The librarians at the USC Norris Medical Library conducted focus groups with medical students to get feedback on how the library could better support student learning. Based on the focus groups, the librarians made several revisions to library instruction sessions, assignments, and resources. Revisions included improving orientation sessions, assignments for a literature search project, and adding ongoing support through lunch seminars, email reminders, and a student portal on the library website with guides and case studies. The focus groups helped the librarians understand how to better integrate library instruction and resources into the medical curriculum.
Interactive Powerpoint_How to Master effective communication
Rejuvenating Medical Library Instruction
1. Emily Brennan, MLIS Information Services Librarian Eileen Eandi, MLIS Associate Director Evans Whitaker, MD, MLIS Clinical Support Librarian Educational & Research Services Division University Of Southern California Norris Medical Library Rejuvenating the Library’s Role in the Medical Curriculum
12. Library Literature Search Project Revisions Previously Currently Assignment #1 Ovid MEDLINE Ovid MEDLINE (basic search); eBooks; clinical info tools; MedlinePlus Topic Various topics Cystic fibrosis Distribution / Due Dates Sept 8 / Sept 22, 2008 August 19 / August 24, 2009 Assignment #2 Ovid MEDLINE PubMed Topic Various topics Neuroscience topics Distribution / Due Dates Feb 2 / March 7, 2009 March 1 / March 8, 2010 Assignment #3 Ovid MEDLINE none Topic Various topics Distribution / Due Dates March 23 / May 11, 2009
- NML instructs first and second year KSOM students, and develops, distributes and grades assignments to reinforce learning.
- Of the 7 librarians, one (Joan) divided her time between NML and CHLA; and one is the Bioinformatics librarian and does not provide “traditional” instruction to students
[ELABORATE]
Invitations emailed nearly 3 weeks before the focus groups focus groups lasted one hour each
Will just focus on the year 1 focus group for the purposes of this presentation questions were asked in order of importance, so that if we didn’t get around to the library website, no big deal
Students’ feedback: - haven’t used Ovid MEDLINE since orientation think PubMed would be better since that’s what faculty use, and it’ll be available to them after graduation would prefer other resources, such as ebooks and clinical info tools, instead of Ovid MEDLINE
- Had KSOM faculty member present MedWeb, their school student portal
NML instructs first and second year KSOM students, and develops, distributes and grades assignments to reinforce learning.
Students’ feedback: Assignment is repetitive. That said, they forget how to search as soon as they finish assignment so they have to learn from scratch at the start of each assignment. Defeats purpose of the assignment building on each other (increasing complexity) never use Ovid MEDLINE except for this assignment too much time between distribution & due dates. By the time it’s due, they’ve forgotten about it.
Cystic fibrosis is the topic of SPP Case #2 PubMed is taught through online instruction (tutorial) with an assignment based on that tutorial. Optional workshops for in-person instruction will be offered twice that week (with pizza lunch). - All assignments are now pass/fail
Students’ responses: Optional lunch sessions are a good idea but will only be attended if there is free food come into class sessions to give 15 minute review of what databases to search and how to search them send emails throughout the year reminding them of personal librarians and student portal
Tech Lunch Series topics: Advanced Google Searching; web 2.0 tools; mobile devices website to be discussed on later slides send reminder emails at the start of each quarter and/or when they begin a research project
Students’ feedback: Most know who their librarian is but very few contact him/her
Students’ feedback: They know about the student portal but think it needs to be linked from MedWeb since that’s where they spend most of their time. the resources on the student portal should include more basic textbooks, medical dictionaries
- Student Portal linked from their KSOM MedWeb page
Revised resources on student portal added a Systems page added a SPP Case page
- Systems page
- SPP Case
- Started developing and populating our subject guides (LibGuides)
We will hold focus groups this May to follow-up and make further improvements After the KSOM focus groups, we held focus groups with the Pharmacy students