Search results

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of Google Forms in the university library instruction classroom. Librarians at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) began using Google Forms as a way of increasing active learning and as an instrument of formative assessment. The paper describes the information literacy context at the UIC and gives examples of best practices for using Google Forms in library instruction.

The authors collaborated with other instruction librarians at their institution to develop Google Forms for use in library instruction sessions and used them primarily in sessions geared toward first-year students.

Google Forms provides an easy and inexpensive way to incorporate both active learning and assessment in library instruction sessions. Students and faculty were receptive to their use in the library classroom. These early findings will be incorporated into the longer assessment study by the authors, currently underway.

While Google Forms has heretofore been used in primary and secondary school settings, it is only now being more widely adopted for use by instruction librarians at the university level. This paper will be of value to those who wish to use Google Forms in library instruction in college and university settings, among others.

This chapter explores how cloud-based office productivity suite(s) such as Google Workspace have been used to engage students in their learning while also preparing them for the workplace. Using these types of tools can make group-based in-class activities, assignments and projects highly engaging for a diverse student body while also developing skills valued in the workplace. Practical examples are shared regarding how the tools have been used with accounting and business students in courses such as communications and computing, introduction to business, sustainability and leadership. Some examples include how students can use the tools to collaboratively: provide feedback to a post-secondary institution regarding its orientation activities; complete a PESTLE and SWOT analysis of a business; use Google Forms with mobile phones to record observations of the emotional state of individuals and discuss in relation to emotionally intelligent leadership; and create a sustainability report for a post-secondary institution. The examples provided can be adapted as is or modified to engage learners in nearly any discipline at any education level in a face-to-face classroom or via remote delivery.

The landscape of search engine usage has evolved since the last known data were used to calculate click-through rate (CTR) values. The objective was to provide a replicable method for accessing data from the Google search engine using programmatic access and calculating CTR values from the retrieved data to show how the CTRs have changed since the last studies were published.

In this study, the authors present the estimated CTR values in organic search results based on actual clicks and impressions data, and establish a protocol for collecting this data using Google programmatic access. For this study, the authors collected data on 416,386 clicks, 31,648,226 impressions and 8,861,416 daily queries.

The results show that CTRs have decreased from previously reported values in both academic research and industry benchmarks. The estimates indicate that the top-ranked result in Google's organic search results features a CTR of 9.28%, followed by 5.82 and 3.11% for positions two and three, respectively. The authors also demonstrate that CTRs vary across various types of devices. On desktop devices, the CTR decreases steadily with each lower ranking position. On smartphones, the CTR starts high but decreases rapidly, with an unprecedented increase from position 13 onwards. Tablets have the lowest and most variable CTR values.

The theoretical implications include the generation of a current dataset on search engine results and user behavior, made available to the research community, creation of a unique methodology for generating new datasets and presenting the updated information on CTR trends. The managerial implications include the establishment of the need for businesses to focus on optimizing other forms of Google search results in addition to organic text results, and the possibility of application of this study's methodology to determine CTRs for their own websites.

This study provides a novel method to access real CTR data and estimates current CTRs for top organic Google search results, categorized by device.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight an assessment tool that can be used for all information literacy classes.

The assessment was designed and data were stored using Google Forms. Questions were basic, general questions about student confidence after attending a library instruction class. The assessment was piloted in the Fall 2015 semester, improved on and reissued in the Spring 2016 semester and is now in its current iteration as a tool to be used by most librarians.

The first two implementations were successful, but issues arose in distribution and in the type of questions. Tweaks to the distribution that would work in any computer lab on any campus were beneficial to librarians and students. The content of the questions were also modified after the first two implementations; questions about recalling resources were condensed and changed to questions on what the students learned and what they were still unsure of. All implementations showed positive results from the students on their confidence level after library instruction.

This tool and the implementation methods are versatile enough to be used at any kind of institution and with any general learning objective. Assessment is essential in library instruction; this tool provides a way for all librarians to quickly assess their class without taking much additional class time. In addition to the individual librarian, this is also useful for reporting statistics to the college administration if data are needed on the assessment of library instruction.

Taking the Institute of Philology and Journalism at Ukraine's Taurida National University as a case study, this paper overviews and distils the crisis management measures utilised in transitioning to fully online education during the crises of the Covid-19 pandemic and full-scale Russian invasion and violence.

With the aim of spotlighting the experiences of the people most directly impacted by these two contemporary crises, this case study documents the lived experience of the authors—all of whom are/were teaching staff at the Institute—and Institute students’ responses to online surveys conducted between 2020 and 2022.

The Institute's case study demonstrates that contemporary crisis management via transitioning to fully online learning can be achieved if the following instrumental and methodological components are employed: (1) an initial assessment of the risks and opportunities for the educational community involved; (2) the right choice of online teaching and communications tools; (3) followed by flexibility and gradualism in onward planning (i.e. where technology and pedagogy are understood as interconnected) taking members’ feedback into account. However, the success of these components is contingent upon fulfilling psychological components, with care devoted to: upholding members’ psychological well-being; offering members ongoing technical support; and strengthening trust between members.

This case study offers transferable and adaptable findings for successful crisis management in education, from the Ukrainian context out to the wider world.

The author first gained experience with library instruction scheduling at a large research university library as an Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) graduate assistant.

The author would occasionally shadow the faculty librarians as they received instruction requests, which were vetted by an administrative assistant and entered into some mystical technology that would facilitate the reservations and populate a library staff calendar.

The author remembers it as a fairly mundane process that he did not think much of at the time.

The author soon became an instruction librarian who was put in charge of orchestrating the multitudes of course-integrated one-shots at a small, private four-year liberal arts college.

The author thinks back to this experience and marvels at the humble instructional requests (e.g. “just show them JSTOR”) and the primitive tool that their library used for scheduling their sessions: a spreadsheet on our network drive.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the questions: What challenges do students face in an information commons and how does roving reference help?.

The author recounts her work roving in her community college information commons and supplements this with an analysis of 1,500 records from her detailed reference log that compares roving reference results with conventional references and with reference questions as a whole.

Her autoethnography and data reveal that roving substantially increases the number of reference encounters. In addition, her data sheds light on students’ struggles with common, productivity software, academic packages and malfunctioning hardware. More importantly, these findings show that roving reference data identify problems that librarians, as stakeholders, can solve.

Roving reference in a community college information commons brings students in one library into sharper focus. Roving reference increases the number of reference encounters and the reach of reference service. It also exposes a use-based digital divide that calls for collaboration in the long run and increased point-of-need service immediately.

Even data that points to digital divides, hardware issues or other shortcomings and offers empirical evidence of problems for which library staff, unlike student workers, can find long-term solutions. This study shows that it is possible to gather rich and extensive data with minimal personnel and off-the-shelf software.

A college degree is vital to social mobility and easing inequality. Fluency with academic technology and information is necessary for completing college. Roving reference means more opportunities to teach information and computer fluency at point of need and more opportunities for librarian stakeholders to find and remove obstacles to student learning.

This is one of the few, recent studies, autoethnographic or otherwise, on roving reference in a community college library’s information commons.

Dramatic cultural shifts driven by technological innovations beg for a reenvisioning of responsive education for young adolescents. Through the voices of theorists, educators, and students, the authors initiate a dialogue about technology's role in purposeful learning and relevant curriculum; a supportive learning culture for students, family, and community; and bold and innovative school leadership. The analysis yields practical ways in which technology can contribute to effective middle schooling and paints a vivid picture of technology-rich and responsive learning environments for young adolescents.