Faculty Guide: Library Support for CORE 3990

Your librarian will teach an information literacy session to your class. 

If you are teaching the course online, your librarian will work with you to add an advanced research lesson to your course.

About the session

For seated sections of 3990 (not online sections):

• The librarian will facilitate a 35–45-minute active-learning lesson.
• The rest of the class meeting time can be open research time. Students can continue their research while the librarian stays to answer questions and work with individual students.
• The librarians have designed a standardized active-learning session for 3990 students who already know the basics about how to find scholarly articles using the library's website.
• Students come to the session with an article. The article should have been published in a scholarly journal, and should be related to their research topic.

The Librarian Works With You

The lesson is designed to work when the faculty instructor is in the classroom with the librarian and the students.

The librarian and the students will need your input. We librarians can teach general searching strategies, and you can translate what we teach to the students' specific assignments and course objectives.

What students will learn

For both online and seated sections, the learning objectives are the same.

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

• Use an article's references list to find more sources.
• Find the full text of an article by searching for its title in the library's Big Red Box.
• Use Google Scholar's Cited By feature to find more sources.
• Describe how these search strategies can be important to the research process.
• Determine whether an article may be a good fit for your paper using a given set of criteria.

Scheduling with your librarian

Each section of 3990 will be matched with a librarian. You will hear from a librarian shortly before the start of your semester, and they'll help you schedule the session.

For seated sections, your librarian will go to your classroom. There is no dedicated library classroom during the Lavery Library renovation.

Timing the session or the online lesson

The librarian's lesson should occur after students have already searched for scholarly sources on their topic.

If you've taught an LC or a 1299/199 course you know that the librarians typically work with the class when they are just beginning their research. But, the 3990 session is different. It should be later in the semester.

Getting ready for the session with the librarian...

About two weeks before your library session, your librarian will stop by your classroom for a few minutes. They will share the task students will need to complete before the library session:

Locate an article published in a scholarly journal and bring it to class on the day of the library session.

Students may have completed an annotated bibliography, for example, or submitted an assignment where they identify one scholarly source appropriate for their topic.

If you are interested in a follow-up session, please let your librarian know. Some ideas for follow-up sessions include:

• Open workshop time for students to find sources and conference with the librarian as needed.
• A lesson about searching for underrepresented voices and perspectives in the literature.
• Advanced database searching techniques (e.g. ProQuest GenderWatch or SCOPUS).