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Arts

ANCW30021: Imperial Rome

This formula proved to be an outstanding success in that my students now fare far better in terms of their ability to write adequately researched quality essays and make timely submission. Enhancing scholarly literacy and analytical skills are a key intended outcome in my curriculum, and the Library's teaching and learning services have been a mighty useful and priceless asset to my students and myself in attaining this objective.

"For several years now, I have been working with Arts Liaison librarians to familiarize my second and third year undergraduate students with the Baillieu's extensive hard copy collections, digital repositories and catalogues as well as enhance their researcher capabilities. This initiative grew from the appreciation that writing a research paper in Roman history is no sinecure and that students can easily be bewildered by the seemingly vast and disparate array of primary sources and modern scholarship. The approach consists of two mutually complementary services. First, the Liaison Librarian built a customized electronic research guide for both these subjects (republican and imperial Rome). These guides, made available as a Special Resource on the LMS, offer extensive and easy access to ancient sources, scholarly books and articles and selected reference works. They also provide portals towards an academic skills toolset. Second, the Liaison librarian every year in week three of the subjects runs a Library research collections and services tutorial. After introducing students to the Library's impressive range of resources, students are offered expert advice on how properly to research and reference their essay, amongst other things through practical exercises. This formula proved to be an outstanding success in that my students now fare far better in terms of their ability to write adequately researched quality essays and make timely submission. Enhancing scholarly literacy and analytical skills are a key intended outcome in my curriculum, and the Library's teaching and learning services have been a mighty useful and priceless asset to my students and myself in attaining this objective.

- Frederik Vervaet, Associate Professor of Ancient History (School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts)

FREN20003/30005: From Romanticism to Decadence

It has been a true pleasure working with Tanya Wilson, such an enthusiast and motivated Librarian. It has been a very rewarding experience overall for both the students and myself and I would definitely renew it in the future and encourage fellow academics and colleagues to embed scholarly literacy into their subjects.

French Novels – From Romanticism to Decadence (FREN20003/FREN30003) is a second and third year elective in French Studies in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. It is a course aiming at providing students with an overview of nineteenth century French Literature through a specific focus on three novels of the period. The course is also designed to provide students with methodological tools and analytical skills to gain a better understanding of literary texts. The two main challenges of the course for students is that it is entirely taught in French, that they have to read the novels in French, and to write a 1800 words final essay in French on the studied novels. I decided to incorporate scholarly literacy in the subject to improve students' ability to identify, locate and use scholarly articles, book chapters, or books in French (and also in English) that would be relevant and helpful when writing their final essay. I wanted the students to not only be aware of the resources of the Baillieu Catalogue, but also of the many online research databases that are available to them on the university library website. In order to achieve this, I liaised with Tanya Wilson one of our liaison librarian in the Faculty of Arts, and we discussed together what we could reasonably achieve to incorporate within my subject during the semester timeframe. Tanya then designed online modules that we incorporated into my LMS subject: these modules were aimed at increasing students' awareness of what is available to them at the Baillieu, as well as to reinforce their ability to efficiently discriminate between scholarly peer-reviewed resources and non-scholarly materials. Students were asked to complete these modules before week 10 when they had to attend a one-hour class tutorial at the Library to further develop their research skills. During this class students applied their recently acquired skills to identify relevant research resources for their essay topic (due at the end of semester).

The benefits and outcomes for students were as follows:

• Increase their research skills and get a better knowledge of the library resources and facilities.
• Be scholarly literate and more efficient in order to write quality essays supported by relevant resources.
• Be able to assess resources in terms of scholarly quality.

At this stage, I am still waiting to hear official feedback from students through the SES questionnaire, but informal feedback that I gathered from many students in class is that they found the modules and library classes very beneficial and useful. It has been a true pleasure working with Tanya Wilson, such an enthusiast and motivated Librarian. It has been a very rewarding experience overall for both the students and myself and I would definitely renew it in the future and encourage fellow academics and colleagues to embed scholarly literacy into their subjects.

- Dr Bertrand Bourgeois, Lecturer in French Studies (School of Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts)

HIST20013: The Holocaust and Genocide

I was impressed with the work of the library staff involved in preparing and delivering the sessions, and I would certainly recommend such sessions to my colleagues.

I used scholarly literacy in order to provide students (around 150) with more help in carrying out research for the major piece of assessment in the subject, a 2,500 word research essay. I contacted the History liaison librarian, Tom Hyde, to set up special library sessions for week 10 of the teaching semester. These sessions were scheduled at the same times as the regular weekly tutorials. I consulted with Tom, showing him the guidelines for the research essay assessment and identified a couple of key points that I wanted to have included in the library sessions: information about how to search for journal articles and primary sources, and how to make use of the library's extensive microfilm collection. Ahead of the library sessions I made it clear to my students that the aim of the sessions was to provide them with specific information and skills that would be directly applicable to their research essay task; I emphasized that the sessions were not designed as an exercise in teaching generic searching skills. Attendance at the sessions was 90%. A follow-up session for about two dozen students interested in working with microfilms was also arranged. One product of the program was an electronic Subject Research Guide that contained tips and useful links for students undertaking the subject. This was uploaded to the subject LMS site so that all the students had access to it in the weeks prior to the due date for the essays. This guide can, of course, be updated and expanded for the students taking the subject in the future.

My hope is that the library sessions will accomplish three things: get students thinking about their research essays well in advance of the due date; provide them with the skills to identify and locate sources relevant to their topics; and result in higher quality research essays. It is too early to tell to what extent these goals have been accomplished. SES responses and the essays themselves should make it possible to gauge how successful the use of scholarly literacy sessions was. I was impressed with the work of the library staff involved in preparing and delivering the sessions, and I would certainly recommend such sessions to my colleagues.

- Dr Steven R. Welch, Senior Lecturer, Modern German History (School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts)

Business and Economics

MGMT20001: Organisational Behaviour

Linking the program directly to their first individual written assignment provides students with the opportunity to develop these skills experientially through the earliest possible exposure to core subject matter.

Since Semester 1 2013 we have been working closely with the Liaison-librarian, Mary-Louise Edwards of the Business & Economics Library Team, to design and deliver a research skill building session that helps students complete their MGMT20001 Organisational Behaviour (OB) assignments by developing research, writing, composition, critical thinking, and referencing skills. The Liaison-librarian's contribution to this design and delivery process has been crucial; Mary-Louise is an indispensible member of the OB team who brings extensive specialist research and pedagogical expertise to the table. Research Skill Building Session is a voluntary seminar open to all students completing the OB subject in the Faculty of Business & Economics. It is a compulsory subject for all Bachelor of Commerce students in the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Research Skill Building Program is tailored to the needs of a diverse student body. Lecturers and tutors meet a large student cohort of approximately 2,000 undergraduate students across the year that includes a large number of international students who that do use English as their first language. Increasingly the subject is also being taken up as a breadth subject by students outside the Faculty. The approach taken to provide assistance with the assignments via the Research Skill Building Program is based upon our commitment to support the widest possible range of students needs. In this way students engage in active learning rather than the mere acquisition of knowledge regardless of their educational or cultural background. Early on in the development of the subject the acquisition of critical learning skills was identified as a key requirement for students completing Organisational Behaviour; it soon became evident that many students were able to grasp the abstract content knowledge of the subject but were then less confident about applying that knowledge because they lacked research, writing, critical thinking and referencing skills. In light of this, the main objective of the Research Skill Building Program has always been to help students to tackle assignment question(s), to plan their assignment, to conduct library research, to identify appropriate peer-reviewed journals, and to be able to write clearly while using their critical thinking skills to present coherent written assignment work that has effective citations and references. Linking the program directly to their first individual written assignment provides students with the opportunity to develop these skills experientially through the earliest possible exposure to core subject matter .

The program consists of a one and half hour face-to-face interactive seminar (repeated as necessary, depending on demand) delivered in the two weeks leading up to the due date of the first assignment. In addition to the face-to-face sessions we now also provide online resources for students via the subject LMS page. These include the PowerPoint presentation slides and a recording of the face-to-face session for those students who are unable to attend and for those students who wish to review the information in the course of completing their assignments. The Liaison librarian has also developed online resources and guidelines that link the library resources and databases relevant to each of the assessment tasks that students are required to submit for the subject.

- Professor Graham Sewell, Course Coordinator, Organisational Behaviour and Valerie-Cotronei-Baird, Head Tutor, Organisational Behaviour

Education

EDUC90758: Researching Education Practice

Embedded (and explicit) scholarly literacy teaching adds enormous benefit to learning outcomes for students, and our programs are strengthened by the contributions of librarians who work with MSGE.

Our colleagues in the library provide excellent resources for our graduate students – not only in the form of extensive online materials, but in developing and delivering lecture and workshop content for particular groups. For example, from a very short brief, Kat was able to develop a skills session for MTeach (Early Childhood) teacher within the Capstone subject Researching Education Practice, aligning seamlessly with the subject. Library support within the Capstone subject now offers M Teach (Early Childhood) students with a sequenced approach to developing their scholarly literacy skills.

Kat's expert delivery ensured that the content was useful and engaging for all teacher candidates, despite differing abilities and levels of experience in developing a literature review.

Academic staff always learn something from these sessions too! Moreover, as the librarians curate learning and teaching resources across the program, these learning experiences provide a continuity of skill development for teacher candidates. Embedded (and explicit) scholarly literacy teaching adds enormous benefit to learning outcomes for students, and our programs are strengthened by the contributions of librarians who work with MSGE.

- Amelia Church, MGSE

Engineering

Library Research Skills for Master of Engineering

Working with the librarians was a real pleasure, and our complementary skills made us a productive team.

We set out to build an LMS community that supports student learning of library research skills. The community features an on-line resource that students can use in a self-paced, flexible manner.

Our team has two librarians and one academic. Together we developed learning structure, created videos, selected images and other resources, and wrote text. The librarians provided specific content relating to library research skills. As the academic, I provided the engineering context, knowledge of the student culture, and student contacts.

The end result was a well-polished and attractive resource that will be useful for students for years to come.

We were very pleased with the end result, and I would definitely encourage other academics to use similar approaches and to embed scholarly literacy into their curricula. Working with the librarians was a real pleasure, and our complementary skills made us a productive team.

- Linda Stern, Senior Lecturer (Department of Computing and Information Systems)

Law

As a result, many dozens of excellent articles have been published based upon papers written in our construction law program.

I always try to take my students to the latest thinking on topics, so the ability to have a 'one stop shop' for online research materials is invaluable. Our construction law research guide is something that I have set up in consultation with my library colleagues over a number of years and which continues to grow in depth and breadth. Not only do my library colleagues keep it running and respond to student queries about it, they also make themselves available several times a year to take students on a tour of it in class. In this way, students have access to relevant materials with the minimum of fuss, allowing them to put their efforts into research and writing. And, as a result, many dozens of excellent articles have been published based upon papers written in our construction law program.

- Mr Matthew Bell, Senior Lecturer & Co-Director of Studies, Construction Law (Melbourne Law School)

VCA & MCM

The student work I have received shows a clear improvement in both the depth of research used and the citation of those research sources and I look forward to continuing this valuable relationship with the Lenton Parr Library team.

I have worked closely with the Lenton Parr Library Team [at Southbank campus] for the past two years in my role as coordinator of the subject Concepts and Creativity 1, which is a combined first year subject for the Bachelor of Fine Arts Theatre, Dance and Production. This subject provides the students with an overview of performing arts practice and for many of these students represents their introduction to research requirements at the tertiary level.

The library team have provided a multifaceted program including both online and face-to-face learning demonstrating the scope of resources available and providing great starting points tailored specifically to their assignments.

- Greg Clarke, Lecturer in Design, Victorian College of the Arts