INFO 220-10
Resources and Information Services in Professions and Disciplines
Topic: Medical/Health Sciences Librarianship
Spring 2016 Greensheet

Charles Greenberg, MLS MEd AHIP
E-mail
Phone (work): +86-57755870651
Phone (cell): available to enrolled students
Instant Messaging: Skype or WeChat  (available to enrolled students)
Office Location: Skype, Zoom,  or Blackboard Collaborate (available to enrolled students)

CANVAS Course Management System: Use of CANVAS is required for this class, as nearly all course content, links, session recordings will be linked there. Courses will be available beginning January 28th, 6 am PT unless you are taking an intensive or a one unit or two unit class that starts on a different day. In that case the class will open on the first day that the class meets.

You will be enrolled into the Canvas site automatically.

Optional Recorded Class Topic Presentations take place every Saturday (January 30 to May 14th, with Blackboard Collaborate), based on a posted Canvas or class calendar. Students are required to view the recorded presentation if you cannot attend, as well as complete a presentation attendance form,  as well as contact the instructor if your assignment or a concept cannot be understood. Optional Instructor Office hours take place every Wednesday during the semester.  Extra credit will be available for active and engaged attendance at optional presentations or office hours, but not more than one attendance extra credit in a given week. 

NOTE: Attendance at the scheduled Blackboard Collaborate discussions is OPTIONAL but encouraged.  Use of Blackboard Collaborate to present your individual research paper topic is REQUIRED. Please take advantage of the live topic presentations and office hours to practice with Blackboard Collaborate.  "Audience" attendance at the student Blackboard Collaborate presentations at the end of the semester is expected, unless a work or family-related attendance exemption is requested in advance. Unpredicted class cancellations will be posted in Canvas Course announcements; when I am traveling for work-related reasons, some discussions sessions may be prerecorded or precepted by a guest speaker or Blackboard Collaborate teaching assistant.

Use of an instructor-assigned Diigo student account is required for one group assignment. Use of free Jing desktop recording software is required for submitting a self-introduction during the first week of class.

Assignment due dates subject to change with fair notice.

Students are required to use and access a designated preferred email account on a daily basis during the course, as well as Mr. Greenberg’s Skype, email, or WeChat at any time to seek clarification of calendar dates and assignments.

Course Description

LIBR 220-11, Resources and Information Services in Medical Librarianship, will offer contemporary knowledge and skills on topics such as health sciences library history, medical subject classification, finding quality health information, consumer health programming, evidence-based health care, and cooperative medical library programs. Collaborative learning and assignments are featured.

Several facets have been added to this course in recent years, based on student feedback:

• All assignments will have immediate submission deadlines, with immediate grading and deduction for late submission.  This will provide students with immediate performance feedback and is intended to insure that students will not fall behind covering material.
• Groups formed for group assignments will pick their own facilitator.  Facilitators will receive extra credit for satisfactory performance. Peers will provide confidential facilitator performance feedback.
• Attendance at weekly topic lectures is optional, but attending or watching the recording is required.  Extra credit will be awarded for live attendance, provided that the attendee is actively participating. Extra credit will be awarded for appearing in Office hour and asking questions.  Only one extra credit attendance counts for any week, either the Presentation or the Office Hour.
• Class participation creates a rich learning environment. 10% of the course grade will be explicitly determined by class participation in discussion forums, using this rubric that will be available in CANVAS

Course Requirements

Assignments

• Week 1: assigment supports  CLO #1 and CLO #8
• Week 2: assigment supports  CLO #2
• Week 3: assigment supports  CLO #7
• Week 4: assigment supports  CLO #6
• Week 5: assigment supports  CLO #4
• Week 6: assigment supports  CLO #5
• Week 7: assigment supports  CLO #3
• Week 8: assigment supports  CLO #9
• Week 9: assigment supports  CLO #4
• Week 10: assigment supports CLO #1
• Week 11: assigment supports CLO #3
• Week 12: assigment supports CLO #1

Assignments and Evaluation Criteria

• Group assignments 15% of final grade;  All members of the group will receive the same grade. Group collaboration is required, using Blackboard Collaborate, Skype, Zoom, Instant messaging, conference call, or another real-time communication technology.  All costs associated with non-iSchool  communication tools are student responsibilities. Instructor will establish group members.  Group will select a facilitator.  Group assignments will include (1)  a treasure hunt for defined relevant health sciences resources and creating annotated evaluations of discoveries; (2) Group comparison and comparative grading  of several health sciences database resources; and (3) Group indexing assignment to add appropriate and relevant medical subject headings to article that do not get indexed by the National Library of Medicine.
• Project-written 20% of final grade. (see description below)
• Presentation 10% of final grade (Students will present a 15-20 minute live presentation of their paper topic, using Blackboard Collaborate, during the last two weeks of the semester).
• Account of interviewing a health information professional- 15%of final grade; Interview a health sciences librarian or other health information professional, then write up your interview and share with class.
• Evaluating Health web sites: 10% of final grade; evaluate two health information web sites with a provided rubric.
• Commentaries: 10% of final grade; required short essays or commentaries posted to a topic discussion forum, demonstrating your understanding of how topic readings relate to iSchool school-wide competencies.
• Medical database searching: 10% of final grade; Perform two required evidence-based practice search strategies electronically, using PubMed. 

Written project requirements:
There will be three choices for the individual assignment:

1. Create an original short thematic written research paper. (2000 words)
2. Create a Springshare CampusGuide with at least six separately tabbed pages on a topic of high relevance to Medical Librarianship.
3. Create a thematic blog on a topic of high relevance to Medical Librarianship with at least 20 entries, using the Wordpress or Blogger platform.

Evaluation criteria for written project include:

• Theme, Hypothesis, or Topic statement
• Evidence of wide variety of sources related to Medical Librarianship
• Technical accuracy of Research Material
• Appearance
• Spelling
• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Overall neatness
• Citation Format:  International Biomedical Style (Vancouver Style), available with King Library subscription to RefWorks.

The evaluation of the final presentation will be based on the criteria of organization, content knowledge, visuals, mechanics (presentation), and delivery (performance).

The evaluation of the interview of a health information professional will be based on the criteria of organization, effective interview questions, 600 words maximum, description of person's occupation, institution, accomplishments, and challenges.

The commentaries, evaluation of response to readings, will be assessed on a satisfactory, unsatisfactory, or honors basis, based on principles of effective written communication, discussion which compares or contrasts readings, and conciseness. Reading responses should be between 250-400 words. A response of less than 250 words and greater than 400 will be a possible cause for grade reduction. Responses may included references, particularly as an instrument to reduce an essay length. The instructor will provide feedback and comments for individual reading responses.

Medical database searching will be evaluated on use of controlled vocabulary and evidence-based filtering.

Three group assignments will be researched and performed in groups. One assignment requires use of Diigo social bookmarking technology.  Instructor will issue a private Diigo group invitation. If you have a Diigo account, we will ignore it for this class. Students in each group will receive the same grade. Groups will select a student facilitator responsible for assignment submission, group productivity, and timely assignment completion.  Facilitators may earn extra credit for meeting or exceeding facilitator performance. Unsatisfactory facilitator performance may earn a deduction.

Incompletes
Incompletes will be granted only in rare and extreme emergency situations. Students who cannot fulfill all the work for a course due to a medical or family emergency may be assigned an Incomplete only if arrangements are made through the Registrar's Office and informing the instructor. Please see the iSchool policy on incompletes: ischool.sjsu.edu

Readings

Required and Suggested Readings
Required and suggested readings, search and interview assignments, and web site evaluations are assigned on a weekly basis through CANVAS.

Many readings are selected from the complete run (1901-present) of the Bulletin and Journal of the Medical Library Association, available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/93/

Additional Readings
Additional readings and assignments will be posted in CANVAS.

Databases
Student access accounts will also be obtained for relevant commercial biomedical databases that are not already part of SJSU Library holdings.

Course Calendar

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Course Workload Expectations

Success in this course is based on the expectation that students will spend, for each unit of credit, a minimum of forty-five hours over the length of the course (normally 3 hours per unit per week with 1 of the hours used for lecture) for instruction or preparation/studying or course related activities including but not limited to internships, labs, clinical practica. Other course structures will have equivalent workload expectations as described in the syllabus.

Instructional time may include but is not limited to:
Working on posted modules or lessons prepared by the instructor; discussion forum interactions with the instructor and/or other students; making presentations and getting feedback from the instructor; attending office hours or other synchronous sessions with the instructor.

Student time outside of class:
In any seven-day period, a student is expected to be academically engaged through submitting an academic assignment; taking an exam or an interactive tutorial, or computer-assisted instruction; building websites, blogs, databases, social media presentations; attending a study group;contributing to an academic online discussion; writing papers; reading articles; conducting research; engaging in small group work.

Course Prerequisites

INFO 220 has no prequisite requirements.

Course Learning Outcomes

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

1. Explain the history, current roles, and opportunities for medical and health sciences libraries and librarianship.
2. Describe the need for and benefits of a national medical information infrastructure.
3. Identify primary clientele for health sciences libraries in particular contexts.
4. Identify and assess resources for clinical, research, and consumer health collections.
5. Locate, describe, and compare a variety of biomedical databases.
6. Perform basic searches in biomedical databases.
7. Locate and use subject vocabularies or classification tools and schemes in health specialties.
8. Describe the concept of and potential challenges to ethical behavior in a medical librarian.
9. Describe the principle of best (available) evidence.

Core Competencies (Program Learning Outcomes)

INFO 220 supports the following core competencies:

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Textbooks

No Textbooks For This Course.

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Grading Scale

The standard SJSU School of Information Grading Scale is utilized for all iSchool courses:

In order to provide consistent guidelines for assessment for graduate level work in the School, these terms are applied to letter grades:

• C represents Adequate work; a grade of "C" counts for credit for the course;
• B represents Good work; a grade of "B" clearly meets the standards for graduate level work;
  For core courses in the MLIS program (not MARA) — INFO 200, INFO 202, INFO 204 — the iSchool requires that students earn a B in the course. If the grade is less than B (B- or lower) after the first attempt you will be placed on administrative probation.  You must repeat the class the following semester. If -on the second attempt- you do not pass the class with a grade of B or better (not B- but B) you will be disqualified.
  
• A represents Exceptional work; a grade of "A" will be assigned for outstanding work only.

Students are advised that it is their responsibility to maintain a 3.0 Grade Point Average (GPA).

University Policies

General Expectations, Rights and Responsibilities of the Student

As members of the academic community, students accept both the rights and responsibilities incumbent upon all members of the institution. Students are encouraged to familiarize themselves with SJSU's policies and practices pertaining to the procedures to follow if and when questions or concerns about a class arises. See University Policy S90-5 at http://www.sjsu.edu/senate/docs/S90-5.pdf. More detailed information on a variety of related topics is available in the SJSU catalog at http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/catalog/departments/LIS.html. In general, it is recommended that students begin by seeking clarification or discussing concerns with their instructor. If such conversation is not possible, or if it does not serve to address the issue, it is recommended that the student contact the Department Chair as a next step.

Dropping and Adding

Students are responsible for understanding the policies and procedures about add/drop, grade forgiveness, etc. Refer to the current semester's Catalog Policies section at http://info.sjsu.edu/static/catalog/policies.html. Add/drop deadlines can be found on the current academic year calendars document on the Academic Calendars webpage at http://www.sjsu.edu/provost/services/academic_calendars/. The Late Drop Policy is available at http://www.sjsu.edu/aars/policies/latedrops/policy/. Students should be aware of the current deadlines and penalties for dropping classes.

Information about the latest changes and news is available at the Advising Hub at http://www.sjsu.edu/advising/.

Consent for Recording of Class and Public Sharing of Instructor Material

University Policy S12-7, http://www.sjsu.edu/senate/docs/S12-7.pdf, requires students to obtain instructor's permission to record the course and the following items to be included in the syllabus:

• "Common courtesy and professional behavior dictate that you notify someone when you are recording him/her. You must obtain the instructor's permission to make audio or video recordings in this class. Such permission allows the recordings to be used for your private, study purposes only. The recordings are the intellectual property of the instructor; you have not been given any rights to reproduce or distribute the material."
  • It is suggested that the syllabus include the instructor's process for granting permission, whether in writing or orally and whether for the whole semester or on a class by class basis.
  • In classes where active participation of students or guests may be on the recording, permission of those students or guests should be obtained as well.
• "Course material developed by the instructor is the intellectual property of the instructor and cannot be shared publicly without his/her approval. You may not publicly share or upload instructor generated material for this course such as exam questions, lecture notes, or homework solutions without instructor consent."

Academic integrity

Your commitment, as a student, to learning is evidenced by your enrollment at San Jose State University. The University Academic Integrity Policy F15-7 at http://www.sjsu.edu/senate/docs/F15-7.pdf requires you to be honest in all your academic course work. Faculty members are required to report all infractions to the office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development. The Student Conduct and Ethical Development website is available at http://www.sjsu.edu/studentconduct/.

Campus Policy in Compliance with the American Disabilities Act

If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you need to make special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible, or see me during office hours. Presidential Directive 97-03 at http://www.sjsu.edu/president/docs/directives/PD_1997-03.pdf requires that students with disabilities requesting accommodations must register with the Accessible Education Center (AEC) at http://www.sjsu.edu/aec to establish a record of their disability.

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