Physics Information Fluency

Progress

2011-02-25T07:11:00.000-08:00

In the early 1970's the Physics Survey Committee of the National Academy of Sciences conducted an exhaustive study of physics. The results were published in a three volume,1465 page preport Physics in Perspective in 1973. One of the recommendations was: "Graduate curricula for physicists should contain explicit training and experience in the use of modern information tools." The quote is in volume one, chapter 14 Policy Considerations: Conclusions and Findings" in the subsection Concerning Communication in Physics. (page 999).

Now jump ahead 33 years. (Yes, that is 33 years.) While I was serving on the Committee on Graduate Education in Physics for the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), it was decided to again study the field of physics. The joint American Physical Society (APS) and AAPT task force conducted a survey and published their findings in 2005. One of the findings was "The TFGE (task force on graduate education)recommends that departments require communication training and information literacy/fluency in their graduate programs." (page 4) The full text report is available on the APS web page.
http://www.aps.org/about/governance/task-force/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=52737

A few institutiions have jumped on board and are doing a good job.

University of Illionis Physuics 496 Introduction to Research
http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/phys496/

Brigham Young University Physics 416AB Writing in Physics
http://qoptics.byu.edu/physics416.aspx

Purdue University Physics 490 Great Issues Course: Special Nuclear Materials Their Science and Impact on Society.
http://www.physics.purdue.edu/academic_programs/courses/phys490/

I am currently collaborating on a book chapter and will let you know when the book becomes available.

Information Fluency Quick LInks

2010-08-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months, I have twice given a talk to physics faculty titled "Information Fluency: Where to Start?". To go along with the presentation, I have collected a few good resources in comPADRE. If anyone has additional materials, I would be happy to add them.

http://tiny.cc/v7703

Cheers,
Pat the Retired Librarian

Information Fluency and Physics Curriculum

2010-02-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

After reading the article "Astudent's guide to searching the literature using online databses" Am J. Phys. 77(12) 1112 - 1117 Dec. 2009, I contacted the first author Casey W. Miller at the University of South Florida. I was delighted to learn from Casey that the physics department at USF has "endorsed introducing this [literature seaerching]to undergraduates as a regular part of sophomore-level Modern Physics, and is providing administrative support to track its impact."

APS/AAPT joint meeting Feb. 20210

2009-08-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to say that my session "Information Fluencey and Physics Curriculum" at the joint meeting of APS/AAPT in February, 2010 will have joint sponsorship by the APS Forum on Education and the AAPT Committee on Professional Concerns. The speakers for the session will be:

Michael Fosmire, Head Physical lSciences, Engineering and Technology
Division Purdue University Libraries
PHYS 504 West State Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907-0706
765-494-2859
fosmire@purdue.edu

Prof. Andrew Hirsch
Physics Bldg.
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907
765-494-2218
hirsch@purdue.edu

Adriana Popescu, Head Engineering Library
Princeton University
One Washington Road
Princeton, New Jersey 08544
609-258-6567
popescua@princeton.edu

Prof. Jean-Francois van Huele
Department of Physics/Astronomy
N151 ESC
Provo, UT 84602-4682
801-422-0553
vanhuele@byu.edu

Information Fluency Update 6/09

2009-06-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Update 6/09

When I first started attending AAPT meeting in January, 2002, I started talking about information literacy. I was pleased to realize that several faculty were very interested in my ideas.

BYU was working on curriculum for their “Writing in Physics” class. Steve Turley and later Jean-Francois van Huele agreed to speak on a panel for me before they even had curriculum in place. Jean-Francois was very enthusiastic when he spoke at the summer meeting 2006. He spoke again on my panel at the winter meeting 2008 and will be speaking on my panel again at the winter meeting 2010, which will be a joint meeting with the APS. In addition, Jean-Francois organized a session at the summer meeting 2008 in Edmonton on “Scientific Communication and Writing”. One of the speakers was Dan Budny from the University of Pittsburgh. His talk was “Writing: An active Learning tool in Physics and Engineering Education”. When I identified myself as a librarian, Dan spoke in glowing terms about how helpful librarians are. Actually, a team of librarians, English faculty, and writing faculty sold the idea for the course to the provost for him.

Another “early adopter” is Ernie Behringer at Eastern Michigan University. Ernie arranges a series of session called “Physics at Lunch” . Librarians are invited to speak at these sessions. In addition, Ernie has been organizing panel discussions that high light the importance of writing in physics. Summer 2008 meeting in Edmonton, “Capstone Experiences and Required Upper-Level Projects” included a talk by Prof. Gary Chottiner of Case Western Reserve University “Capstone Birth Pangs”. Gary was kind enough to share his ppt lecture notes with me. He covers everything that I would cover about the literature search. He also points out the wonderful resources available in the library and how foolish a student would be to ignore those resources. Also included in this session were Steve Turley and Jean-Francois of BYU “Highlights of BYU Undergraduate Capstone Experiences”.

I think I am beginning to see a pattern here. These early adopters are helping me carry the banner for information fluency and physics.

On the home front, I have established a tradition of an hour orientation session with new grad students at Cornell. We wait a few weeks into the semester and then the Physics Graduate Society invites them to a pizza dinner at which the librarian introduces the resources available at Cornell.

This year, my colleague Kirsten Hensley has conducted several brown bag lunch time sessions on a variety of topics. Although I will be retiring soon, I am confident that the tradition will continue. The president of PGS for this coming year worked in the library as an undergraduate and is sold on how helpful these sessions are.

Recently I have been spending time cleaning out my desk area. I gave boxes of “stuff” that I had picked up at conferences to the man who teaches in the Cornell Institute for Physics Teachers. Within an hour, Marty came back with an idea for a lesson. A DVD from AIP has a segment on solar energy. Marty planned to show the segment over breakfast, present a lab activity on solar energy, and then have the teachers attending go out and do the activity. This is the perfect example of what I try to accomplish with outreach. I try to make materials like this DVD readily available to teachers.

So---my message is just go out there and get involved. You never know where the path will lead!

Project Information Literacy

2009-03-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Project Information Literacy

The goal of the project is to understand how early adults conceptualize and operationalize research in the digital age. Funding Research for Year One is sponsored through a generous gift from ProQuest to University of Washington's iSchool in support of information literacy research.

The publications section is especially interesting to anyone trying to understand how students search for information.

http://www.projectinfolit.org/publications/

"Understanding Information Literacy through the Lens of the Student Experience," (May 2008). A short i-movie, produced by the Project Information Literacy Team. Includes student, faculty, and librarian interviews about the 2007 Information Literacy Study, which was conducted at Saint Mary's College of California (4:06 mins.).

PTEC (Physics Teacher Education Coalition)

2009-03-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Last week (March 12-14)I attended the meeting of the Physics Teacher Education Coalition in Pittsburgh. 110 people registered from 30 US states and several other countries. It was a very intense program.

I gave a poster session "Social Networking for New and Cross-over Physics Teachers". The poster is based on a talk I gave at the AAPT winter meeting, which was held in Chicago Feb. 12-16. I feel that social networking is a good way to promote information literacy. See my blog entry "Free and Easy Professional Development via TappedIn. http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/pats-picks/2009/02/04/free-and-easy-professional-development-via-tappedin/

Astro 1109

2009-01-30T12:52:00.000-08:00

An astronomy PhD candidate is currently teaching an intensive writing class for Cornell freshmen. I have created a LibGuide for her class. Most of the resources mentioned are free, so I thought you might find it useful as well.

Astro1109 The Birth of the Universe

Co-teaching a Class

2009-01-16T07:54:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to report that Michael Fosmire is co-teaching a class that includes information literacy components.

Michael says: " The latest thing I'm looking at is CPR (Calibrated Peer Review),
which seems to be growing in popularity in lots of disciplines,
including in the sciences and elsewhere here on campus, so I'm
co-teaching a Great Issues class for Science this semester and we've
created a half-dozen assignments in there that incorporate information
literacy issues."

Michael was kind enough to share some of his assignments with me, but I found them too long to post here.

Social Networking for New and Cross-over Physics Teachers

2009-01-13T11:07:00.000-08:00

There is a school of thought that teachers need to know how to use the new technologies to teach the next generation of students, many of whom have grown up with the new technologies. While this is not really information fluency, it is definitiely a related issue.

I was asked to give a bried presentation for the panel discussion "How Educational Technologies Can Reach New and Cross-over Teachers Who Also Teach Physics." The title of my talk is the heading for this note. I will focus on social networking and briefly tell how I use email, blogs, wikis, Connotea, Instructional Architect, TappedIn, FaceBook and Second Life.

I have created a chat room for physics teachers in TrappedIn and look forward to testing the system. I will report back after AAPT next month.

Cheers,
Pat

Science Information Tutorial

2008-11-19T06:26:00.000-08:00

This tutorial enhances classroom discussions and serves as a great resource for students.

Pat

Science Information Tutorial http://www.lib.uci.edu/services/tutorials/science_info_tutorial/tutorial.html

For an article about the tutorial see: "An Undergraduate Science Information Literacy Tutorial in a Web 2.0 World", Jeanine Marie Scaramozzino Science and Mathematics Librarian Robert E. Kennedy Library California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California jscaramo@calpoly.edu http://www.istl.org/08-fall/article3.html

Games for Teaching Information Literacy Skills

2008-10-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

I just read with pleasure Felicia Smith's article "Games for Teaching Information Literacy Skills". It is an open access article: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/f-smith.htm

Although the author refers to a chemistry class, I feel the technique could be transferred to a physics class.

Physics Graduate Student Orientation

2008-10-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to say that, for the second year, the Physics Grauate Society at Cornell hosted a pizza dinner for the new graduate students. I was asked to demonstrate the electronic resources at Cornell. The PGS feels that this is their contribution to the orientation process. Fourteen out of twenty- two total new grad students attended and they had good questions. I am hopeful that this will become a permanent event.

My colleague, Kirsten Hensley, Outreach Services Association, has created two LibGuides specifically for this audience:

Physics Graduate Student Orientation
http://guides.library.cornell.edu/content.php?pid=13368&sid=89861

Stay Current in Your Field (Physics)
http://guides.library.cornell.edu/content.php?pid=13368&sid=101314

Science in the 21st Century recap

2008-09-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

Thanks to John Dupuis for this recap of the recent meeting at the Perimeter Institute for Physics Research.

Science in the 21st Century recap

Information Fluency and Physics Curriculum: Faculty/Librarian Collaboration

2008-09-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

The session on Information Fluency and Physics Curriculum that I proposed for the American Physical Society March meeting was not accepted, but I do have an article in the newsletter for the Forum on Education.

Physics Curriculum: Faculty/Librarian Collaboration
http://www.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/summer2008/viele.cfm

At the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) meeting in July, I learned of a husband/wife team who have created a writing program. He teaches engineering students at the University of Pittsburg, and she teaches physics students at American University. They have devised a writing program for these students that is excellent. You can see Dr. Budny's curriculum here: http://www.engr.pitt.edu/%7Eeng11/ The writing program is a collaboration between the engineering department, the English department, the library, and the writing lab.At the end of the year, the freshmen students actually have a conference at which they present a paper.

Towards Information Literacy Indicators

2008-04-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

Towards Information Literacy Indicators By John Daly(John Daly)

UNESCO's Information for All Programme (IFAP) has released a paper providing a basic conceptual framework for measuring information literacy. The publication includes a definition of information literacy; a model that links information ...

http://unescoscience.blogspot.com/search?q=informatioin+literacy

Graduate Education in Physics: Which Way Forward?

2008-02-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

A special meeting on the future of graduate education in physics was held at the American Center for Physics in Greenbelt, MD, from January 31 - Febraruy 2. I gave a poster session, Information Fluency and Physics Graduate Students.

http://www.aps.org/programs/education/upload/Vieleposter.ppt

There were panel sessions, plenary speakers and breakout sessions on a variety of interesting topics such as TA training, length of time to PhD, and the climate for women and minorities in physics. All of the materials from the conference are available on the APS site:

http://www.aps.org/programs/education/posters.cfm

There will be a follow-up report from this meeting and I will let you know as soon as it becomes available.

AAPT winter meeting '08

2008-02-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

I traveled to Baltimore to attend the winter meeting '08 of the American Association of Physics Teachers from January 19 - 23. I arranged a panel discussion:

Topic Information Fluency and Physics Curriculum

Dr. Jean-Francois Van Huele, Brigham Young University "Information Literacy and Information Literaure in Physics" Writing in Physics http://gardner.byu.edu/416w/

Adriana Popescu, Direct of the Engineering Library, Princeton " Seizing Opportunities for Library Instruction Beyond the Physics Classroom." In conjunction with the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education (CIEE), Adriana teaches several courses.

Dr. Bonnie Osif, Director of the Engineering Library at Penn State "Integrating Active Learning and Information Literacy in the College Classroom". This is one example of Bonnie's activities. http://www.libraries.psu.edu/eng/edg100spring02.htm

Pat Viele, Physics and Astronomy Librarian at Cornell University "Information Fluency for Graduate Students" my handout is available here http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/9442

As always, the meeting was both enjoyable and educational.

Kanaus University Information Literacy Classes

2008-01-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

Kaunas University library has developed information literacy tutorials for physics and chemistry. http://internet.ktu.lt/en/index5.html

The classes were developed as a result of the most cited and well-known initiatives of the European Commission funded projects EDUCATE and DEDICATE coordinated by Nancy Fjällbrant, from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The programs ran from 1994 t0 1997. For more information: http://educate.lib.chalmers.se/eduinfo.html

Cheers,
Pat

Physicists' Information Behavior: A Qualitative Study of Users

2008-01-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

For an excellent analysis of the information seeking and using process of getting a PhD in physics, see this article by Nancy Diana Gomez.

http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00007991/

Happy New Year!

Pat

Essential skills for college graduates

2007-11-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

The posting below is an excerpt from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) publication, College Learning for the New Global Century. SKU #: LEAPRPT http://aacu-secure.nisgroup.com/acb/stores/1/product1.cfm?SID=1&Product_ID=122

ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-9779210-4-1, 2007 Pages: 76. ©2007 All rights reserved.

INTELLECTUAL AND PRACTICAL SKILLS, INCLUDING
* Inquiry and analysis
* Critical and creative thinking
* Written and oral communication
* Quantitative literacy* Information literacy
* Teamwork and problem solvingPracticed extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance

Teaching infromation evaluation and critical thinking skills in physics classes

2007-11-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Adriana Popescu and James Morgan on their article in The Physics Teaacher, November 2007 issue: "Teaching Information Evaluation and Critical thinking Skills in Physics Classes".

Three cheers!

Pat

Physics Graduate Students

2007-10-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

The Physics Graduate Society at Cornell, as their part of the orientation for new graduate students, sponsored a session during which I demonstrated the electronic resources available at Cornell and answered questions. Thirty people attended. The group was a mixture of new physics grad students, "older" physics grad students, and one new faculty member. I plan to offer sessions for in depth demonstrations of specfiic resources later this semester.

I recently became aware of another Information Litercy Course in Physics. The materials are available at http://internet.unib.ktu.lt/physics/default.htm

Thanks to the library at the Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania.

I found this site on the infolit GLOBAL site from IFLA.
http://www.infolitglobal.info/

Precisely! A Writing Exercise for Science and Engineering Classes

2007-08-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

Julie Reynolds and Steven Vogel "Precisely! A Writing Exercise for Science and Engineering Classes". Journal of College Science Teaching: MarApr 2007; 36, pp.30-33

This exercise is designed to demonstrate to students the importance of precision in language. The students dissemble a device and write instructions on how to reassemble it. A classmate must then reassemble the device following the written instructions and give feedback about whether or not the instructions were clear.

One students comments: "Overall, I think the exercise was extremely useful and I did learn things that I will apply to the writing of my thesis." p. 33

Cheers,
Pat the Librarian

Update August, 2007

2007-08-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

1. I am pleased to say that the Physics Grad Society (PGS) sponsored a session for me with the new grad student class at Cornell as part of the orientation program. Thirty grad students attended--a mixture of new grad students and "older" grad students. I hope that this session will become a permanent part of the new physics grad student orientatiion program at Cornell.

2. While surfing the net, I came across this page "Writing for a Math Class". It might be helpful in planning for integrating information literacy into any science class.

http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/writing/index.asp#instructor

3. My tutorial "Mining the Hidden Web" , which I give at every AAPT meeting filled far in advance of the summer meeting in Greensboro. As usual, it was a lively and interesting session. One web site new to me is teachertube.

http://www.teachertube.com/

4. I also like the video "Databases" on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nik3pyJwaYI

Cheers,
Pat the Librarian

Term Paper Alternatives

2007-07-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

This material was mentioned on a listserv for information literacy and I thought it might be of interest to others.

Pat

AIP Publishing

2007-05-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

On Friday April 20, I met at the AIP Publishing Center with the Subcommittee on Classification and Information Retrieval (SCIR). The morning discussion was devoted to proposed changes in PACS. Since I am not an expert in any field of physics, I did not have much to say. The afternoon discussion was about "new ways" to search for and retrieve information and I was able to add to the discussion. This was the first meeting in a three year term.

In February, I offered a session about CUL electronic resources for graduate students in the Applied and Engineering Physics Department. The Physics Graduate Society is interested in having me do a similar session for them. (TBA)

Joint AAPT/AAS meeting in Seattle

2007-01-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

In early Januray, I traveled to Seattle to attend the Winter meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Since it was a joint meeting with the American Astronomical Society, it was a larger meeting. I gave my tutorial "Mining the Internet" and attended some very interesting sessions.

In the session on National Assesstment of Educational Progress panel discussion, I identified many like-minded faculty regarding information literacy. NAEP is often referred to as "The Nation's Report Card." http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/

I will repeat my tutorial at the summer meeting in Greensboro (July 28 - August1), but have changed to title to "Mining the Hidden Web". I may also do a poster session on information literacy.

For the winter meeting 2008 in Baltimore (Jan. 19-23), I am planning another panel discussion on "Information Fluency and Physics Curriculum".

We are gaining momentum for the information literacy movement. Here is a neat web site from Scotland "Information Literacy and Science curriculum:
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/curricularareas/science.asp

Cheers,
Pat

Presentation to Faculty by A. Ben Wagner

2006-11-17T12:06:00.000-08:00

A. Ben Wagner of the University at Buffalo gave a presentation "Finding and Using Physics Information" at the regular Tuesday Physics Dept. seminar this week. Ben's presentation is at this URL:

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~abwagner/FindUsePhysInfo_files/frame.htm

I'm sure I speak for librarians everywhere when I say "Thanks Ben"!

For-credit grad information literacy courses

2006-11-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

On Friday October 20, 2006, the New York State Science Librarians met at SUNY Binghamton for our annual meeting. For more information about the organization, see our web page: http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/unysci/ny-science-lib.html

I am pleased to say that my collaboration with Professor Dick Wheeler's physics213 class continued this past summer, even though I was on medical leave. I was pleased that Prof. Wheeler decided to add an assignment about plagairism to the class.

E. Connie Powell teaches a class called "Chemistry and Chemical Biology Bibliographic Resources" at RPI. For more information, contact Connie at .

A. Ben Wagner of SUNY Buffalo taught a class for physics graduate students last spring, and will be teaching it again spring 2007.

"Finding and using physics information in the electronic age"

A. Ben Wagner
Sciences Librarian, University at Buffalo abwagner@buffalo.edu

The problem today is not finding information but being overwhelmed by the number of options and millions of hits. Learn what key resources such as new INSPEC (Physics Abstracts) interface , SciFinder Scholar, Knovel, and Web of Science offer beyond generic Internet searching. Even more important, the process of using information will be discussed from developing background information to in-depth research to writing an article. Specialized resources that permit efficient access to properties, data, and special forms of literature such as patents, theses, and government reports will be reviewed. I will also demonstrate the EndNote personal citation database manager available to the entire UB.

Pat LaCourse at the NYS College of Ceramincs Alfred lacourpc@alfred.edu

Teaches the first-year engineering graduates a (mandatory for materials
engineers) one-credit course (CEMS 660). The final assignment is their
thesis proposal, which is then approved by the graduate office.

Pat doesn't have a web page for the course, because it is all on Blackboard
(the class is hybrid - four class meetings, with weekly assignments
online). They can go back in the Blackboard class as guests when they
are in the final stage of writing their thesis. When I have time, I
would like to develop general web access to the materials though.

Other for-credit courses of which I am aware:

"Hans-Joerg Kraus" Hans-Joerg.Kraus@anu.edu.au is the contact person for the
Australian National University's Graduate Information Literacy Program.
http://ilp.anu.edu.au/grad/

Grad ILP staff work with graduate students to identify training needs, enrol in training sessions, finalise requirements for the Graduate Course Award in Research Information Literacy and dealing with individual problems in seeking resources for your studies or formatting your thesis.

RES 500 OL - Research Strategies
A ONE CREDIT GRADUATE LEVEL INTERACTIVE COURSE IN INFORMATION RESEARCH SKILLS
prepared by William Badke (REVISED August 2006)
http://www.acts.twu.ca/lbr/research500.htm

CHEM602
Leah Solla, Chemistry Librarian Cornell University
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/chem602/

Australian National University

2006-09-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hans-Jörg Kraus, Graduate Information Literacy Program
Division of Information at The Australian National University has given me permission to share this skills audit: GILP (graduate information literacy program) https://apollo.anu.edu.au/apollo/default.asp?pid=1587&script=true

HJ says: "Please feel free to add this link to your sites. However, it has been created with a program written here on site and I can not guarantee how far into the future the link will remain active. The Information Literacy Program here at ANU is an across campus program."

The skills audit contains many questions about using software.

Cheers,
Pat

2006-09-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

The start of the fall semester has always felt like a new beginning to me--this year especially. I was on medical leave most of the summer, and am very happy to back on campus.

I am experimenting with new ways of communicating. I have created a set of books marks using CONNOTEA. The theme is physics information fluency. By searching CONNOTEA I have found some very interesting relevant web sites. If you would like to take a look, here is the URL: http://www.connotea.org/user/pviele

I was able to return to work in time to participate in the summer meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers which was held in Syracuse this year. The panel discussion was well attended. Three examples of introducing information literacy into a regualr class were discussed. I have links to the class web sites of the speakers at my CONNOTEA site.

My article, "Physics213: an Example of Faculty/Librarian Collaboration" was published this summer in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.
http://www.istl.org/06-summer/article2.html

For the first time ever, I will meet with the new physics graduate students to demonstrate for them the electronic resources that we have at Cornell. The session is jointly sponsored by the Physics Department and the library.

Later this fall, I am planning a focus group for all physics graduate students.

Cheers,
Pat

Undergrad physics class lessons

2006-06-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

A year ago, I had the delightful experience of collaborating with Prof. Wheeler while he taught Physics 213 for Cornell's summer sessions. Together we decided on some goals and wrote "internet assignments". He gave out the assignment on Monday. It was due on Thursday when I met with the class to discuss results, search techniques, etc. This year, I am at home recovering from emergency surgery and will only be able to meet with the class once. At that session, I will show the students how to use the online catalog and the most useful of our licensed databases.

Prof. Wheeler has "tweaked" the assignments that we used last year. If you would like to see the class web page, go to: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/phys213/

I have been appointed to the AIP Working Subcommittee on Classification and Information Retrieval. My 3-year term will begin on July 1.

Cheers,
Pat

2006-05-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

2006-05-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

Bibliographic Instruction for Graduate Students

I plan to hold a focus group with physics graduate students this summer to determine how I can be more helpful. If you have had experience with this kind of activity, I hope you will share it.

I have just read

Ackerson, Linda G. 1996 "Basing reference service on scientific communication: toward a more effective model for science graduate students". RQ 36(2): 248-260.

She suggests a model for helping graduate students with the literature review in preparation for writing the thesis.

1. search subject indexes
2. indentify review articles
3. search the references for "ancestors"
4. use citation searching to identify newer articles
5. current awareness

Has anyone used this model?

Cheers,
Pat

Directors of Graduate Education Discussion

2006-03-21T05:45:00.000-08:00

Last week I attended a discussion with Directors of Graduate Education from several universities, including: Yale, Cornell, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and University 0f Virginia. The discussion was moderated by David Campbell, Chair of the APS/AAPT Graduate Educatin in Physics Task Force. I was invited as a representative of the AAPT Committee on Graduate Education. The idea for the Task Force on Graduate Education started with that committee.

APS/AAPT will hold a similar discussion at the APS April meeting in Dallas and are planning a meeting for physics department chairpersons in early June. The purpose of these meetings to do decide how to respond to the recommendations of the Task Force.

Although about 3,000 people start graduate programs in physics each year, only 1,000 complete the program each year. That seems like a very high attrition rate. The full Task Force report can be found on the AIP web site: http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/Doceducation.pdf

I was pleased to hear that several institutions do offer an intensive writing course for graduate students. I took the opportunity to suggest that they include a librarian in the planning.

I also commented that the information arena has become to complex and so interdisciplinary that it might be wise to enlist a librarian to give some instruction/demonstrations of resources.

I am planning a session at the AAPT meeting in Syracuse this summer on Physics Information Fluency. Three differenent techniques for introducing information fluency into physics curriculum will be presented.

AAPT Annual Meeting http://www.aapt.org/Events/SM2006/index.cfm

Cheers,
Pat

Article of interest

2006-02-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading "More to life than Google--a journey of PhD students" by Ruth Stubbings and Ginny Franklin of Loughborough University. The article summarized the issues involved in information literacy instruction and gives many helpful hints.

http://www.jelit.org/61/

Web site evaluation

2006-01-19T06:04:00.000-08:00

Part of information fluency is the ability to evaluate information. I have developed a sample web site evaluation sheet and posted it to Cornell's DSpace. To see Tips for Evaluating Web Sites, go to: http://dspace.library.corne..edu/handle/1813/1485

Welcome

2006-01-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

For several years, I have been presenting information about information fluency to science faculty, especially faculty who attend the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) meetings. I have crated this blog in order to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas about adding information fluency to physics curriculum.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Pat Viele, physics and astronomy librarian
Cornell University