Penultimate SyllabusINF 388K.02

School of InformationUniversity of Texas at Austin

Fall 2017; Tuesday 3-6, UTA 1.204

Lynn Westbrook, Associate Professor 512/232-7831, office 424Office hours: Wednesday 10-12, Thursday 1-3, by appointment

Table of Contents

Required readings …..……………………………...1Course rational ……….……………………………....1Course objectives .…………….…...………………..2Course format ………..………………………..………2Schedule ……..……………………..……………….….3Assignments ………………………………...………….5Higher education post …………………..…..…….5

Scholarly communication ……………….……..6Challenge task force …………………….……..….7Diversity roundtable ………………….…..……..11Feedback ………………………………….……………12Course policies ……………………………………..14Guns ……………………………………………………. 16

Required readings Gilman, T. (Ed). (2017). Academic Librarianship Today. Lanham, MD: Rowman &

Littlefield.

Course rationaleIn a very real sense, Library and Information Studies (LIS) is integral to all of higher education. Scholarly research and curricular development are most effective and creative when viewed outside of insular intellectual domains. The multi-disciplinary aspects of modern studies require the morphing and inherently complex constellations of information support. Information experts anticipate opportunities for point-of-need service. As institutions, universities have a hierarchical concatenation of schools, departments, and centers that are shaped by politics, values, and economics. These power dynamics at administrative and curricular levels require an advocate for the growth of knowledge that goes beyond any single institution. Information is essential in weaving together the intellectual threads that maximize higher education’s social

contributions. It is the information professional who knows at a visceral level that information communication technology is an essential aspect of any university’s claim on society’s support.

For the tools of learning are the same, in any and every subject; and the person who knows how to use them will, at any age, get the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort expended by the person who has not the tools at his command.

Sayers, D. (1947). np: Crossreach Publications. Lost Tools of learning: Symposium on Education. (p. 31)

Course objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Analyze the socio-political and economic contexts of academic libraries;

2. Analyze scholarly communication issues;

3. Analyze coming challenges in academic librarianship;

4. Design programs and resources to extend diversity in all its iterations; and

5. Work with common academic library communication norms, e.g., asynchronous committees and training media.

Course format

This course is highly active with concept mapping, problem-solving, and other activities designed to bridge concept and practice. Most classes will include a brief lecture designed to extend the readings along with other activities and discussion.

Our semester is divided into three modules that mirror our textbook’s structure: Academic library landscape

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Academic librarians and services Changing priorities, new directions

Schedule of topics, readings, and assignments

Date Topics Readings/assignments

9/5 Logistics, policies; status quo; resources Library design

9/12 Context; governance Chapters 1 & 2

9/19 Administration; funding; set task forces Chapters 3 & 4

9/26 Scholarly communication Chapter 5

10/3 Public services Chapter 6Information literacy Higher education post

10/10 Collections; makerspace Chapter 7

10/17 Technical services Chapter 8

10/24 Non-research institutions Chapter 9Scholarly communication

10/31 Human resources Chapter 10

11/7 Integrating spaces/uses; distance Chapters 11 & 12

11/14 Looking outward Chapters 13 & 14

11/21 Challenges Chapter 15

11/28 Exploration Challenge task force

12/5 Self-reflection Diversity roundtableLibrary re-design

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ACRL is seeking comments on a draft of new Guidelines for the Screening and Appointment of Academic Librarians before completing final revisions and submitting the standards for approval.

Free, D. (2017). Guidelines for the Screening and Appointment of Academic Librarians draft. C&RL News, 78 (4). (p. 189).

Letter grades

A 100-95

A- 94-90

B+ 89-85

B 84-80

B- 79-75

Attendance Missing class for any reason, other than those in University policy, costs 5 points.

The teaching librarian leads across contexts, including within the library, on campus, in professional contexts, and in the community. Teaching librarians lead alongside teaching faculty and academic staff, working with a diverse range of partners on campus.

Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians. (2017). C&RL News 78 (7). (p. 39) {Approved by the ACRL Board of Directors, April 2017}

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Assignments

Missing class for any reason, other than those in University policy, costs 5 points.

Higher education post, 75 points, due 10/3Objective 1: Analyze the socio-political and economic contexts of academic libraries

What: Choose one of the following items, each of which is introduced in our textbook, and write a 250-word explanation of it; use at least two research resources. Post in the appropriate Canvas discussion thread. The posting subject line is the name of your item and the text is your 250-word explanation.

Title IX’s coverage of campus sexual assault STEM programs WW II’s GI Bill FERPA

NOTE: You’re more than welcome to choose any other topic, just run it by me.

Why: The social, political, financial, and ethical ramifications of values in higher education constitute the academic library’s primary context. Understanding these ramifications is essential to effective work in academic libraries. This assignment gives you experience in learning more about any of these large-scale items.

How: Research (perhaps by starting with our textbook), write, revise, check citations,

and proofread. Write in the style of an encyclopedia article. The reference list is not included in the word count. The posting subject line consists of the name of your context item; the posting

text consists of your properly formatted citations. Feel free to chat with me about your choice.

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Scholarly communication presentation, 300 points, due 10/24Objective 2: Analyze scholarly communication issuesObjective 5: Work with common academic library communication norms, e.g.,

asynchronous committees and training media

What: Choose and explain a scholarly communication issue in a 3-5 minute presentation in the AV format of your choice. Post it in the appropriate Canvas discussion thread with issue as the subject and a brief identification of it as the post.

Why: The university mechanisms and pathways by which new knowledge moves into the wider world are the domain of academic libraries in that we are the only profession addressing it holistically. Academic librarians work at a conceptual level in various communication formats, both of which are part of this assignment.

How: Choose any issue you like. If you’d like a few ideas then some of the following might

be of interest: funding, social value, disciplinary norms, or format. Feel free to chat with me about your choice. Explore the issue. Look at material in any research or practice format, such as,

academic association statements, university blogs, scholarly research, or TED talks. Narrow your issue down to make it practical for the assignment. For example,

o “Funding” might narrow down to university support for faculty grant seeking faculty perceptions of pay-to-publish open access journals

o “Social value” might narrow down to the means by which academic research is deliberately designed to be

applied to community service formal programs designed for undergraduates to improve their

understanding of marginalized communitieso “Disciplinary norms” might narrow down to

the tenure impact of getting grants in Engineering and Sociology the presentation of scholarship in History and Sociobiology

o “Format” might narrow down to managing “big data” sets accessing rare documents

Identify at two appropriate resources. Explain what your issue consists of and its overall role in scholarly communication.

Teach us what you’ve learned. Put your explanation in a simple phone video; you must be the only person who can

be viewed. It needs to look professional and run 3-5 minutes. After posting your presentation, test that it works on both Macs and PCs.

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The posting subject line consists of the name of your issue; the posting text consists of your properly formatted citations.

NOTE: If you want to put this in your professional portfolio, feel free to develop it more fully but the due date remains the same and the additional development has no impact on your grade.

The debate over whether libraries should focus on ownership or access to collections heated up with the continued growth in the price of scholarly communication, combined with a seemingly pervasive decrease in library budgets running parallel to the technological means to more easily access and share electronic collections.

Barnhart, F. D. (2015). ACRL in the 1990s: Racing toward tomorrow on the information super highway. College & Research Libraries News, 76 (7). (p. 396)

Challenge task force, 450 points, discussion due 11/28Hold a 30-minute task force discussion on a challenge in which each group member serves as representative of a stakeholder group. Objective 3: Analyze coming challenges in academic librarianshipObjective 5: Work with common academic library communication norms, e.g.,

asynchronous committees, administrative documents, and social media.

Your task force is setting its own schedule for the work on this assignment. If you’d like to chat about ways to do that effectively, let me know.

Why:When actually trying to make progress on these challenges at the professional level, academic librarians work with their colleagues. This is generally done via a task force, a high-level policy committee, or other group. Since the group must do their preparatory work in advance of the in-person meeting, much of the work is conducted digitally. This

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assignment provides a model of both high-level work and realistic communication processes.

Do not ask another student about the homework – ask me.

How: We’ll set up groups randomly on 9/19. As a group choose a significant, on-going challenge that your generation of academic

librarians will face. Such challenges are too large to have a resolution or solution, but can be addressed with rigorous analysis.

o In my generation, for example, academic librarianship was challenged to manage rapidly rising collection costs while providing equitable

disciplinary support serve individuals at the point-of-need in their habitual information

processeso While those challenges continue into your generation with varying levels of

intensity, think about the challenges which will be most demanding in your generation. A few possibilities might come in areas of:

ethics—as in appropriate participation in university-wide ethical developments (e.g., sexual assault, gender identity, immigration status)

discipline development—as in ways of supporting new co-operations among disciplines (e.g., bio-ethics, digital humanities)

Your task force is strongly encouraged to meet with me about once a week. It’s a great idea to make a regular appointment – there’s no problem cancelling it.

Write up your task force charge in a brief paragraph. This gives you the scope of your work. Post the paragraph in your group’s Canvas discussion thread whenever you’re ready to do so.

Identify a stakeholder group for each member of your task force. (One, of course, will represent academic librarians.) In a single document, write up a couple of sentences on each stakeholder group. This will help you avoid blurring the groups. Post the

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paragraph in your group’s Canvas discussion thread whenever you’re ready to do so.

From this point on all of your work must be done digitally. No face-to-face communication is allowed. Work as real task forces do – without the time and/or funding for in-person meetings. You can use anything at all short of face-to-face contact, e.g., conference calls, online document development, or wiki creation. This applies to individuals -- two task force members cannot meet face-to-face any more than the entire task force can.

Individuals study the challenge from their stakeholder group’s perspective. Use whatever information source you find helpful; share anything you like with your colleagues. (This isn’t a debate – there’s no incentive to hoard information.)

REMEMBER: Your task force is strongly encouraged to meet with me about once a week. It’s a great idea to make a regular appointment – there’s no problem cancelling it.

Consider questions you find appropriate for your own stakeholders, e.g.,o What is the current state of affairso What history is importanto What subgroups are harmed and helped by the challengeo What is the cost to the community as a whole of any particular approach

to the challengeo What ramifications of any particular approach to the challenge must be

considered in both the short and long termso What ethical concerns are involvedo What professional norms are involvedo What types of cooperation would be relatively easy or quite difficult

Develop, record, provide access to this information within your task force in any way you see fit.

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When everyone has finished researching and is ready for the discussion, you can meet face-to-face to work out the logistics and think through the coming discussion. Do not “practice” the discussion at all. Keep it fresh and unscripted.

Agree to an agenda for your discussion meeting; use whatever format you choose. Post the agenda in your group’s Canvas discussion thread at any time before the day of your task force discussion. (Tip – developed agendas make the actual discussions go more smoothly.)

On 9/28, we’ll determine the order randomly. When it’s your turn, prepare your discussion space in terms of furniture. Take care of slides, handouts, & online materials available to the task force. Someone take charge of convening the discussion, briefly reviewing the charge,

introducing each classmate, each member’s stakeholder group explanation, and the agenda. (This helps the task force recall their earlier agreements and informs the class of those critical points.)

Hold the discussion in any format that you see fit so long as everyone participates fully and the discussion is lively. As a group, you are examining a challenge, not reaching a solution or holding a debate.

You might organize the discussion by individual’s brief statements followed by group identification of the primary points to be examined more deeply.

You might organize the discussion by agreeing on a set of issues to be discussed You might have a “convener” who keeps the discussion on track and on time. You might have a “recorder” who puts ideas up a flip chart. You might have a “chair” who makes sure that everyone’s voice is heard and all

ideas are respected You might expect each individual to come prepared with two focused questions

to ask each other member You might choose a national-level example of the challenge and use that as a

tool to encourage analysis. TIP: You might not complete the agenda and that’s just fine. Sometimes

discussions just take off on one point that everyone finds imperative. It’s fine so long as everyone participates fully.

Write up a brief discussion summary as an outcome report. Use whatever format you choose; post the summary in your group’s Canvas discussion thread within two days of your discussion.

Do not ask another student about the homework – ask me.

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Diversity roundtable, 175 points, document due 12/2, discussion on 12/5Objective 4: Design professional programs and resources to extend academic libraries’

diversity in their public service work.

What: Write a 200 word contribution each of the Swanson article’s two primary roundtable questions. (400 words total)

Why: Personal values and professional priorities come together in understanding diversity perhaps more so than in any other aspect of academic librarianship.

How: Read the Swanson article carefully and reflectively. (It’s in our Canvas site.) It’s an

excellent, concise, high-level examination of an intractable aspect of academic librarianship that you might want to read earlier in the semester.

Consider your own contribution to the roundtable’s two primary questions: “Why does diversity matter?” and “Where do we go from here?”

Write your own contributions, in the round table’s format, and put them into a single document. Post the document in the appropriate Canvas discussion thread on 12/2.

As part of our final class work, you’ll discuss your answers with two others so bring at least two copies on 12/5.

Do not ask another student about the homework – ask me.

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… defining the teaching of unwelcome content as harassment and requiring professors to give their students notifications called ‘trigger warnings’ if class materials might cause a severe emotional response. … “Books for which students have called publicly for trigger warnings within the past couple of years include Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (at Rutgers, for ‘suicidal inclinations’) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (at Columbia, for sexual assault).

Dreyfuss, S., & Ryan, M. (2016). Academic freedom: The continuing challenge. portal [sic] 16. (p. 7)

FeedbackYour feedback to me

This course requires a fine balance between the conceptual and the applied. We’ll read and talk about everything from social values at a conceptual level to information literacy at an application level. I need to hear your voice. I need to know if you’re getting what you need to get from the course. Tell me what worked so I can find more ways of using it. (“The news stories clarified economic impact for me.”) Tell me what you’d like to examine further. (“The difference between a digital library and a digital collection is still unclear.”) Tell me what you’d like to add in. (“What about the problems in educating academic librarians for technologies that don’t even exist yet?”)

My feedback to you

My feedback can be formative or summative. Formative feedback is designed to strengthen quality and growth. Its sole

function is to improve understanding and abilities. You give formative feedback when you coach a colleague who is learning how to use an unfamiliar piece of software.

Summative feedback is designed to quantify performance. You give summative feedback when you complete a satisfaction survey at your dentist and rate the receptionist’s efficiency as 9 on a 10-point scale.

I use three means of giving you feedback, two are formative and one is summative.

First, formative one-to-one feedback is available at any time in my office. This is particularly useful when you are working on an assignment. Don’t wait till the grade is in! Bring in questions as you go along. I want to give you feedback early so you

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can make the most of it. The opportunity to have conversations about coursework is one of the many advantages of graduate school. Please – come to office hours frequently. (Make appointments outside of office hours if the times aren’t working well for you.)

Second, formative in-class feedback fits into the workflow and is, therefore, quite informal. Requesting elaboration of your idea, encouraging you to follow-up on a group discussion analysis, and encouraging you to question the application of a news story are all examples of providing positive feedback. Worthwhile contributions become part of the day’s work and there’s no better feedback than support in weaving your thoughts into the discourse.

Finally, the summative feedback of grades provides the most concrete form of feedback.

Most of us are accustomed to pay primary attention to the summative feedback. For all intents and purposes, however, the summative is temporary. What matters is the formative.

If you’ve made good use of office hours and actively engaged in classroom work, then grades should be more a confirmation of your own self-assessment than an unanticipated summation.

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INF 380C Course Policies

You are responsible for reading and following these course policies. Please let me know at once if you have any questions on any of them.

Style manual

We will use the American Psychological Association’s style manual. In particular, please be sure to follow its citation formats and rules on language bias.

The University of Texas Honor Code

Matters of academic integrity are taken seriously in this course. Students who use, quote, or otherwise employ the ideas, words, and insights of others without appropriate attribution will fail the assignment and, possibly, the course.

When in doubt, ask immediately. Asking is the sign of an intelligent, thoughtful response to our complex world of layered information resources.

Every student is required to take the plagiarism online tutorial or assume responsibility for knowing its contents.

University Electronic Mail Notification Policy

All students should become familiar with the University's official e-mail student notification policy. It is recommended that e-mail be checked twice daily, but at a minimum, daily. The complete text of this policy and instructions for updating your e-mail address are readily available.

In this course e-mail will be used as the primary means of communication. Please be certain that your email address in Canvas is correct at all times. You are the only one who can do this and it’s essential for course communication.

Documented Disability Support

The University of Texas seeks to provide appropriate academic adjustments for all individuals with disabilities. This University will comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws, regulations and guidelines with respect to providing appropriate academic adjustments to afford equal educational opportunity. It is the responsibility of the student to register with and provide medical verification and academic schedules to Services for Students with Disabilities at the beginning of each semester or as soon as

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the need arises. The student must contact the faculty member in a timely manner to arrange for appropriate academic adjustments. Students who require special accommodations need to get a letter that documents the disability from the Services for Students with Disabilities area of the Office of the Dean of Students (471-6259- voice or 471-4641 – TTY for users who are deaf or hard of hearing). This letter should be presented to the instructor in each course at the beginning of the semester and accommodations needed should be discussed at that time.

Technology requirements

The vast majority of this course will take place in-person with Canvas used primarily as a repository of homework assignments, discussion posts, and resources.

Canvas tutorials are available online.

You are required to have access to whatever technology is necessary for you to function well in this course. That includes Internet access that allows you to explore sites that might be blocked by some filters and sufficient memory to handle downloads and other course requirements. You can use any of the computer labs on campus and any other arrangement is acceptable so long as your own needs for connectivity and information access are met.

Attendance

Religious Holy Days and observances sometimes conflict with class schedules. If you miss an in-class work assignment or other project due to the observance of a religious holy day you will be given an opportunity to complete the work missed within a reasonable time after the absence. It is the policy of The University of Texas at Austin that you must notify each of your instructor at least 14 days prior to the classes scheduled on dates you will be absent to observe a religious holiday.

Late assignment policy

Late assignments will only be excused in situations following University policy. In all other cases, assignments received after the deadline will be penalized 10% per day.

Communication

I will make every effort to answer emails and phone calls within 2 working days. If you have not heard from me within that time, please contact the School. If you leave a voice message on my office phone, it will be automatically sent to me as an email message. I will also make every effort to grade and return assignments within 2 weeks.

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If I have to cancel office hours, then I will note that on our Canvas announcement page along with the make-up time scheduled to replace the slot.

Maintain work files

Students are responsible for maintaining their own files of work, both submitted and returned, until official University grades are received. You are encouraged to keep these materials until graduation, as I may need some of it to compose a detailed and persuasive recommendation letter for you.

Health and safety

The University has a wide range of health and safety services available to all students. Please take full advantage of these support tools and let me know if you have questions about how to access what you need. Please be aware of your surroundings at all times. For more on personal safety and health, take a look at these resources:

Behavior Concerns Advice Line (BCAL) Stress management Personal safety Weapons on campus SURE Walk

GunsAsk me about my policy for guns in my office. As the excerpt below indicates, I may only address the issue orally. (Note: the excerpt is available from a password-protected site.)

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