Standard III. Faculty

III.4 The qualifications of each faculty member include competence in designated teaching areas, technological awareness, effectiveness in teaching, and active participation in appropriate organizations.

The program faculty determine the teaching responsibilities based on areas of expertise, research interests, and prior experience. Permanent faculty teach most of the core courses (in addition to electives), while adjuncts and teaching fellows offer specialized courses or electives. As an example, the following table indicates the recent instructors for core and required courses – this list does not include Special Topics courses, which are addressed in a separate section:

Faculty

Competence/expertise

Courses Taught

Biagini

Lead faculty for School Library Certification program

LIS 2323, 2327, 2774

Bowler

Lead faculty for Children and Youth specialization

LIS 2322, 2324, 2360

Cox

Lead faculty for APRM specialization

LIS 2214, 2220, 2222, 2223, 3000

Currier

Ethics, diversity, copyright law, management and leadership

LIS 2000, 2005, 2184, 2194, 2537, 2700

Detlefsen

Lead faculty for Health Resources and Services specialization

LIS 2000, 2585, 2586, 2587

He

Lead faculty for Digital Libraries and Information Technology specializations

LIS 2002, 2600, 2658, 2670; INFSCI 2140 Information Storage and Retrieval

Langmead

Archives and records management, digital humanities

LIS 2220, 2224, 2230

Mahoney

Lead faculty for Reference Resources and Services specialization

LIS 2000, 2005, 2324, 2500, 2544

Oh

Information visualization, metadata

LIS 2005, 2405, 2407

Tomer

Lead faculty for Information Technology and Digital Libraries specializations

LIS 2000, 2005, 2500, 2600, 2635, 2670

A complete list of courses and instructors is included in Appendix FAC 4.

As part of a school with two technology-related academic programs, awareness and utilization of technology is omni-present. However, faculty are very careful to ensure that technology, and its exponential advances, does not overshadow the core tenets of LIS education. When appropriate, faculty incorporate developments in technology into the classroom but do not ignore the foundational skills and knowledge needed by professionals in the world’s libraries, archives schools, and other information service environments.

The School offers a core course addressing technology in information centers and libraries. LIS 2600 (Introduction to Information Technologies) provides a primer on databases, digital documents, and digital library technologies. This course is most often taught by Christinger Tomer and Daqing He, who incorporate numerous “hands-on” components to the class, including separate lab experiences. Obviously, the two specializations in Information Technology and Digital Libraries have to feature storage and retrieval technologies to the fullest extent.

The faculty are very aware that, as technology permeates the fabric of society, it must be presented in the core and specialization curricula in order to prepare graduates to deal with the benefits and challenges associated with it. Therefore, as appropriate, they incorporate discussion of – and experience with – various technologies and tools into their courses. For example, LIS 2184 (Legal Issues in Information Handling: Copyright and Fair Use in the Digital Age) looks at technology-enabled strategies and developments such as Open Access and Creative Commons. LIS 2587 (Applications in Medical Informatics) explores the applications of information technology in areas such as hospital information systems and telehealth. In LIS 2633 (Technology in the Lives of Children and Youth), students examine the effect of media on information behavior, safety, and information/media literacy instruction in children’s libraries.

Teaching effectiveness is ensured through a number of evaluation methods which permit the School to gather input from a variety of audiences. First, all teaching faculty are required to utilize the Office of Measurement and Evaluation of Teaching’s course surveys to garner student opinion about the course and the instructor. The results of this confidential survey are reviewed by the Dean and the Program Chair. Second, all faculty are mandated to participate in the School’s Peer Review of Teaching process, which provides advice and reviews from a committee of faculty in the iSchool with regards to pedagogical and presentation elements utilized by teaching faculty. And finally, the Program Chair performs a grade review for each student at the end of each academic term. This thorough review of every grade issued within the program is carried out to provide a “snapshot” of student performance each term. If inconsistencies arise, they are addressed at the following faculty meeting. For example, this grade review process revealed issues with content in an offering of LIS 2005; the faculty then reviewed the course and its learning objectives. This resulted in a significant revision in the course syllabus and delivery at the time of the next offering.

Finally, the University calls for submission of learning outcomes assessments each year. This entails the program faculty reviewing a core course and the associated assignments to ensure that stated learning objectives are met.

The faculty believes that the OMET student evaluation and the review provided by PRT offer an effective, systematic series of evaluations of teaching. The Learning Outcomes assessment provides a longer-term view of the successes and challenges of a course, which reflects on the teaching involved. The end-of-term grade review offers a spot-check of teaching effectiveness. Working together, these evaluation efforts ensure that students are receiving the best instruction possible.

In order to remain current on developments in the field, as well as evolving research around LIS education and the Information Professions, faculty are encouraged and supported in their active participation in scholarly, research and professional development organizations. Faculty travel funds, allocated annually, may be used to attend professional or academic conferences. The Appendix FAC 1 (faculty curricula vitae) outlines each faculty member’s participation in such organizations.

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