Library Faculty Works

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How to make your research open access: options, tools, and supports
(2025-10-21) Hall, Robyn
Celebrate International Open Access Week by joining Scholarly Communications Librarian Robyn Hall for a session on sharing your research more widely. Learn practical strategies for making your publications freely available online, including selecting journals and repositories with open access options, accessing funding support, meeting research funder requirements, and navigating copyright with confidence. Participants will leave with tools and insights to easily enhance the visibility and impact of their work.
Collaborative research for personal growth: illustrative stories of the transformative impacts of multidisciplinary SoTL
(2025) Nelson, Jody; McKendrick-Calder, Lisa; Carlson, Susan; Shamchuk, Lisa
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) inquiry is a type of research that educators can undertake for any or all of the four main categories of research intention identified by Stubb et al. (2014): research as a job, a mechanism to gain qualification, a personal journey, and a way to make a difference. SoTL, historically, was conceptualized with less focus upon the traditional goal of scholarly output to inform others, and instead is described as “practices that engage teachers in looking closely and critically at student learning in order to improve their own courses and programs” (Hutchings et al., 2011, p. xix). SoTL scholars commonly investigate areas of curiosity within their personal context. They seek to uncover insights and generate knowledge to inform their pedagogical practices. Thus, SoTL aligns well with Stubb’s notions of research as a personal journey and a way to make a difference in student learning. When SoTL is undertaken collaboratively across diverse disciplines, it can promote a deeper understanding of effective teaching and learning strategies, and can have a broader impact. It can also cultivate curiosity by aiding researchers to uncover and (re)consider assumptions, explore new research methodologies, and adapt evidence-based practices in their teaching. The reflective process involved can enhance professional identity, build cross-disciplinary connections, and support continuous learning. Additionally, collaboration can foster the development of shared pedagogical knowledge, leading to more innovative and inclusive teaching strategies that benefit students and educators alike. This panel presentation will highlight aspects of each presenters’ personal SoTL journey, sharing their reflections and selected SoTL findings. They will emphasize how multidisciplinary SoTL has contributed to their professional growth while enhancing their personal teaching practices. Their stories will support the potential of utilizing SoTL on a personal journey towards enhanced teaching and learning potential.
Have you changed your mind?: a class-based SoTL investigation of senior nursing student perceptions and learning experiences regarding health misinformation and science skepticism
(2025) Nelson, Jody; McKendrick Calder, Lisa; Su, Wanhua
The growing prevalence of online health misinformation and accompanying increase in negative ideological predispositions towards science are contributing to societal mistrust in health authorities with detrimental consequences to public health. Nursing graduates must be prepared to practice within this rapidly evolving health information context, armed with the knowledge, self-awareness, and evaluative strategies to identify health misinformation, practice healthy science skepticism, and intervene when confronted with misinformation that impacts patient and public health. Yet, digital health literacy rates among post-secondary nursing students are low and our traditional information literacy teaching strategies, with the focus on internal measures of source quality and reliability, do not translate well in the unregulated online information environment. New teaching approaches are needed to equip nursing students with an understanding of online information ecosystem functioning and the influence of ideological beliefs, and fact-checking strategies for assessing health information found online. Winter 2025 semester, the nursing course instructor and librarian collaborated to teach a senior nursing elective class on online health misinformation, disinformation, and science beliefs. Taking a systems-thinking-approach, students engage in learning through readings, self-reflection, group discussion, and hands-on practice with different tools and models. Our collaborative Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project employs a pre-class survey to first establish a baseline understanding of student-perceived online health literacy, beliefs about science, and misinformation practices through a pre-class survey. The post-class survey will explore resulting changes in student knowledge and perceptions in these areas, and asks students about their experiences with the classroom learning.
Guide to assessing educational technologies
(2025) King, Martina; Qorbani, Sam; Fardadvand, Shahram; Fung, Jason; Hannan, Sean; Neumeier, Melanie
The Guide to Assessing Educational Technologies identifies key aspects of educational technologies important for supporting and enhancing teaching and learning and connects those to the principles of teaching excellence outlined in MacEwan University’s Teaching Greatness Strategic Vision (2023). The guide consists of a short list of key characteristics, along with a more detailed definition, list of features and an example of how to apply these in an academic learning context designed to help assess the suitability of specific educational technologies for adoption. The intent is for the key characteristics and features to be considered and used as a guideposts throughout the assessment, selection and implementation processes, to ensure that adopted technologies support and enhance teaching and learning.
Journey to reconciliation through mutual learning and gifting
(2019) Ouedraogo, Valerie; Burgess-Pinto, Elizabeth; Hayduk, Larisa; Whitson, Lindsey
Responding to the revelations of the TRC and its Calls to Actions, a group of educators invested in social justice issues worked to integrate Indigenous knowledge and pedagogies into a semester-long teaching and learning project. Participating faculty and staff learned about ceremony and protocols and likewise connected with elders and other knowledge keepers to offer a series of learning events for students, faculty, staff, and the public to explore the ongoing impacts of colonization and cultural power imbalances through an intercultural process. The reflexive process encouraged active, transformative learning and reciprocity.
Contributions of academic libraries, librarians, and information science to education for sustainable development research and implementation: a Canadian undergraduate example
(2024) King, Martina; Leal Filho, Walter; Salvia, Amanda Lange; Portela de Vasconcelos, Claudio Ruy
There is a growing intersection between library and information science (LIS) and sustainability research. This paper explores the potential of LIS research for advancing sustainability education inquiry spanning areas such as structuring curriculum, pedagogical approaches, information behavior, and cultural collections. Through an examination of recent reviews of LIS scholarship on sustainability, it underscores the imperative for further investigation into the intersection between LIS and sustainability, particularly in education and cultural domains. This paper delineates potential avenues for future research, highlighting a gap in the literature pertaining to the implementation of sustainable development education goals within higher education institutions at the interdisciplinary level. Drawing from illustrative examples, this paper contributes to addressing this gap by showcasing how LIS scholarship, including Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), has been leveraged and applied by a subject librarian, teacher, and researcher in sustainability education. The context of this implementation is within sustainability courses that are part of an interdisciplinary sustainability certificate at an undergraduate university.
Supporting learner development through self-assessment
(2025) Munro, Tai; King, Martina
Given the scale and pace of change of sustainability challenges in the world today, it is vital for students to develop into expert learners who can assess their abilities and knowledge and identify future learning needs. Self-assessment is not a straightforward task and requires support to develop. The current study examined the effect of using self-assessment over time, combined with reflection, on students’ abilities to develop self-assessment skills. The study was conducted in an undergraduate course that uses project-based, problem-based learning to engage students in real-world projects regarding sustainability. The findings indicate that while students can engage in quantitative self-assessment, there are concerns with accuracy and metacognition. Reflection regarding their self-assessment contributes to addressing these issues. In addition, to be effective, students require guidance on how to recognize and explore what they do not yet know. Finally, they also need support in recognizing learning as an active process that occurs over time. This study frames self-assessment as a tool for developing informed judgment of their own learning and future learning needs rather than as a tool for summative assessment of past learning. Implications for future research are discussed.
The grim underpinnings of collections policies: 'your mountain is waiting'
(2023) Garstad, Roxy
Many libraries continue to write and update collections policies and upload them to library websites for public consumption. It is assumed that these documents positively influence a variety of aspects of library work, such as building relevant collections, increasing patron understanding of library operations, and encouraging communication and cooperation within the librarian community. However, these policies may expose hidden agendas or even overt prejudice, either explicitly or implicitly. What less desirable qualities do library collections policies possess, and how are these grim underpinnings harmful to our patrons? A careful examination of three collections policies at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Canada, written or edited by the author in the past decade, reveals a need for closer scrutiny of the purpose, intent, and underlying messages conveyed when these documents are displayed to the public. The three policies in question are an overarching or main collections policy, a donations policy, and a specialized policy dedicated to collecting resources by, for, and about Indigenous peoples. This paper, based on a poster presented at Charleston 2022, will outline exactly whom collections policies are written for (other librarians), what their purpose is (justifying saying no to patrons), and what their most significant harm might be (perpetuating prejudice). Proposals for how the collections community can initiate change and improve upon the traditional practice of engaging users via collections policies will be put forward.
The ChatGPT explosion: transforming the landscape of library collections
(2024) Garstad, Roxy
Interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as ChatGPT, has accelerated among library staff in only a few short months, with its positive and negative aspects widely debated. It has quickly become apparent that library employees, especially those in academic libraries, will need to engage with this new technology, whether in behind-the-scenes situations or through answering patron queries on its nature, origin, and usefulness. ChatGPT’s applications and considerations for academic libraries in the areas of reference, information literacy, copyright, writing skills, and administrative activities are currently being explored. Still, little has been mentioned about its applicability to collections work. This paper will examine how ChatGPT can contribute positively and helpfully to collections work at various critical points along the broad spectrum of the yearly collections procedural life cycle, from acquisitions and cataloging to deselection and beyond, keeping best practices and ethical use in mind. An example of how this technology can be used in collections policy writing will be demonstrated. In addition, a set of guidelines adapted from current suggestions for use specifically geared toward collections work will be suggested, along with key resources to aid learning and reflection.
Bridging multiple meanings of 'impact' across and beyond the academy
(2025) Hall, Robyn; Auer, Meagan; McBeth, Renee; Green, Kassidy
"Impact" is central to contemporary research, yet its meaning varies widely across different stakeholders engaged in community-university research partnerships. This session will create a collaborative space for community members, academics, and administrators to explore and debate definitions of impact and how it is achieved. Informed by their research and professional practice, presenters will share diverse perspectives on what impact means to them in their respective roles as a community partner, community engagement facilitator, scholarly communications librarian, and community-based researcher. Participants will then be invited to share their own perspectives and experiences, reflecting on the tensions and synergies that arise from the process of striving to achieve meaningful outcomes when participating in community-based research. Key topics will include the challenges of balancing community priorities with academic goals, navigating differing views of impact among unique stakeholders, strategies for defining and pursuing impactful results, and practical strategies for communicating impact to different audiences. By sharing experiences, and considering multiple perspectives, this session will help shape a more nuanced and relational approach to defining and achieving research outcomes in community-engaged and academic contexts.
Advancing the dissemination and preservation of community-based research products in institutional repositories
(2025) Hall, Robyn
Community-based research often involves communities working in partnership with academic researchers to address issues and problems that the community has raised. Much of this work results in diverse publicly available materials that strive to inform public policy, strengthen funding proposals, empower community members, and advance social change. This article reports on a recent qualitative study exploring the role of institutional repositories in disseminating and preserving these community-based research products, informed by the perspectives, experiences, and motivations of academics involved in this work. Interviews with faculty members and university administrators at Canadian post-secondary institutions suggest that there is a widespread lack of awareness about ways that institutional repository services can leverage the impact and reach of public-facing work generated through these collaborations. Furthermore, a survey of Canadian scholarly communications librarians indicates that libraries do limited outreach to faculty members and administrators engaged in community-based research to promote these services. This article suggests ways that academic libraries can extend outreach strategies to bridge this observed gap between repository services and the dissemination and preservation of community-based research products directly informed by input from research participants. Doing so can advance widespread institutional commitments to community engagement and open science practices to benefit the public good.
Locked in: eBook loan limitations and licensing agreements in public libraries
(2024) Deschamps, Danielle; McNally, Michael B.
Licensing agreements on ebooks have altered the core of what libraries have done for hundreds of years: own books and lend them. Public libraries aim to adapt to what their communities need and with the rise of the Internet and the new digital landscape came a new way that library users began to read – through ebooks. While many may have hoped that ebooks would represent a new horizon for a book reading reality of unfettered, instantaneous, simultaneous access, that was not to be the case (Sang, 2017). Instead, the ecosystem surrounding ebooks has become increasingly rigid (Sang, 2017). A widespread culture of licensing rather than ownership of digital content has risen and in the case of ebooks, has resulted in agreements in which libraries are paying for limited licence agreements at unreasonable prices. While the challenges of ebook licensing agreements affect all types of libraries, this chapter will focus specifically on how this issue has affected public libraries in Canada and the United States, first by providing a background of the shift to licensing agreements over ownership for ebooks, followed by an overview of the current situation. This chapter will then offer an analysis of the challenges ebook licensing agreements pose to library collection management, and finally, an exploration of potential responses for a way forward.
Journal club: an innovative teaching practice to foster peer connection and enhance information literacy skills
(2023) Croxen, Hanneke; Nelson, Jody; McKendrick-Calder, Lisa
This project aimed to better understand the impact and student experience of an innovative teaching strategy focused on information literacy (IL) for first-year undergraduate nursing students. Information literacy (IL) involves the development of a set of abilities essential for higher education learners, such as the ability to identify, critically evaluate, understand, and apply scholarly literature (ACRL 2013), yet studies often demonstrate that these IL skills are lacking and need further development (Bury 2016; Saunders 2012). Traditional methods of addressing this need center around stand-alone librarian-led IL sessions, which cannot provide the time or space needed to develop critical reading and reflection practices. Within our context of nursing, this is a common challenge; one study found that 40% of second-year nursing students have difficulty reading journal articles (Chaudoir et al. 2016), despite IL being an essential skill for nursing practice (Mitchell and Pereira-Edwards 2022). In an attempt to address learner needs, a course instructor and librarian teamed up. Journal clubs, used in practice settings to maintain currency and promote EBP behavior (Wilson et al. 2015), have been used successfully in other health education contexts (Steenbeek et al. 2009; Szucs et al. 2017; Thompson 2006). This application is referred to as evidence-based practice (EBP) and is an essential component of nursing practice. Having activities for undergraduate nursing students that instill EBP aims to ensure that it will be incorporated into practice after graduation (Mitchell and Pereira-Edwards 2022). Instead of the traditional librarian-led IL sessions, a first-year nursing course was redesigned to utilize a guided journal club approach to enhance the ability to seek, read, and interpret journal literature. Journal club activities took place over eight weeks, alternating guided activities with brief IL lessons, and culminated in a group journal club assignment. Students were placed in small groups based on an area of practice they wanted to learn more about. Activities were scaffolded starting with introducing a research database and basic literature searching strategies. As students progressed through the term’s journal club activities, they were asked to find articles related aligned with course topics and their area of practice, critique and present their articles to their group members, and then apply their interpretations. A survey was used to measure the impact of journal club on student IL self-efficacy, as measured through the validated Information Literacy Self-Efficacy Scale (ILSES) developed by Kurbanoglu et al. (2006). Initial findings support journal club as an effective modality to enhance students’ self-efficacy in specific areas of IL. Additionally, other valuable outcomes of this strategy were discovered. For example, students reported becoming more comfortable collaborating with peers and anecdotal reports showed students developed friendships with peers. This scaffolded journal club approach to discipline-specific IL learning would translate well to other contexts, particularly those that require a significant grounding in reading and understanding disciplinary research. The journal club activities are available at: https://tinyurl.com/JournalClubPosterISSOTL2022, or by contacting the authors.
Access to mental healthcare services for Black women during perinatal period – a scoping review
(2024) Kemei, Janet; Asirifi, Mary; Nelson, Jody; Khalema, Emily M.; Adekoya, Augustina T.; Satimehin, Oluwaseun O.
Black women in Canada are at higher risk of poor mental health outcomes; this is associated with disparities such as poor access to healthcare and aggravated by racial discrimination and poor living conditions. This study aims to investigate the extent and nature of literature on access to mental healthcare services for Black women during the perinatal period in regions outside of Africa and the Caribbean.
Scaffolding information literacy learning for undergraduate nursing students: a mixed-method exploration of student IL self-efficacy
(2024) Croxen, Hanneke; Nelson, Jody; McKendrick-Calder, Lisa; Su, Wanhua
Information literacy (IL) competency is an essential component of evidence-informed nursing practice. It is integral to introduce and develop core information literacy competencies for evidence-informed practice within undergraduate education programs. Research has shown undergraduate students may experience challenges with information literacy skills. More research to inform teaching methodologies that effectively enhance students’ skills and abilities, as well as their self-efficacy with these skills, is needed. This article describes an innovative teaching strategy, called journal club, which uses scaffolded learning activities in small groups over one semester.
Research methods: exploring the social world in Canadian contexts
(2024) Symbaluk, Diane; Hall, Robyn
Research Methods: Exploring the Social World in Canadian Contexts, third edition, provides students with a readily accessible introduction to research methodology. This open textbook covers qualitative and quantitative methods, guiding readers through planning and conducting research, proposal writing, and report creation while addressing common research errors and challenges. Key topics include ethics, research design, sampling, experiments, surveys, qualitative interviewing, ethnography, and mixed-method approaches.
Impact of library instruction tutorial format on student preference and performance in first-year chemistry
(2023) Stieglitz, Tara; Whitson, Lindsey
This research study investigates the effects of library instruction tutorial format (written versus video) on student preference and performance in chemistry education. The authors assessed the format of tutorials used to provide library instruction in an introductory chemistry course by observing 27 student participants as they took in instructions in either a video or a written format and then completed two chemistry information tasks. While participants expressed strong preferences for particular formats, neither the video tutorials nor the written instructions significantly improved task completion speed or performance. Rather, the authors determined that student preference alone is enough to justify the continued production of multiple versions of instructions for the same assignment.
Exploring the role of information literacy instruction in student co-creation of community-based research products
(2023) Hall, Robyn
Supported by institutional commitments to community engagement, undergraduate students at universities across North America are participating in community-based research projects. These experiential learning activities allow students to collaborate with community partners to address issues in their communities, often resulting in co-creating research products that seek to have a real-world impact. This article reports on ways that academic librarians can support students engaged in these activities, informed by interview data gathered from university administrators and faculty members from across Canada with expertise in conducting and overseeing students' participation in research connected to university–community partnerships. This growing area of scholarly activity in higher education provides instruction librarians with unique opportunities to teach students valuable information literacy skills tied to knowledge equity, representing a threshold concept that recognizes students' abilities to create new knowledge that strives to be accessible, inclusive, and done in an ethical manner that serves community interests.
Moving toward reconciliation: considerations in creating and re-evaluating an Indigenous resources policy
(2022) Stift, Sandy; Garstad, Roxy
Excerpt: Having agreed on the central importance of the Land Acknowledgement statement, an examination of our motivation, goals, and purpose was essential. Why even consider writing a separate policy? First, a unique and separate policy would bring to the forefront our commitment on this matter. It would highlight and remind us of the importance of collecting and curating materials by, for, and about Indigenous peoples in Canada. It was also one of the first MacEwan Library responses to a pivotal document produced by the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) in 2017, the Truth and Reconciliation Report and Recommendations. It contains a series of actions Canadian libraries can take to support Indigenous communities and library users. The report contains ten recommendations which were considered in crafting an early version of the Indigenous Resources Collections Policy.
Geofacets: an advisor review
(2023) Duffy, Jane
Geofacets is a unique database for environmental researchers which draws, represents, organizes, and makes searchable information and data sets from various scientific resources through a single interface. Geofacets is both a research database and a comprehensive business solution that helps organizations maximize their time, energy, financial assets, and human resources. Geofacets draws its data from essential geoscience publications such as The Journal of Geochemical Exploration, Chemical Geology, The International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, The Journal of Structural Geology, The Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Sedimentary Geology, Geoscience Frontiers, Marine Geology, Global and Planetary Change, and Earth Science Reviews. Geofacets has positioned itself as the go-to resource for reliable information and data drawn from the interdisciplinary field of academic geoscience as well as from private industry.

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