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The Health Sciences Library's Education Services is committed to working with faculty and students to determine what information literacy competencies students should demonstrate before graduating from one of the five health affairs schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, and to developing effective means for teaching of the identified skills. Integration of these competencies into the curriculum gives them a relevance and validity. It allows the student to use the skills as part of required learning activities that can be transferred from one setting, the university, to another, their profession.
There are several ways to define core skills or
competencies. Many groups, like the American College of Preventive Medicine and
other libraries, identify core competencies as discrete tasks. The main problem
with this approach is the need for constant revision. We based our thinking on
the Medical Informatics Objectives prepared by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) which look at broader concepts. Since tasks are concrete activities used to practice and demonstrate the learning of concepts, it is necessary to identify specific tasks related to the boarder competencies and incorporate them into the learning objectives of specific curricula.
The AAMC Medical Informatics Advisory Panel considered what role the competencies would support. The roles they identified are
- Life-Long Learner
- Clinician
- Educator/Communicator
- Researcher
- Manager.
We feel that these are the roles most of our graduates will fill to some extent. For our purposes, we use the term Professional for Clinician. And, it seems that most competencies are necessary for all areas.
Health Affairs graduates should be able to:
- Demonstrate the ability to identify and express an information need, and plan a search strategy to
meet it, by:
- Clearly articulating the question or issue
- Outline an action plan
- Identifying how the information will be used:
- Research
- Decision making (patient care, community needs,
etc.)
- Consumer education
- Demonstrate knowledge about information resources relevant to their field by:
- Identifying key print and electronic resources
- Textbooks and reference sources
- Databases (bibliographic and full text)
- Internet sites
- Journals
- Accessing and retrieving information from on and
off campus using relevant resources such as:
- Online Catalogs
- UNC-CH Health Sciences Library homepage
- Internet
- Selecting, filtering, evaluating, and reconciling information on a topic by:
- Identifying the factors that influence the accuracy and validity of information
- Discriminating among types of information sources
in terms of:
- Currency
- Format
- Authority
- Relevance
- Availability
- Using multiple information sources
- Exhibit good information skills by:
- "Maintaining a healthy skepticism about the quality and validity of all information." (AAMC)
- "Making decisions based on evidence, when such is available, rather than opinion." (AAMC)
- Being aware of and correctly applying copyright and intellectual property guidelines and regulations
- Adapting to the ever changing skills need for information management
- Create and manage personal database using a standard bibliographic formatting software, including:
- Downloading information from a database or web site
- Entering information not available by downloading
- Using the information to create papers and bibliographies
- Refer to and use relevant information resources in courses, tutorials, or information pages by:
- Identifying and selecting appropriate print and
electronic resources
- Using web tools to incorporate excerpts from or links to information resources
HSL's role:
- Work with faculty and student by providing:
- Instruction based on sound educational principles
- One-on-one assistance in person, electronically, or
using other appropriate methods
- Organized course integrated sessions with feedback to
students and faculty
- Web-based online modules, links to resources and
instructional materials, or other relevant tools for general or course
specific purposes
- Transition skills between the academic and practice settings
- Evaluation
- Observation of student behavior
- Direct feedback to and from students and faculty
- Testing mechanisms
- Indications that alumni are using these skills
School's role:
- Work with librarians to build information competencies
- Adopt core information competencies
- Provide opportunities for accomplishing the
competencies within existing curricula
- Require demonstrated evidence of achievement of the
competencies by time of graduation
- Promote the value of attaining these competencies as
part of being a successful health professional
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