Emily Ford

Badge It! Using Digital Badges to Certify Information Literacy Skills within Disciplinary Curriculum

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to discuss the collaborative learning outcomes-based approach taken by a librarian and disciplinary faculty members to improve information literacy (IL) curriculum within disciplinary courses. To this end, the team aimed to award badges to certify IL skills. Design/methodology/approach – This article considers relevant literature on competency-based curriculum, technological innovation in higher education, collaboration between library and disciplinary faculty and badges. This literature is used to frame the approach to plan a successful and sustainable project to embed IL in disciplinary curriculum using digital badges. The approach includes mapping learning outcomes and engaging in instructional design tasks – including planning for content delivery and student assessment. Findings – An approach to technological innovation for instructional projects based on the principles of pedagogical design can result in improvements to IL pedagogy and collaboration between librarians and disciplinary faculty, whether or not a technological implementation is successful. Practical implications – Librarians and disciplinary faculty can take a pedagogical and learning outcomes-based approach to embedding IL into disciplinary curricula. Further, despite administrative push for technological innovation, projects can succeed when focused on improvements to pedagogy rather than solely on the implementation of new technologies. Originality/value – Planning for and implementing badges for IL curriculum is in an incipient phase in higher education. This paper uniquely addresses a collaborative approach to be used by librarians to plan and implement embedded library instruction in disciplinary courses, with or without the use of badging technology.

Oregon Health Go Local: a retrospective look.

MedlinePlus® Go Local is the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Healths Internet resource that allows individuals to find health services in their local communities. Oregon Health Go Local recently joined the network of active Go Local projects. This article describes the planning and development of Oregon Health Go Local, with a discussion of the success and challenges of initiating such a project. Funding, marketing, volunteer coordination, data acquisition, and taxonomy are discussed.

Opening Review in LIS Journals: A Status Report

INTRODUCTION Peer-review practices in scholarly publishing are changing. Digital publishing mechanisms allow for open peer review, a peer review process that discloses author and reviewer identities to one another. This model of peer review is increasingly implemented in scholarly publishing. In science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, open peer review is implemented in journal publishing processes, and, in the humanities and social sciences, it is often coupled with new scholarship practices, such as the digital humanities. This article reports findings from an exploratory study on peer-review and publishing practices in Library and Information Science (LIS), focusing on LIS’s relationships with open peer review. METHODS Editors of LIS journals were surveyed regarding journal peer review and publishing practices. RESULTS This article reports the general “pulse” of attitudes and conversations regarding open peer review and discusses its challenges in LIS. Results show an ideological split between traditionally-published journals and open access and association-affiliated journals. Open access and association-affiliated journal editors are more likely to consider investigating open peer review. DISCUSSION The LIS community of journal editors, authors, reviewers, and readers need to discuss open peer review as well as experiment with it. Experiments with open peer review in scholarly LIS publishing will inform our praxis as librarians.

Interinstitutional Library Collaboration: Support for a Joint Master of Public Health Program

Abstract Library-related and resource access issues confronting students enrolled in an interinstitutional joint master’s degree program in public health are addressed in this chapter. It details a cross-institutional collaborative effort to identify and provide research resources to interinstitutional joint degree students and faculty and analyzes the program through the lens of literature on collaboration in higher education and in library instruction. Reports on findings from qualitative feedback and quantitative card sort analysis data were gathered to inform development of content for, and organization of, a library research guide. Bureaucratic structures and policies often affect library services to students and faculty in interinstitutional joint degree programs. Therefore, more salient information about library policies, services, and resources was needed in order for the affected libraries to coordinate instruction, collections, and services to best support such programs. One of the limitations of the case study was that limited qualitative and quantitative feedback was received. Also there was no prior formal needs assessment. Nevertheless, the chapter provides insight to challenges facing libraries and librarians supporting interinstitutional joint degree programs. It also points to administrative opportunities to create rich library collaborations. Existing literature does not adequately address obstacles of in-person interinstitutional joint degree programs. The contribution of this chapter is that it identifies the complications of access, library policies, and administrative procedure that will need to be address by two or more libraries that want to support joint degree programs at the college or university level.