Chemistry Division Special Libraries Association

2002 Annual Conference
Chemistry Division, SLA
Poster Session Abstracts

Jenifer Baldwin and Margaret Dominy
Drexel University
jb39@drexel.edu; dominymf@drexel.edu

Science Information Literacy for the Undergraduate

Undergraduates in engineering and the sciences are being called upon to have greater involvement in research activities than ever before. The ability to efficiently and effectively locate, evaluate, and use information resources is crucial to their success, particularly at a time when these resources are increasingly varied and sophisticated. Specifically, use of chemical information is a significant factor for not only chemistry majors but also chemical engineers, materials engineers, and those working in other allied fields as well. While chemical information courses have existed for some time designed for graduate students, it is time to extend this kind of instruction to those undergraduates with the greatest need.

We propose that chemical information instruction be incorporated into the curriculum for chemistry, chemical engineering, and materials engineering students. This can best be accomplished via online chemical information modules integrated into an existing undergraduate chemistry courses. Online modules provide instantaneous customization of examples and exercises to suit the varied interests and requirements of each student's specific field.

It is possible to take existing chemistry assignments and seamlessly integrate chemical information components into them. This means there would be no additional burden of work on the students. This approach would also not infringe significantly on the instructors class time. Assignments would be administered as online modules, completed in a progression throughout the course, and include automatic assessment and tracking of students' progress.

We propose to report on the development of a prototype module designed for an undergraduate chemistry course that chemical engineers are required to take.

Zorana Ercegovac
UCLA and Windward School
zercegov@ucla.edu

Aligning Desirable 9-12 Science Learning Outcomes with Information Literacy Skills

This study makes the following conjectures:

• Curriculum that is inquiry-centered, resource-rich, and based on the pedagogy that puts standards, assessments, and problem solving at the heart of students' learning is likely to produce desirable performance outcomes (NSES, NSTA, AAAS, AASL).
• Collaboration between science teachers who integrate information/technology literacy skills in their instruction and media specialists who are experts in science curriculum and technologies are together likely to help the students become motivated learners, higher achievers, and aspiring scientists or engineers (e.g., Blazek; AASL & AECT).
• High school seniors who do better in science and math, besides gender differences, cultural, and socializer factors (e.g., Dick & Rallis; Web), are more likely to select their college majors in science and engineering than the students who do poorly.

This presentation is the first in the series of reports on Engineering Information Literacy Portal for 7-12 Students, E-Portal 7-121. It is an attempt to enable science teachers and media specialists (or librarians) to explore the common ground in their effort to guide the students in resource-rich, inquiry-based, standards-referenced, and accountable learning experiences.

The poster will first show alignment between physics content standards for grades 9 through 12 (e.g., conceptual understanding, scientific investigation, and practical reasoning) and corresponding information literacy standards. We will show that these pedagogical elements as represented in science standards are in general agreement with information literacy skills as developed jointly by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). The poster will elaborate on collaborative projects that librarians and science teachers can work together in order to make learning and teaching a) have a head start on the required bibliography, (b) painlessly learn how to use a research tool, and (c) begin to develop a shared pool of knowledge.

Students and EPICS instructors prefer this structured hands-on learning to a library orientation lecture. Librarians take an interactive role, roving among the students and handling queries. Feedback has been positive through the two semesters this approach has been used.

This project is supported in part by the Engineering Information Foundation grant EiF01.17, and in part by the Computer Science Department at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles, UCLA.

Mary Lou Baker Jones
Wright State University
marylou.jones@wright.edu

You be the judge: an undergraduate chemistry student information literacy exercise

This classroom activity engages small groups of students in evaluating their own information seeking skills and information using behavior. The situation is an undergraduate chemical literature course whose goals include providing students with information literacy skills and preparing them to present their research findings. In one of the final class sessions, students work in small groups at two tasks:

1. Identifying resources for answering a set of factual questions Example: What resource would you use to find the spectra for a specific compound?
2. Discussing scenarios that call for evaluation or judgment in the process of using chemical information. Example: How do you decide whether or not to use a web site's information in a research project?

The small groups then post their results around the classroom and defend their choices and decisions to the larger group. In the process, the students discover that they need to articulate criteria for the authority and usefulness of their information sources. They also find themselves debating what makes their use of information professional and ethical.

Christina Keil, Chemistry Librarian and Steve Lawson, Web Master
Science and Engineering Library
University of California, San Diego
ckeil@ucsd.edu,splawson@ucsd.edu

Chemistry Virtual Reference

Undergraduate chemistry students need to look up chemical property data for their laboratory experiments, but often do not know where to find this information in the library. Librarians are generally unavailable to answer questions at night or on weekends when students are most likely to use the chemistry handbooks. With this in mind, the University of California, San Diego Science and Engineering Library created a web site "virtual tour" of the most commonly used chemical property handbooks. It is an interactive tool to help students navigate the complicated maze of chemistry resources.

The website athttp://scilib.ucsd.edu/corechem organizes information into commonly used categories such as spectra books, property handbooks, nomenclature, and general help. The "Getting Started" sections utilize digital photos and hyperlinks to explain print or online resources. The chemistry virtual reference web site complements a general "virtual tour" of the S&E Library (http://scilib.ucsd.edu/welcome/index.html) created to answer the frequently asked questions of library patrons. Based on surveys of the chemistry classes, web hits, and faculty feedback, the chemistry virtual reference site has become a valuable tool for the undergraduate chemistry students.

Barbarly Korper McConnell
California State University, Fullerton
bmcconnell@fullerton.edu

Painless Chemical Abstracts

Over the past several years, librarians and students at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) have struggled with an Organic Chemistry assignment intended to introduce students to the use and value of Chemical Abstracts. The strengths of Chemical Abstracts, its comprehensive nature and structured indexing, were barriers for the students who were often baffled by the structure of the tool and frustrated by the number of references for materials not owned at CSUF or materials that they were unable to use due to language or format. The CSUF librarians struggled to help students through the process.

In Spring 2001, librarian Elizabeth Housewright worked with Chemistry faculty to change the assignment to one that would teach the use of Chemical Abstracts, minimize the frustration factor, and introduce some additional useful resources. She and librarian Barbarly Korper McConnell support this new assignment with an in-class library instruction session. Modeling the research process, the librarians employ active learning and cooperative learning techniques to demonstrate the uses, strengths, and weaknesses of Chemical Abstracts (paper and one electronic version), ChemFinder, ACS Publications, PubMed, and ScienceDirect. Students are given time during the session to search for information to complete their assignment.

This session supports the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education as well as the "Chemical Literature and Information Retrieval" standards recommended in the American Chemical Society's Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures (Fall 1999).

Kathleen McGregor kathleen@library.caltech.edu
Hema Ramachandran hema@library.caltech.edu
Dana L. Roth dzrlib@library.caltech.edu

Re-Engineering Instruction at Caltech

In 1999, the Caltech Library System (CLS) established an Education Team (ET) to "provide a vision for promotion of, and education on, the services and materials the Library has to offer ... and such issues ... as time management, advance planning, marketing, and predicting the needs of our user group."

The primary duty of the ET is to encourage our colleagues to offer one-hour class sessions in the CLS licensed electronic resources relevant to their own subject areas (e.g. Beilstein, INSPEC/Compendex). In addition, the ET oversees the rotation of non-subject specific sessions (e.g. Web of Science) between colleagues over the course of the school year.

While it is the instructor's responsibility to provide a description of the session and handouts, the ET is responsible for marketing efforts, as well as posting the handouts on the library web page for future use.

Appropriate examples of marketing materials and class handouts will be displayed

Marion Peters
Science & Engineering Library
University of California, Los Angeles
mpeters@library.ucla.edu

Integrating Chemical Information into the Chemistry Curriculum

At UCLA, the focus is in on partnering with faculty in integrating the basics of chemical information into existing courses required for majors. This approach reaches some 400+ students each year in the general chemistry laboratory course. An introduction to searching SciFinder Scholar is integrated into a subsequent organic laboratory course for some 170 students each year. Lecture notes, hands on library exercises, homework, and web pages will be featured in this poster presentation.

Heather Whitehead
Arthur Lakes Library
Colorado School of Mines
hwhitehe@mines.edu

Hands-on Learning for an Engineering Design Course

In the early 1980's, Colorado School of Mines introduced EPICS (Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence) as a way to increase undergraduate skills in engineering problem solving. EPICS stresses teamwork, communication, professional skills, and information skills to design solutions to real-world engineering problems posed by real-world clients, guided by CSM instructors. EPICS and other innovative CSM programs will be described in a forthcoming monograph from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

The Library plays an important role in the EPICS curriculum, offering instruction and orientation to each EPICS team of five students plus instructor(s). Based on advance knowledge of each semester's project, five project-specific library worksheets are created, each designed to introduce one research tool (catalog, database, handbook, Internet, etc.). Worksheet exercises deliver content that is immediately useable for that semester's project; instructors usually require a bibliography early in the semester. During the Library session, each student on a team becomes the "team expert" on one research tool by completing one worksheet; each team completes five worksheets. Each student orally briefs their team about the resource they investigated. Teams who follow the assignments: (a) have a head start on the required bibliography, (b) painlessly learn how to use a research tool, and (c) begin to develop a shared pool of knowledge.

Students and EPICS instructors prefer this structured hands-on learning to a library orientation lecture. Librarians take an interactive role, roving among the students and handling queries. Feedback has been positive through the two semesters this approach has been used.

Gary D. Wiggins
Chemistry Library
Indiana University, Bloomington
wiggins@indiana.edu

Experience with Videoconferencing in Chemical Informatics Courses

Using a combination of Internet videoconferencing equipment and microcomputer conferencing software, several chemical informatics were taught between the Indianapolis and Bloomington campuses of Indiana University during the fall and spring semesters of the 2001/2002 academic year. This poster will include the equipment configurations, a discussion of positive and negative aspects of the approach, and examples of failsafe techniques that were utilized to make the experiment a success.

Return to Chem Div Conference Page

Return to Chemistry Division Home Page

Comments to:
Susanne J. Redalje
Chemistry Division
(206)543-2070(voice)
(206)543-3863(fax)
curie@u.washington.edu

Copyright©2002 SLA All Rights Reserved
This page updated March 2002