Information Skills (Library Science)
Information skills of business students: a comparative study of UK and international students ---MA thesis (1998/99)
MA in Information Management, Liverpool John Moores University, UK (distinction)
Assessing Information Literacy Comprehension in First-Year Students
Dennis, M., Murphey, R., & Rogers, K. Published in Practical Academic Librarianship: The International Journal Of The SLA Academic Division, 1.1 (2011): 1-15.
Instruction librarians focus on teaching information literacy skills to students in a variety of settings. However,... more Instruction librarians focus on teaching information literacy skills to students in a variety of settings. However, most college professors only allow the librarian one 50 minute BI session per class to convey this in-depth amount of information each semester. During a library session, active learning technology can be utilized to encourage student participation and hands-on learning. Often, librarians seek other avenues to embed their knowledge to students beyond the BI session, e.g., Blackboard, wikis, tutorials, and subject guides. In this study, the authors use Interwrite Personal Response Systems (clickers) over two semesters to encourage student engagement during a BI session in a course originally designed for at-risk freshmen, then redesigned for any first-year student. The authors implement pre/posttests the second semester using the university’s course management system (Blackboard). The authors explain how this two-semester project integrated information literacy skills into a first-year curriculum, while serving as an instrumental assessment measure for student learning.
Feasibility of Analyzing Interlibrary Loan Requests to Determine Instruction Needs
Co-authored with Judy T. Greenwood in Journal of Access Services 6.3 (2009) 359 — 387.
The Interlibrary Loan department at the University of Mississippi wished to examine interlibrary loan borrowing data... more The Interlibrary Loan department at the University of Mississippi wished to examine interlibrary loan borrowing data dating back to the implementation of the ILLiad system in August 2001 in order to determine why the number of cancellations due to local availability continues to increase. The patron information was extracted in an attempt to determine whether library instruction should be targeted to patrons according to status, department, database, or frequency of ILL use. All 88,376 article and loan requests from 3,975 users were examined for similarities among request cancellations. The authors found that the fastest-growing reason for cancellation of an ILL request is availability in the stacks. The surge began soon after several subscriptions were converted from paper to electronic format. That, plus fill rate data according to the citation source, suggests that the design of certain databases can be a strong indicator of whether a patron will venture beyond an originating database or submit an interlibrary loan, assuming their request is not owned locally.
DownloadAssessment with Rubrics: an Efficient and Objective Means of Assessing Student Outcomes in a For-Credit Class
Co-authored with Choinski, Elizabeth and Amy E. Mark. portal: Libraries and the Academy 3.4 (2003) 563-575.
This article describes the use of a conventional grading rubric as an objective tool for assessing educational... more This article describes the use of a conventional grading rubric as an objective tool for assessing educational outcomes in a for-credit Information Resources class. The tool was evaluated in the context of the assessment process at the University of Mississippi. To assure objectivity, two librarians independent of the librarian-instructor scored student reflection papers using a 5-point scale. Rubric items were considered successful if 75 percent of the students received an average score of three or higher. The results showed that weak areas of comprehension are those that require higher level thinking, such as the ability to distinguish between the popular and academic press. The librarian-instructor will place more emphasis on these topics in future classes and reword rubric items of questionable design.