Streaming Media

Start Date

3-16-2022 4:00 PM

End Date

3-16-2022 4:30 PM

Author(s) Bio

Susie Skarl is an Associate Professor and Urban Affairs liaison librarian at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). As library liaison, she collaborates with teaching faculty and undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs, which includes Communication Studies, Couple & Family Therapy, Criminal Justice, Journalism & Media Studies, Public Policy & Leadership, and Social Work. Her peer-reviewed publications include articles focusing on social media in academic libraries, usability testing on library websites, and using peer planning in library instruction.

Keywords

doctoral students, teaching faculty/librarian partnerships, embedded librarianship, library instruction

Description of Proposal

As doctoral programs frequently evolve in large urban universities, how can liaison librarians best position themselves for outreach activities, teaching faculty/librarian partnerships, student engagement, information literacy instruction, and more?

At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the School of Public Policy and Leadership has developed a professional doctorate degree, Doctor of Public Policy (DPP), which is designed for individuals interested in developing skills in policymaking and policy implementation at all levels of government. “Completion of this degree will prepare students to conduct policy analysis, advocate for public policies and community-based solutions, or serve in decision-making positions.” (UNLV DPP Program, 2021).

Although most of the students in the DPP program have been working as professional practitioners in various policy-related fields (e.g., higher education, state government, nonprofit organizations) for a number of years, many of the students had not had specific experience or expertise in finding and evaluating information and with library research skills in general.

While the initial library orientation for the School of Public Policy and Leadership for the DPP students, in addition to other graduate and doctoral students within the school, provided a detailed one-hour introduction to the library services and research, the DPP faculty and the liaison librarian strategized on the most effective ways to help the students in this new program succeed as new doctoral students.

Although the DPP program began as a hybrid program, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire program transitioned to online beginning in March 2020.

To meet the needs of the students in a new professional online doctoral program, a multi-part library approach was created by the faculty program coordinator and the library liaison:

a) Library Orientation with all graduate and doctoral students from the School of Public Policy and Leadership.

b) Creation of a LibGuide with tutorials, library databases, and government resources to acquaint the students with beginning their research.

c) Students provided the librarian with their tentative research topics two weeks prior to the online workshop.

d) Intensive online workshop with students broken into groups by their policy area. For example, health-related students would be in one group; education policy students would be in a separate group (90 minutes each). Although this was time consuming, it was an excellent way to begin brainstorming about the research process among students.

e) Online office hours and regularly scheduled online appointments with students are available throughout the semester

f) As the semester progresses and the students’ research evolves, the course LibGuide is updated so that it can continue to be a learning tool for the current cohort as well as future cohorts.

g) Assessment by teaching faculty and librarian will begin in early 2022.

The multi-part library approach for doctoral students that will be discussed in the proposed presentation provides a solid model that may be of use for other institutions working with practitioner-doctoral students.

What takeaways will attendees learn from your session?

Takeaways for attendees of this session will include the following:

  • The details of a teaching faculty/library liaison partnership for a new doctoral program
  • How a multi-part strategic approach was used to introduce professional practitioners to library research, research assignments, policy white papers, and their final Capstone project

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Mar 16th, 4:00 PM Mar 16th, 4:30 PM

New Professional Doctorate Program Offers New Opportunities for Embedded Librarianship with Policy Practitioners

As doctoral programs frequently evolve in large urban universities, how can liaison librarians best position themselves for outreach activities, teaching faculty/librarian partnerships, student engagement, information literacy instruction, and more?

At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the School of Public Policy and Leadership has developed a professional doctorate degree, Doctor of Public Policy (DPP), which is designed for individuals interested in developing skills in policymaking and policy implementation at all levels of government. “Completion of this degree will prepare students to conduct policy analysis, advocate for public policies and community-based solutions, or serve in decision-making positions.” (UNLV DPP Program, 2021).

Although most of the students in the DPP program have been working as professional practitioners in various policy-related fields (e.g., higher education, state government, nonprofit organizations) for a number of years, many of the students had not had specific experience or expertise in finding and evaluating information and with library research skills in general.

While the initial library orientation for the School of Public Policy and Leadership for the DPP students, in addition to other graduate and doctoral students within the school, provided a detailed one-hour introduction to the library services and research, the DPP faculty and the liaison librarian strategized on the most effective ways to help the students in this new program succeed as new doctoral students.

Although the DPP program began as a hybrid program, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire program transitioned to online beginning in March 2020.

To meet the needs of the students in a new professional online doctoral program, a multi-part library approach was created by the faculty program coordinator and the library liaison:

a) Library Orientation with all graduate and doctoral students from the School of Public Policy and Leadership.

b) Creation of a LibGuide with tutorials, library databases, and government resources to acquaint the students with beginning their research.

c) Students provided the librarian with their tentative research topics two weeks prior to the online workshop.

d) Intensive online workshop with students broken into groups by their policy area. For example, health-related students would be in one group; education policy students would be in a separate group (90 minutes each). Although this was time consuming, it was an excellent way to begin brainstorming about the research process among students.

e) Online office hours and regularly scheduled online appointments with students are available throughout the semester

f) As the semester progresses and the students’ research evolves, the course LibGuide is updated so that it can continue to be a learning tool for the current cohort as well as future cohorts.

g) Assessment by teaching faculty and librarian will begin in early 2022.

The multi-part library approach for doctoral students that will be discussed in the proposed presentation provides a solid model that may be of use for other institutions working with practitioner-doctoral students.