If there's one thing you learn today, let it be this: keywords. Not specific keywords but the idea of them. If you whisper the correct keywords into the algorithm, you will achieve relevance. If you don't achieve relevance on the first try (which is super common), imagine you're an academic with a specialization in a super-niche disciplinary area…

The National Center for Biotechnology Information Entrez Direct (EDirect) software facilitates programmatic access to numerous biomedical, chemical, and literature databases from within a Unix terminal. EDirect has traditionally been used for command line access to NCBI data within the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. This…

Faculty encourage students to create LinkedIn profiles and to use LinkedIn for job searches, but often realize that as soon as the profile is created, many students abandon LinkedIn. The project changed the approach to incorporate a series of assignments in which students not only revised an existing profile but then were required to develop a…

Courses: Research Methods, Public Speaking, Communication Theory, any other course that requires college students to engage in a formal research process. Can be conducted in traditional, online, or hybrid courses. Objectives: In this original single-class activity, students will be able to evaluate source credibility for resources that extend…

Literature searches are essential for scientists. Thus, courses on how to do a good literature search have been integrated in studies at CPE Lyon for many years. Recently, we modified our pedagogical approach in order to initiate students progressively in the search for chemical information. In addition, this new teaching organization is now based…

The traditional research assignment is a common approach for teachers unaware of an inquiry process. In the traditional assignment, on the very first day that the work is assigned, students are given a topic or asked to choose a topic from a prepared list. They are given the parameters of the assignment, the number of sources required, the number…

The activity described by the authors here is a thematic analysis of published articles in a broad area of study. Students search for articles relating to the topic of study in different academic journals that fall in a specific date range. Students record details about the topics covered and theories/methods used. The class then assembles to…

In this column, the author discusses a lesson in the credit-bearing information literacy course for honors undergraduates at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). The lesson comes last in a unit including resource instruction, search practice, and culminating in the reading and evaluation of a scholarly work. The course, Honors 235: Research in…

Increasing MSW students' information competencies was achieved through a 2-year project in which online video tutorials, in-class exercises, and course assignments were created and integrated into two required foundation courses. Tutorials demonstrated basic and advanced search techniques, online databases, and online course-specific research…

A science librarian in the laboratory can become a "point of access" for database instruction and provide a learning opportunity for students to develop their information literacy skills. A case study describes how a librarian in an organic chemistry laboratory helps the class run smoothly and identifies the science librarian as an ally and a…

Inquiry does not replace information literacy; it encompasses it. It encourages librarians to consider instructional design beyond information search, retrieval, citation, and use. Inquiry-based learning invites school librarians to step into all aspects of instructional planning, from activating prior knowledge straight through to reflection.…

In this article, the authors share how cloud-based applications, such as Google Calendar, Wikidot, Google Docs, Google Sites, YouTube, and Craigslist, played a big part in the success of their plan of implementing a technology training program for customers and employees. A few years ago the Denver Public Library, where the authors work, developed…

There is clear and widespread agreement among the public and educators that all students need to be proficient technology users. Technology literacy is among the attributes that appear in nearly every set of "21st Century Skills." However, while districts spend a great deal of money on technology, there seems to be only a vague notion of what…

The Webbys are one of the leading international awards honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the web's infancy, the Webbys are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries, and creative celebrities. These experts…

Data mining is an emerging field of study in Information Systems programs. Although the course content has been streamlined, the underlying technology is still in a state of flux. The purpose of this paper is to describe how we utilized Microsoft Excel's data mining add-ins as a front-end to Microsoft's Cloud Computing and SQL Server 2008 Business…