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Faculty & Staff Library Support: Instruction

This is a quick guide for new and returning Faculty members to the services and resources offered by the Library

Library Instruction Program

Requesting Library Instruction

The Rowan-Cabarrus librarians can develop customized, course-integrated learning experiences for your students, which may include synchronous or asynchronous online sessions, research guides, online tutorials, and more. We encourage you to consult with your liaison librarian to determine which types of support are best suited for your course. 

Scheduling

  • We encourage you to complete the Library Instruction Request form (available below) to schedule a course-integrated instruction session for your course. You can email your liaison librarian or the Instruction Librarian (Laurie Robb) to begin the scheduling process.
  • A request should be placed two weeks before your preferred dates, though the earlier, the better. This is for several reasons: more notice allows the request to be scheduled and finalized with the librarian best suited to teach your class; more notice increases the likelihood that library instructional labs are available; and most importantly, it enables the librarian to work with you to prepare a high-quality learning experience for your students.
  • Scheduling is on a first-come, first-serve basis, so please schedule early to ensure the date that best fits your needs.

Faculty Engagement

  • The ideal time for a library instruction session is after students receive an assignment and know their topics. A good time for most typical research papers or projects would be about two weeks before the first draft is due.
  • Your presence in the library instruction session communicates to your students that what we share with them is valuable.
  • Your engagement during our instruction also provides valuable insights into the research process for your discipline.
  • Communication between you and the librarian teaching your class is essential to its success.

By proceeding to the Library Instruction Request Form, you are indicating that you have read the information and guidelines above.

 

 

For questions about our library instruction programs, please contact Laurie Robb, Instruction and Outreach Librarian.

Frames and Thresholds

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
Author Authority Avoids uncredited articles, such as uncredited web articles and anonymous social media posts. Evaluates author authority based on subject expertise and credentialing. Recognizes limitations of author authority; recognizes authority is contextual.
Publication Authority Avoids Wikipedia. Looks for spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, and other warning signs of suspicious information. Understands the inherent authority of different information formats (popular, scholarly, trade). Investigates specific journal titles for mission, areas of coverage, and article review process. Recognizes the wider information environment of their discipline (conference proceedings, organizational websites, media, etc.)
Information Bias Recognizes the potential for information bias. Understands the role of viewpoint literature. Identifies arguments and argument premises in viewpoint literature. Locates and includes multiple perspectives to avoid bias. Identifies misleading graphs, quotes, and statistics.

 

 

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Publication Types

Recognizes a variety of publication types. Recognizes purposes of different publication types and selects sources accordingly. Recognizes discipline-focused publication types, important publishers and disciplinary sources of information.  Recognizes open access and material costs of academic publishing.  Open data/accessiblity of data.  

Peer Review

Recognizes peer review as an indicator of quality. Understands the process of peer review and recognizes how it increases the integrity of scholarly literature. Understands the parts of a scholarly article within their field of study.

Relevance of Information

Seeks out sources beyond simple web search results; uses appropriate types of sources for assignments; recognizes library resources as being more appropriate for college-level research-based assignments. Considers timeliness of information to research question; understands the publication schedule of different publication types; uses publication date limiters appropriately. Seeks out information in appropriate disciplinary databases and relevant core journals.

 

  Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Monetary Value of Information

Understands value of academic publishing (costs, prestige, comparisons to other information types). Awareness of academic publishing ecosystem (journals, textbooks, limited access to research literature). Awareness of implications of academic publishing ecosystem implications (student as future author; limited access to academic literature after college).

Social Value of Information

Wikipedia's social value and its limitations. Seeks credible sources Governmental websites; open access literature.

Professional Value of Information

  Incorporates organizational websites; professional blogs. Recognizes professional opportunities

 

  Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Ethical Use of Information

Understands the definition of plagiarism and how to avoid it. Makes use of library citation tools in the databases and discovery tools. Uses (as appropriate) citation management tools such as RefWorks.
  Understands role of keywords in basic searches. Searches interactively for information.  Synonyms and related terms. Searches iteratively; identifies controlled vocabulary and subject headings.

 

Scholarship as Conversation
  Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Citation and Plagiarism

Awareness of citation as a means to avoid plagiarism. Understands the role of citation and references in scholarly publishing. Uses citations and references to identify primary and undiscovered sources.

Citation in Scholarly Publishing

  Awareness of role of citation in the research process of researchers/scholars. Finds "cited by" citations for relevant articles and uses these to generate additional resources

Professional Publication

 
  Understands the relevance of the peer review process in academic publishing. Understands the role of academic publishing to the creation of knowledge within one's discipline.

 

  Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Search Tools

Uses discovery tool to locate relevant information. Uses discovery tool and databases to locate relevant information. Uses advanced search tools in disciplinary databases to locate relevant information.

Search Terms

Uses keywords to locate relevant information. Uses keywords, synonyms, and related terms to locate relevant information. Uses subject headings and controlled vocabulary to locate relevant information.

Boolean Logic

Awareness of Boolean logic (AND). Uses Boolean logic effectively (AND, OR, NOT). Uses Boolean logic nesting when appropriate.

Library Services

Understands how to get help from a librarian; understands how to check out books and equipment. Awareness of Interlibrary loan, consultation service,   

Limiters

Awareness of discovery tool limiters for major format types. Uses format and publication date limiters in discovery tool and databases  

 

Questions - Contact Us!

  • North 704-216-3691
  • South 704-216-3681
  • NCRC 704-216-7140
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Online Resources

ACRL Framework Concepts

ACRL Information Literacy Framework