Welcome to Brittany Dudek, CCCOnline’s New Librarian!

We are delighted to welcome Brittany Dudek, our new Instructional Online Librarian for Colorado Community Colleges Online. Previously, Brittany was the Electronic Resources Librarian for Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Illinois. Brittany received her Masters of Library & Information Science from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her B.A. from Eastern Illinois University, and she was honored as a Library Journal 2014 Mover & Shaker. 

Here’s an introduction from Brittany herself:

I’m very excited to work with you to provide library services to your students. I’ve heard from many that citations and plagiarism is a concern, and am working to create active learning/interactive tutorials which will finish with a short ‘quiz’ on those subjects that can be used in any course at any time.

Aside from the citation and plagiarism tutorials, there are many library services I can offer, and I hope you’ll take advantage of them! I’ve listed a few here, but would love to work with you to develop what your students need!

·      
Research Guides (LibGuides)

o   Subject specific research guides to help students find library and open source resources related to a subject

o   Will also include general citation and research information

·        Tutorials

o   Topics covered can include specific databases or websites, research skills, information literacy skills, or for the particular needs of a course

·        Instruction Sessions

o   Asynchronous or synchronous instructional sessions tailored to your subject or assignment needs

o   These sessions will be recorded upon request, and the video provided to use a reference

Please consider scheduling instruction sessions in your course when it coincides with an assignment. Students benefit the most when library services are provided at their point of need!

I am excited about getting started and truly look forward to working with you!

Brittany Dudek

Feel free to offer any thoughts or comments in the Cultivating Excellence thread, CCCOnline Community!

Students’ Research Skills and the Future

Below is a noteworthy piece about the repercussions of students’ heavy reliance on Wikipedia and of not taking time to do broader research; to illustrate, the author discusses his own startup, EasyBib (a bibliography tool for students).

Quote: “If the next generation lacks these inquiry skills, our pace of innovation and creativity will consequently dwindle.”

Students most often cite Wikipedia. How this is killing future startups.

As always, feel free to comment in the CCCOnline Community.

This blog post, authored by Neal Taparia, is from Startl.com, 11/27/12.

Changes to the Library Resources Web Pages and New Resources

This week, exciting news from CCCOnline's Instructional Online Librarian Mary Cash! 

Hey everyone, take some time to check out what’s new with our Library Resources.   

*First, the Library Resources and Research & Writing Toolkit pages have officially moved from the student wiki over to the ccconline.org website: http://www.ccconline.org/Library_Resources.   

*Once you’re on the main page of the Library Resources, you’ll also notice a link to the EBSCO article databases.  So, in addition to being able to access the databases once you’re logged in to D2L, you can also click on the EBSCO link, login with your S# and password and get into the databases right from the Library Resources page.  

*Inside D2L, you will also notice a change to the Helpful Links widget, with just one link to Library Resources instead of several.  Click on the Library Resources page, and you’ll see the same page that you see out on the ccconline.org website; you just won’t need to login to access the databases.

*Please take some time to check out the article databases as well; we now have some additional databases – including  CINAHL (nursing and health science database), History Reference Center, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Science Reference Center, Points of View, Consumer Health Complete, and more.  We still have the always wonderful Academic Search Premier, and Business Source Premier.  Visit the Library Article Databases Tutorial to see descriptions of all of our databases.

*Note also that CCCOnline is now a member of AskAcademic, the 24/7 academic Ask-a-Librarian service offered through the Colorado State Library.  Check out the AskAcademic widget on the Library Resources main page.  Students can still email me, cccolibrarian@ccconline.org, with their questions; I will have more first-hand knowledge of specific research assignments in their courses, but do encourage your students to use the AskAcademic reference service.  The service is manned by trained reference librarians from the AskAcademic member libraries – visit the AskAcademic website to learn more: http://www.askacademic.org/ and here’s a list of the participating libraries: http://www.askacademic.org/participating.html.  CCCOnline pays a small fee to the Colorado State Library and mans the virtual reference desk for 2 hours a week in return for great reference and information service to both students and faculty.

Be sure to check back to the Library Resources web pages from time to time   - I have some ideas for new features and will be adding those as I have time. Have interesting ideas related to anything library related?  Have questions?  Email me at mary.cash@cccs.edu.

 

Thanks, Mary Cash, Instructional Online Librarian, CCCOnline

New OER Links for Instructors

If you’re interested in finding more quality material to support your classes, check out our new Open Educational Resources page (at the CCCOnline Wiki -- path: Teaching Resources/Library Resources/Instructor Resources). It has something for instructors of all disciplines!

http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Teaching_Resources_-_Library_Resources_-_Instructor_Resources

Many thanks to Mary Cash, our Instructional Online Librarian, for compiling the page.

Spring Library Webinar Series Starts Next Week

Interested in learning more about CCCOnline’s library services? Come participate in our library webinars with CCCOnline Instructional Librarian Mary Cash! We’re offering one next week (2/16) and others in April and May; mark your calendars!

Next week’s webinar, “Let's get to know our article database better,” is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 16, at 3:00 p.m. Registration closes Feb. 12; see more information here.

Future presentations in the series are

“Evaluating Sources – helping students become better consumers of information” (Thursday, Mar. 15, 3:00 p.m.)

and

“Open Source Journals available on the Web” (Thursday, Apr. 5, 3:00 p.m.)

For more information, please visit the links provided above or our “Professional Development – Upcoming Webinars” page:
http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Professional_Development_-_Upcoming_Webinars

Valuable Library Information Coming Your Way!

This week, we’d like to remind everyone we have a wonderful resource to help us cultivate e-classroom excellence: our CCCOnline Librarian!

Check out Mary Cash’s The Librarian’s Labyrinth blog this week for news you can use:

*how your students may access article databases,
*where students may find helpful resources,
*an invitation to communicate with the librarian, and
*the latest on upcoming library webinars!

New Library Blog Launched

CCCOnline is pleased to announce an exciting new blog from our Instructional Online Librarian: The Librarian’s Labyrinth. It will feature news you can use on research and library topics; we encourage you to follow along!

Library Webinar Thursday

Below is a quick reminder about Thursday’s Library webinar. If you aren’t able to make it, remember it will be archived on our wiki; in the meantime (now or later), please feel free to contribute any suggestions or comments about library services in the CCCOnline Community. Mary Cash (CCCOnline’s Instructional Online Librarian) will be around to answer your questions.

Thank you!

If you missed our conference presentation (“What’s Going On @ Your CCCOnline Library?”), please consider joining us Thursday (3:00-4:30 p.m.) for our updated webinar!

Registration information is here:
http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Professional_Development_-_Upcoming_Webinars#What.27s_going_on_.40_your_CCCOnline_Library.3F

Items for discussion:
-library databases we have (and how to access them!)

-how library services can assist you and your students

-recent studies illuminating students’ need for library services and information literacy

National Information Literacy Month

Today, we have a message from Mary Cash, CCCOnline’s Instructional Online Librarian:

President Obama has declared October to be National Information Literacy Month. In our busy, technological world, we are inundated by information – thanks to the Internet, we can learn new information, share ideas and photos and communicate instantly. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed. According to President Obama, “Rather than merely possessing data, we must also learn the skills necessary to acquire, collate, and evaluate information for any situation. This new type of literacy also requires competency with communication technologies, including computers and mobile devices that can help in our day-to-day decision making. National Information Literacy Awareness Month highlights the need for all Americans to be adept in the skills necessary to effectively navigate the Information Age” (Presidential Proclamation).

What can we do to help our students gain the skills they need to navigate the busy world of information? We can offer them information and guidance so that they know when they need to seek out information, how to locate the specific information they need, and then what to do with it once they find it. We can create lessons and assignments so our students can practice those skills and become better consumers of information. Need some assistance or ideas on how to do this? As the instructional online librarian, information literacy is a huge interest of mine, and I’ll be glad to sit down and talk to you about little or even big things you can do in your course to help your students learn to manage the information in their worlds.

· Read the President’s Proclamation: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/presidential-proclamation-national-information-literacy-awareness-month/

· Visit the National Forum on Information Literacy’s website:
http://infolit.org/

-Mary Cash
Instructional Online Librarian
CCCOnline

News From Our Librarian!

Here is a message from Mary Cash:

Hi everyone, I have some wonderful news; I am now, officially, the CCCOnline Instructional Online Librarian. I accepted my new position a few weeks ago and have started making plans for what I’ll do to offer online librarian services to our students and faculty. I’m still going to be working as an instructional designer for a while; we need to hire someone to replace me and course design still needs to go on : ).

I already have an Ask the Librarian email in place (cccolibrarian@ccconline.org), and have had a few students email me with research questions. A good part of my job, once everything is in place, will be to act as an Embedded Librarian in your courses. You’ll be able to set up a time for me to come into your course and answer questions on finding resources and doing citations. I’m also planning on some updates and changes to the CCCOnline Library Resources and Research and Writing Toolkit pages on the student wiki, and I would like to develop more information literacy training for both students and faculty. And, finally, one of my pet projects will be to see if we can bring in, to our D2L Learning Object Repository, a variety of learning objects that are currently available through MERLOT and other open source repositories.

Most likely, the Embedded Librarian project won’t be in place until spring semester; I have some logistics to work out. But I did want to let everyone know that CCCOnline now has a librarian available to both students and faculty. If you have ideas on where I can help in your courses, or something related to the library or information literacy, please let me know. I’d love to talk with you about your ideas.

And, if you’re coming to the faculty conference, be sure to check out our presentation on What’s Going on @ Your CCCOnline Library. We’ll talk more about future plans for our online library/librarian and the Research and Writing Toolkit.

Hope to see you then,
mary

Mary Cash
Instructional Online Librarian
CCCOnline
cccolibrarian@ccconline.org or mary.cash@cccs.edu

CCCOnline Library Database Access

Mary Cash, CCCOnline Librarian, is our guest today with a special library announcement and question for you. As always, please feel free to join the conversation in the companion Community thread!

IMPORTANT! CCCOnline students will no longer be able to access the online article databases at the FRCC College Hill Library. CCCOnline students and faculty now have access to CCCOnline’s subscriptions to the EBSCO article databases and the FirstSearch (WorldCat) databases!!!

To access CCCOnline’s article databases, log on to your CCCOnline D2L account. Once you're logged on, locate the Helpful Links widget on your MyHome page or one of your Course Home pages. Look for the Online Library heading and then find the link to the EBSCO Article Databases or First Search and click on the link. That will take you right in to where you can begin your search. With EBSCO, you'll want to click on the top icon to get to the different databases. See the Library Article Databases Tutorial (http://at.ccconline.org/students/wiki/Academic_Resources_-_CCCOnline_Library_Resources_-_Library_Article_Databases_Tutorial) for more information.

You can also check out the CCCOnline Library Resources (http://at.ccconline.org/students/wiki/Academic_Resources_-_CCCOnline_Library_Resources) on the Student Wiki for information on evaluating sources, online reference resources, finding your local library and Ask a Librarian.

Have questions? Contact the CCCOnline Librarian: http://www.blogger.com/cccolibrarian@ccconline.org

********************************************************************************
Now that we have our own library article databases, how can we help you work them into your classes, or how can we help your students learn to use the databases better?

-Mary Cash

Note: since next week is the Desire2Learn FUSION Conference, we will not be posting here; however, we will be back the week of 7/18!

eLcc Report I: Power Up with the Research & Writing Toolkit

During our eLcc presentation “Power Up with the Research & Writing Toolkit," we shared ideas on information literacy instruction and on how others might tackle a project similar to the RWT at their own colleges.  Thanks to our gracious attendees for the ideas!  And now, in the spirit of sharing with you all, here’s a list of items and questions that emerged:

Within the RWT or a similar resource:
-would like to see video or another learning object covering the spirit of research: the curiosity that drives the research process.

-perhaps include resources linked to specific disciplines: e.g., a special list of Research & Writing resources for Business, Science, etc.

-Students might find helpful a guide on how to gather resources; what does one need to know to start the research process?

-Students do not necessarily start off on the right track in their research; perhaps some resources could help them to get on and stay on the right track.

-Library-generated student help guides, or “LibGuides,” are helpful in that they break out library resources by academic area.  We might consult with faculty to gather a discussion-specific type of “LibGuide.”

Another open question regarding students and the research process:
-Facebook or other social media can be helpful tools to gather information for a research project; in other words, social media has potential to help students help each other.  Do we believe discussion boards within a class can serve the same function?  

Feel free to share ideas and further conversation in the Cultivating Excellence topic in the Community.

Quality Time: Evaluating Sources

Mary Cash, CCCOnline Librarian, is back this week!  Please feel free to join the library and information literacy conversations in the companion Community threads!

Do you have discussion or other assignments where you ask your students to find web sites that are relevant to what they are learning for a particular unit?  Are you frustrated with the quality of the sources they find? Taking time to teach your students to evaluate sources will not only improve the quality of sources your students use for assignments, but you will also be helping your students develop the important life-long learning skill of becoming a good consumer of information.

I teach ENG 122 – the research paper – and it’s important for my students to learn good research skills.  When I first got my class, there was a discussion on academic integrity, and another on source credibility.  But most of my students weren’t very discerning when it came to choosing sources for their research paper.  They didn’t seem to understand why choosing an article about using the herb St. John’s Wort from a website designed to sell herbs might not be the best source for their argumentative research paper.  Likewise, some students who were against animal testing didn’t think twice about quoting heavily from the PETA website.

I decided my students needed to learn to think more critically about the sources (all of them) they were reading and planning to use in their research papers, so I put on my librarian hat and went to research what other instructors and librarians did to help students learn to be better consumers of information. What I finally opted to do was add in an additional short essay to the unit that has the discussion on sources. The short essay – called the Source Evaluation – requires that students watch a tutorial on evaluating sources (Evaluating Information Interactive Tutorial).  Then students need to go locate a website and an article (preferably from an online article database) related to their topic. The Source Evaluation assignment asks the students to evaluate each source on the basis of the following criteria: Authority, Objectivity, Accuracy and Scope. In their essay, students need to explain why, or why not, each source meets the 4 criteria and to offer explanation and examples to illustrate this, and they need to state if the source will be a good one for their research paper, and again, why or why not.

In addition to adding the Source Evaluation Essay, I revised the source credibility discussion to ask the students to consider what they learned about source credibility from their Source Evaluation assignment.  Over and over, students state that they didn’t realize they couldn’t believe everything they read on the Web. Websites and articles they originally thought of as great sources for their papers turned out to be biased, unsupported, from a questionable authority and don’t meet their research needs. Doing the source evaluation made students realize they shouldn’t take information at face value and that they needed to be looking for higher quality sources.  And this was what I was aiming for. I want my students to leave ENG 122 with better research skills and to be better consumers of the information that constantly bombards them.

If you want to learn more about Evaluating Sources or if you want your students to learn about this, we have quite a bit of information available on the Student Wiki under the CCCOnline Library Resources and the Help with Research section of the Research Writing Toolkit.  Here are the links:

·         Learn about Evaluating Sources from the CCCOnline Library Resources on the Student Wiki

·         Evaluating Sources from the Research and Writing Toolkit on the Student Wiki
-Mary Cash

Quality Time is a series of posts concerning course quality issues, best practices, and/or CCCOnline policy.

Are You Using the CCCOnline Library Resources? (Please Take Our Survey!)

Mary Cash, CCCOnline Librarian, will be our guest this month in the Cultivating Excellence blog.  Please feel free to join the library and information literacy conversations in the companion Community threads!

Do you have assignments that require your students to do research or use library resources? We just wanted to remind you that you’ll find our Online Library resources on the Student Wiki under Academic Resources: https://at.ccconline.org/students/wiki/Academic_Resources_-_CCCOnline_Library_Resources

Our Online Library Resources include access to the CCCOnline/FRCC College Hill article databases, links to each of the system’s community college libraries, information on evaluating sources, Online Reference resources, help on doing research from a distance, and online reference assistance such as AskColorado, 24/7 Live Chat with a Librarian offered through Colorado Libraries. You’ll also find our revised and expanded Research and Writing Toolkit, which offers help with Academic Integrity/Plagiarism, Doing Research and Writing.

So, now that you know what online library resources we have, we’d like to pick your brains to find out how you’re using our resources in your classes with your students and we’d also like to know what kinds of library resources/library assistance you’d like to see that we’re currently not offering.  Please take our short survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WW27CB7

-Mary Cash