Integration of Information Literacy into the Biology Curriculum

1. Integration of Information Literacy into the Biology Curriculum Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Biophysics Ilo-Katryn Maimets, Science Librarian Wednesday, January 23, 2008

2. IL and Biology – History • Several years of one-offs in specialized upper level courses and graduate program • A few very supportive faculty  • Ecology (2ndyr, 4thyr and grad level) • Immunobiology • Microbiology

3. Summer 2007 • Abysmal quality of writing and referencing • Lack of understanding of the research process

4. SC/BIOL 3100Current Topics in Biology • ‘Gateway' course for 3rd year honours biology students • Designed to prepare them for the 4th year honours thesis • Major aim to teach the research and writing skills to students, at a level appropriate for an upper-year course “I am sick and tired of citations from the 1st year biology textbook and Wikipedia!”

5. Desired Outcomes • How to search for and evaluate relevant primary, secondary and tertiary literature as well as grey literature – government reports etc. • How to read and interpret research articles • How to properly write a research paper • How to properly give a research seminar

6. Skills Needed for Research: • Learn how the scientific method is related to the research process as well as the publication cycle in Science • Acquire expertise in the use of tools and resources in the chosen subject area • Develop sound research, evaluation and critical thinking skills

7. Ultimate Goal: • To be able to participate in the research culture of the University and the science community at large • Science research is enhanced when students: • Know what research has been done, and where the gaps are in the existing literature • Who is doing good work • How they do it, what tools are they using • How research is evaluated

8. Framework • Outlined list of objectives for each session and related outcomes for the assignments • Designed collaborative assignments that coupled content with process • Pre-test/Post-test/evaluation • Student evaluation of the course content

9. Tying Science Literacy to Information Literacy • Scientific Method - Research • Publication Cycle • Grey literature vs. Popular literature • Primary / Research • Secondary / Review • Tertiary / Accepted theory, data, etc • Indexing and databases • Resources and access • Formal peer review vs. Informal evaluation • Reading papers and Writing annotations

10. Biology 3100 - assignments • Assignments • In-class exercises • Comparing publication types • Reading for information – what and how to read, writing annotations – questions to ask • Take Home assignments focused on topic development through library research • Scavenger hunt – orientation in the library • General background information – tertiary literature – locating/evaluating resources • Identifying areas of interest – secondary literature • Developing a research strategy – primary literature • Evaluating research using citation information: researching a researcher • Reading skills and writing annotations

11. Biology 3100 – Skills Learned • Technology skills introduced and practised: • Library catalogue/Library resources • Moodle • Biological Abstracts • Web of Science • Gov Docs searching • RefWorks / RefShare / RefGrabIt / WriteNCite • Soft skills mastered for informed searching: • Evaluating publication types and sources • Refining and broadening concepts and searches • Using citation data to evaluate articles • All the basic skills they will need to conduct research for their honours level research thesis

12. Objectives for session 1 • Look at the scientific method as a thinking and communication process and see how it forms the basis of the publication cycle in Science • Examine different types of scientific publications: what purposes they serve, and how they are used to disseminate scientific information to various audiences • Understand the importance of evaluation, and how it is structured in science: • formal process: peer review – evaluating content for publication • informal process: evaluating grey literature and websites – • Navigating the library website and the Steacie Library Homepage to find Resources for Biology at York

13. Objectives for session 2 • Rationale for using subject-specific databases in biology • Developing a Keyword Search Strategy from a research topic • Applying the Keyword Search Strategy to: • Library Catalogue • Biological Abstracts • Web of Science • Additional options for finding books: • Google books (some free on the web) • Electronic Books: York has access to many e-book packages • Review the Biology Research Guide: additional sources of biological information

14. Objectives for session 3 • Searching for Government Documents and publications on the web • Peter Duerr – Gov Docs librarian • Citation searching in Web of Science • General and facetted searching in the Web of Science • Writing an annotated bibliography: • Summarize • Evaluate • Reflect on how an article relates to your research topic.

15. Pre-test/post-test – basic Qs

17. Student Perceptions of Evaluation

20. Faculty feedback “I hope this year's BIOL 3100 offering can be utilized by librarians to widely advertise and highlight the teaching and research resources librarians have to offer to course curriculum.  This course would have been much less useful if not for the time and resources the librarian had to offer to the course.”

21. More Faculty feedback “The class average to date, without considering Assignment 3 - Web of Science and annotated bibliography - is a The Chair of the Biology Department also mentioned to me that she has heard good things from students about the course! “ 79%

22. Integration into 1st Year Biology • First Term: All 1st year students received “Publication Cycle” lecture • 4 Questions from the presentation were on the final exam • Second Term: All 1st year students will have a “dry lab” replaced by a hands-on IL session in a computer lab – in the works!! • Lab report will focus on process of library research