learned in library school that I am so glad I did (whether or not I was glad at the time is another thing) and some things I wish I had known before jumping into an academic library career.

Things I learned in library school:

  • My least favourite courses I took during my MLIS were Foundations of Bibliographic Control and Cataloguing and Classification; to say that I loathed these classes is not an exaggeration. For many boneheaded reasons, I didn’t believe that I would actually need to know about any of it, there were cataloguing librarians for that kind of stuff. All I can say to my past self is, “HA! You are so wrong and you have no idea”. The foundations I learned in these courses have become some of the most important and frequently called upon skills I have in my arsenal. Granted, I am definitely not constructing and enhancing bibliographic records or creating cataloguing systems, but knowing how these things work facilitates more effective and systematic information retrieval on my end (a.k.a. permits me do the thing that librarians do best which is to find-all-the-things!).
  • Love it or hate it, there was a lot of group work in library school. We’ve all had groups that were awesome to work with – collaboration was free flowing, people were eager and able to meet up regularly (but not everyday) to discuss the project, everyone agreed instantly and got on with their work, etc. On the other end of the spectrum is group work that was…less awesome (perhaps to the point of testing your already fragile sanity). Whether or not I always agreed with the pedagogical constructs of group work, I can see how this is was excellent preparation for real life librarian work. The work that we do as librarians does not happen in a vacuum, often our work requires careful and extensive collaboration with one (or many!) stakeholders and colleagues whom have their own schedules, priorities, commitments, and visions for a project. Learning to navigate the choppier waters of group work, rather than always coasting on serene waters, has made me a more effective collaborator in my current work.
  • Project management was an interesting course because unlike some others (see my first point), I saw an immediate practicality. Perhaps not always the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a librarian’s role, but managing projects (big and small) is becoming more and more important and it is not necessarily a natural skill everyone possesses. Teamwork, communication, management of time, costs, people, risk, etc., these are all things that fall under the “project management” umbrella and all can have a huge impact on the success of a project. My biggest takeaway from this course was gaining an understanding of the scale of work required to see a project through to completion and compartmentalizing tasks into manageable chunks in order to get it done – I do this even with small projects (like managing my daily workflow).

Things I didn’t learn but wish I knew:

  • Meetings. There are a lot of them and some will be more useful than others.
  • Emails – see above.
  • Imposter syndrome is a real thing. My imposter syndrome mostly relates to research because, frankly, I have no idea how to go about getting started with the whole process. I feel like it should be as easy as “have a great idea, research it, write about it” but I know that getting from A to B to C is definitely not that simple. I took one research methods course during my MLIS but the “use it or lose it” element of this learning has indeed meant I lost it. Luckily, I am surrounded by fantastic colleagues carrying out interesting research of their own who kindly let me pick their brain – also the great resource that is C-EBLIP!
  • Finally, mentors are the best and you really should have one (or maybe even a few!). I have learned A LOT about being a librarian from the people I’ve worked with thus far in my career and I’m not sure there is any MLIS course that could ever give me that unique experience.

This article gives the views of the author and not necessarily the views the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Moving in the Circle: C-EBLIP Journal Club, February 20, 2018

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by Carolyn Doi
Education and Music Library, University of Saskatchewan

Blair, Julie, and Desmond Wong. “Moving in the Circle: Indigenous Solidarity for Canadian Libraries.” Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research 12, no. 2 (2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v12i2.3781

February’s journal club reading and discussion focused on this 2017 article from Blair and Wong, who write about the role of libraries in an “era of reconciliation.” Central to this paper is a focus on the historical relationship between Indigenous peoples and settlers, existing power dynamics, and systems of oppression. In particular, Blair and Wong call on library staff to “analyze their own intersectionality (situating ourselves in terms of race, class, gender, ability and sexuality), juxtaposed with the intersectional identities of the members of other communities” in order to better understand role of the library as a settler colonial institution (2). Finally, the article points us to the 2017 CFLA-FCAB Truth and Reconciliation Report from the Canadian Federation of Library Associations, which outlines four areas of inquiry:

1. Identifying best practices already in existence related to Indigenous peoples of Canada
2. Conducting a gap analysis on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action and recommending an annual review to evaluate progress;
3. Reviewing existing relationships and development of a contact database; and
4. Reviewing the existing body of knowledge related to the decolonization of space, access and classification, Indigenous knowledge protection, outreach and service.

The journal club members discussed what is needed and necessary in a time when systemic racism, acts of racism, and targeted microaggressions are still experienced by Indigenous people on campuses and in the wider community. We discussed the calls for reconciliation, but not without truth and decolonization. Foremost were the challenges that we know exist in library systems and spaces, such as the need for amendments to subject heading schemas, learning for library employees, spaces for ceremony in libraries, better collaboration with communities, and representation in the library profession. At the end of the conversation, we returned to what we as individuals can do to commit to decolonization, beginning with a commitment to look for Indigenous voices when seeking out information on truth, reconciliation, and decolonization in research, media, and professional sources.

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

When you play the game of information literacy… students win!

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by Chris Chan
Head of Information Services at Hong Kong Baptist University Library

“Let’s play a game.” These are not words that I usually utter during library instruction. But it is a phrase that will become more common, if the results of a recent experiment are anything to go by.

During my ten years as an instruction librarian, student engagement during information literacy (IL) sessions has been a persistent challenge. I know that the practices and dispositions that librarians are teaching are vital to their success, and in many cases the students themselves recognize this too. Yet the one-off nature of much of the instruction that takes place at my library means that students are often expected to learn these abilities devoid of any meaningful context.

Over the years, my colleagues and I have experimented with various ways to increase engagement. PowerPoints have been replaced with Prezis, and lengthy librarian monologues or demonstrations are now interspersed with questions posed via online polls that students can respond to via their smartphones. Wherever feasible, hands-on exercises are incorporated into instruction. Nevertheless, in our feedback surveys the effectiveness of activities is consistently rated lower than the relevance of the session itself.

In my interpretation, this is indicative of a need on our part to do more to design engaging instruction sessions. How does this relate to playing games? When implemented effectively, games and gamification have the potential to provide the spark that seems to be missing from our instruction programme. As Jennifer Young writes in her 2016 article on using games to teach information literacy:

Good educational games will motivate and engage students, provide context for information in the course, offer satisfying work that puts students in a state of “flow,” and encourage collaboration and social learning.

Of course, designing a good educational game is easier said than done. Many of the games described in the literature are digital, which presents an additional technical barrier. Recently, however, I stumbled across a physical card game called Search&Destroy. Designed by librarians at Ferris State University, it challenges students to use their database searching abilities to be the last person standing. Essentially, players draw keyword and modifier cards, and must run searches on a chosen database. The goal is to avoid running a search that returns zero results.

This concept intrigued me, and I purchased a copy to experiment with it. First I ran through the game with fellow librarians, and it was a tremendous amount of fun. There is definitely a certain thrill to saddling your opponent with cards that make their searches much more difficult (e.g. item must be in French!).

Our next step was to find out if students enjoyed the game as much as librarians. At HKBU Library we run regular learning events for which students receive a required co-curricular credit. As the Library has control over the content of these sessions, they were a natural place to play the game with students in an informal setting.

So on the afternoon of 5 March 2018 I found myself sitting with a group of six students explaining the rules of the game. I served as a sort of referee, guiding play around the circle. They quickly got the hang of it, and became very engaged in the competitive aspects, with some players forming impromptu alliances to gang up on and eliminate mutual foes.

The design of the game produced many teachable moments. For example, one of the cards allows a player to use the OR operator in their search statements, which led to a discussion of why this is beneficial if your goal is to avoid 0 search results.

At the end of all learning events we do a quick anonymous survey. For the Search&Destroy event, all students either agreed or strongly agreed that they had learned something interesting or useful. Qualitative comments included: “very good game, new experience” and “interesting and good”, which indicate that for this small group at least, the activity was successful in teaching search skills in an engaging manner.

While the overall experience was great, after reflection I identified several areas that could be improved or considered further. First, the game took much longer than the expected 15 minutes. I was hoping to fit in at least two rounds of the game, but ended up with just one that took almost 45 minutes. This was partly due to the number of players, and also due to the fact that we used the Library’s discovery service as the database for the game. Because of its wide coverage of full text content, it took some time before players were at risk of getting 0 results. More specialist disciplinary databases could produce quicker rounds.

Another future consideration is how to best incorporate the game into typical course-integrated instruction (as opposed to a one-off event). An activity like this would be great for introductory first-year courses, but such sessions typically have 20-30 students. Running multiple simultaneous sessions of the game in a class would be possible, but quite intensive in terms of staffing resources.

Scaling up in this way will definitely be a challenge, but it is one that I am keen on exploring after this positive initial experience with game-based instruction.

For those attending LOEX 2018 interested in learning more, librarians from Ferris State will be running an interactive workshop.

This article gives the views of the author and not necessarily the views the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Wikipedia Dashboards: an easy way of collecting edit-a-thon data

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by Joanna Hare
Hong Kong Libraries Connect

Today I’d like to share my experience working with Wikipedia Program and Events Dashboards as a means of collecting evidence of edits to Wikipedia articles made during a edit-a-thon.

On March 9 2018, Hong Kong Libraries Connect (HKLC) hosted an Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. Art+Feminism started in New York in 2013, and has grown into a massive, global campaign “improving coverage of cis and transgender women, feminism and the arts on Wikipedia”. I have edited Wikipedia before, and provided teaching support for a Wikipedia editing assessment, but this was my first time coordinating a formal edit-a-thon – and my first time hearing about Wikipedia Dashboards! Assuming there are others out there like me for whom this might be new information, let me describe the basics.

A Wikipedia Dashboard is a tool that allows users to sign-in to a Wikipedia program or event. Once they have logged into that program, all edits they make on Wikipedia will be tracked and attributed to that particular program or event, giving everyone a clear picture of their editing efforts. Here is a screenshot of our Dashboard, showing the total results of our editing efforts at the end of our event:

In the space of three hours we edited 15 articles, made 45 edits, and added over 2000 words. Not bad for a group of beginners! Also in this screenshot you can see you have the option to track the edits associated with an event for longer than the event itself, allowing participants to make edits before and after the event. You can also see under ‘Actions’ the button where users can choose to join the program, and the option to download the statistics. This option downloads to Excel, and has more detailed statistics than what you see on screen. For example, the Excel download tells me 9 of our 11 participants were new editors.

My favourite feature is listed under ‘Articles’ in the menu at the top of the screen. Here you can see what edits were made and by whom via coloured highlights:

Art+Feminism provided very detailed instructions for how to set up the Dashboard and associate your event with their campaign, but in fact it was quite easy. The process is quite similar to setting up an event in any blogging or web management platform – and Wikipedia takes care of the rest!

While I often talk about Wikipedia in my information literacy workshops, showing students the ‘back end’ and demonstrate the ease with which one can edit articles, I was not aware of this excellent tool that would allow me to have students join a program, make edits to Wikipedia, and then easily collect evidence of their efforts. I contacted the Art+Feminism coordinators (who are fabulous, by the way) to ask about using the Dashboard in the classroom, and they pointed me to Wiki Education Dashboards, which has loads of resources available to higher education instructors who want to use Wikipedia for assessment tasks. It seems support is limited to Canada and the US for the time being, but the site is worth a look regardless of your location. The tutorials and case studies are excellent.

This is all new to me so apologies to readers who are already familiar with the platform! The dashboard was a breeze to use and I am looking forward to experimenting with it to incorporate some Wikipedia editing into my next workshop. I’d like to acknowledge the support of the Art+Feminism coordinators who were speedy and warm in their support, very accommodating of first timers, and provide a lot of helpful print and multimedia resources. If you have never organised a Wikipedia event before, Art+Feminism is a great place to start.

This article gives the views of the author and not necessarily the views the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.