For several years I have taught a class in how to find
information in chemical engineering. At
one time I was given 3 class sessions to do the class which included:
- An Overview
- Chemical Abstracts and Scifinder
- Scopus and other resources.
This semester I was limited to 70 minutes. Thus I really had to rush through many of the
concepts. At the beginning I invited the
students to come see me if they had any questions about the information
resources discussed in class. I also
said they can’t learn to search the databases, by just listening to me and they
should take some time after class to experiment with the databases.
In previous semesters when I taught this class, I was able
to give an assignment for students to search Scifinder and Scopus to find
relevant articles on several topics.
They were graded on how the retrieved information answered the search
question and if they formatted the bibliographic information properly. They were also required to determine if the
retrieved article was in our library’s collection.
The professor no longer allows me to give this
assignment. She says the students have a
big workload for this course and cannot be over overburdened. I do give out search questions for the
students to do voluntarily, but I doubt they will do them.
If there is no assignment, can this training be
effectual? Will they take the
information literacy lecture seriously?
As usual, I observed students inattentive by looking at their
smartphones and otherwise appearing disinterested.
What can I do?
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