Undergraduate Research Programs and the University Library · Both UROP and the library seek to...
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Background The University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) is an early engagement program open to all campus first and second year students as well as students newly transferred from community colleges. The program began in 1988 as a program to improve the retention and academic success of diverse students but since 1992 has been open to all first and second year students. Students work on faculty research projects as research assistants, often leading to a more independent piece of work during the academic year either for academic credit or work study support if part of the students’ financial aid package. The program continues to recruit and engage diverse students and view undergraduate research as a unique mechanism for helping students successfully transition to college. Recognizing that most first and second year students may not possess the technical skills faculty are looking for in student research assistants, that faculty may be hesitant or not have the time to provide instruction in basic skills, and to encourage faculty to participate in the program UROP and the University Library formed a strategic partnership to help students develop competencies by offering skill-building workshops. These workshops are open exclusively to UROP students through an on-line registration system developed by the UM Library. These workshops serve UROP’s mission to promote the academic success of underserved populations who may not have the same skill set as other undergraduates. The workshops are also in keeping with the UM Library’s mission to promote information literacy by providing active learning venues that allow students to take advantage of the vast library resources available to them throughout their college and post-college careers. Both UROP and the library seek to encourage students to incorporate these newly acquired skills and competencies into their broader coursework. This poster will describe the program components of the collaboration between UROP and the UM Library, lessons learned and future directions. Skill-Building Workshops Program Components After identifying potential projects from the approximate 1000 project descriptions, students apply directly to the faculty mentor. UROP students work on research and scholarly projects across campus and the required skill sets are as varied as the departments in which they will work. In submitting the online project application, the faculty mentor has the opportunity to check workshops students should take to enhance their contribution to the project. To help students identify workshops addressing skills needed for their specific projects, in fall 2009 the library developed an online self-assessment survey specifically for UROP students (see Figure 1). Upon completion of a simple check-list, the student receives a list of recommended workshops including descriptions (see Figures 2-3). In addition to managing the online workshop registration system, the UM Library also provides subject specialist librarians to teach several of the workshops (See Table ). Depending on the subject, these workshops are held in the Shapiro Undergraduate Library or one of other 15 libraries across the campus. This serves the purpose of bringing students into the library, familiarizing themselves with the resources, meeting librarian(s) face to face with the intent that students will utilize the facilities and expertise provided by the UM Library throughout their undergraduate careers and beyond. Lessons Learned The workshops offer benefits to the student entering the research environment. • As illustrated by these participant comments, workshops can serve to alleviate the student’s experience of being overwhelmed when faced with the expectations of performing in a real-world research or scholarly environment working alongside world-renowned researchers and experts in their fields. • In specifying the necessary qualifications a student must possess, the project description may list previous course work or enrollment in specific workshop early in the fall semester. Thus the provision of skill-building workshops also opens the door for students with limited experience who otherwise would not be qualified to apply to projects of interest. • The topics covered are in such demand that we have also received requests from other members of the research team to attend, and when space is available, honor those requests. Despite the positive impact to students taking advantage of the workshops, there are many students who do not register for workshops. To address this, we will institute these steps Fall 2013: • At the beginning of the fall semester, the focus of the UROP Peer Advisors is to orient their students to UROP and help them find appropriate projects. Contact is through required seminars and individual meetings as well as group meetings focusing on the project search. We will add to the PA’s student file the list of workshops with check boxes to indicate which are required for the type of project the student is looking for. Once the student does have a project, the items to be checked include that the student has had a discussion with the project mentor about which skills are needed, whether the student already has the skill and, if not, that the student has registered for and attended those workshops. • When designing their first seminars, we will encourage the Peer Advisors to invite a student participating in their second year in UROP as part of the Research Scholars Program to address the seminar and give tips on what they would do differently if they were a first year UROP student again. Expanding on the success of the initial collaboration to provide skill-building workshops, the UROP-Library partnership is expanding to include additional program components and original research. Future Directions The University of Michigan Library and the UROP are expanding their collaborations to conduct original research exploring undergraduate mentoring in the humanities and comparing effectiveness of two instructional modalities. Marginalia We are seeking funding for our project “Marginalia: a digital humanities project” to document research and mentoring trajectory among junior faculty in the humanities. UROP students are focal to the operationalizing of the project under the direction of the Co-investigators representing four of the UM libraries and UROP. Assessment in Action Grant The University of Michigan Library and UROP have partnered on a recent initiative through the Association of College and Research Libraries called Assessment in Action. The University of Michigan is one of 76 institutions around the country awarded a grant to work on assessment projects to create a community of practice in order to further student success in the area of information literacy. The goal of our project is to evaluate the success of two instructional approaches. Instruction occurs within scheduled UROP peer groups as well as in open workshops that students self-select to attend. Our question is whether students learn more in a mandatory peer-group setting than those who self-select to attend an open workshop. Data will be gathered from multiple points such as student knowledge retained from self-reported surveys, the workshop checklist completed by the student and peer advisor, an active learning assessment where students perform certain research tasks, peer advisors’ evaluations of students’ abilities, and course GPA. These results will be a key factor in shaping our instruction collaboration with UROP. Conclusions The university library affords valuable resources for undergraduate research programs. Forming an active partnership enhances the mission of both entities, and, most importantly, enhances the experience of students embarking on their first experiences with outside the classroom research and scholarly activities. Undergraduate Research Programs and the University Library: Partnering for Success University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Katy Downs, Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Amanda Peters, Library Student Feedback Student finishing his first year on a UROP Humanities project “I remember feeling overwhelmed when I first began working on my research project and I had to search for historical documents and information within the vast records of the University libraries. My involvement with UROP has helped me overcome this inhibition, and has allowed me to navigate the University’s libraries for use in my both research and academic requirements.” Workshop Evaluation Question: What will you do differently as a result of this session? "I will search my topic in different ways and also evaluate the sources more critically, asking myself if they are biased and making sure I really analyze them instead of just accepting the information." "As a result of this session, I will be able to do research on my own time to gain a deeper understanding of my UROP project. Before I only read papers my sponsor gave me, but now I know how to find papers from other researchers through outside resources. " Workshop: Deciphering the Biomedical Literature "This session was very helpful in learning about the peer review process. I am now more aware of what it takes to write and publish a credible paper." Workshop: Scholarly Resources for Social Sciences Research "This session gave me a more thorough understanding of the resources available to me through the University. I feel less overwhelmed now in approaching library resources like databases. This has been very helpful, and I look forward to exploring the databases. Thank You!" Taught by UM Librarians Taught by non-librarians Academic Research with Google Introduction to Statistics Terminology Deciphering the Biomedical Literature Keeping a Lab Notebook EndNote Matlab Essentials of Library Research SPSS Excel STATA GIS Google Sites 101 Mendeley Photoshop PowerPoint Qualtrics New this Fall: Lab Math Refworks Scholarly Resources for Biomedical Research Scholarly Resources for Engineering Research Scholarly Resources for Humanities Research Scholarly Resources for Natural Sciences Research Scholarly Resources for Social Sciences Research Skill-Building Workshops
Transcript of Undergraduate Research Programs and the University Library · Both UROP and the library seek to...
BackgroundThe University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) is an early engagement program open to all campus first and second year students as well as students newly transferred from community colleges. The program began in 1988 as a program to improve the retention and academic success of diverse students but since 1992 has been open to all first and second year students. Students work on faculty research projects as research assistants, often leading to a more independent piece of work during the academic year either for academic credit or work study support if part of the students’ financial aid package. The program continues to recruit and engage diverse students and view undergraduate research as a unique mechanism for helping students successfully transition to college. Recognizing that most first and second year students may not possess the technical skills faculty are looking for in student research assistants, that faculty may be hesitant or not have the time to provide instruction in basic skills, and to encourage faculty to participate in the program UROP and the University Library formed a strategic partnership to help students develop competencies by offering skill-building workshops.
These workshops are open exclusively to UROP students through an on-line registration system developed by the UM Library. These workshops serve UROP’s mission to promote the academic success of underserved populations who may not have the same skill set as other undergraduates. The workshops are also in keeping with the UM Library’s mission to promote information literacy by providing active learning venues that allow students to take advantage of the vast library resources available to them throughout their college and post-college careers. Both UROP and the library seek to encourage students to incorporate these newly acquired skills and competencies into their broader coursework.
This poster will describe the program components of the collaboration between UROP and the UM Library, lessons learned and future directions.
Skill-Building WorkshopsProgram Components After identifying potential projects from the approximate 1000 project descriptions, students apply directly to the faculty mentor. UROP students work on research and scholarly projects across campus and the required skill sets are as varied as the departments in which they will work. In submitting the online project application, the faculty mentor has the opportunity to check workshops students should take to enhance their contribution to the project.
To help students identify workshops addressing skills needed for their specific projects, in fall 2009 the library developed an online self-assessment survey specifically for UROP students (see Figure 1). Upon completion of a simple check-list, the student receives a list of recommended workshops including descriptions (see Figures 2-3).
In addition to managing the online workshop registration system, the UM Library also provides subject specialist librarians to teach several of the workshops (See Table ). Depending on the subject, these workshops are held in the Shapiro Undergraduate Library or one of other 15 libraries across the campus. This serves the purpose of bringing students into the library, familiarizing themselves with the resources, meeting librarian(s) face to face with the intent that students will utilize the facilities and expertise provided by the UM Library throughout their undergraduate careers and beyond.
Lessons LearnedThe workshops offer benefits to the student entering the research environment.• As illustrated by these participant comments, workshops can serve to alleviate the student’s experience of being overwhelmed when faced with the expectations of performing in a real-world research or scholarly environment working alongside world-renowned researchers and experts in their fields.
• In specifying the necessary qualifications a student must possess, the project description may list previous course work or enrollment in specific workshop early in the fall semester. Thus the provision of skill-building workshops also opens the door for students with limited experience who otherwise would not be qualified to apply to projects of interest.
• The topics covered are in such demand that we have also received requests from other members of the research team to attend, and when space is available, honor those requests.
Despite the positive impact to students taking advantage of the workshops, there are many students who do not register for workshops. To address this, we will institute these steps Fall 2013:
• At the beginning of the fall semester, the focus of the UROP Peer Advisors is to orient their students to UROP and help them find appropriate projects. Contact is through required seminars and individual meetings as well as group meetings focusing on the project search. We will add to the PA’s student file the list of workshops with check boxes to indicate which are required for the type of project the student is looking for. Once the student does have a project, the items to be checked include that the student has had a discussion with the project mentor about which skills are needed, whether the student already has the skill and, if not, that the student has registered for and attended those workshops.
• When designing their first seminars, we will encourage the Peer Advisors to invite a student participating in their second year in UROP as part of the Research Scholars Program to address the seminar and give tips on what they would do differently if they were a first year UROP student again.
Expanding on the success of the initial collaboration to provide skill-building workshops, the UROP-Library partnership is expanding to include additional program components and original research.
Future DirectionsThe University of Michigan Library and the UROP are expanding their collaborations to conduct original research exploring undergraduate mentoring in the humanities and comparing effectiveness of two instructional modalities.
Marginalia We are seeking funding for our project “Marginalia: a digital humanities project” to document research and mentoring trajectory among junior faculty in the humanities. UROP students are focal to the operationalizing of the project under the direction of the Co-investigators representing four of the UM libraries and UROP.
Assessment in Action GrantThe University of Michigan Library and UROP have partnered on a recent initiative through the Association of College and Research Libraries called Assessment in Action. The University of Michigan is one of 76 institutions around the country awarded a grant to work on assessment projects to create a community of practice in order to further student success in the area of information literacy.
The goal of our project is to evaluate the success of two instructional approaches. Instruction occurs within scheduled UROP peer groups as well as in open workshops that students self-select to attend. Our question is whether students learn more in a mandatory peer-group setting than those who self-select to attend an open workshop. Data will be gathered from multiple points such as student knowledge retained from self-reported surveys, the workshop checklist completed by the student and peer advisor, an active learning assessment where students perform certain research tasks, peer advisors’ evaluations of students’ abilities, and course GPA. These results will be a key factor in shaping our instruction collaboration with UROP.
ConclusionsThe university library affords valuable resources for undergraduate research programs. Forming an active partnership enhances the mission of both entities, and, most importantly, enhances the experience of students embarking on their first experiences with outside the classroom research and scholarly activities.
Undergraduate Research Programs and the University Library:Partnering for SuccessUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MichiganKaty Downs, Undergraduate Research Opportunity ProgramAmanda Peters, Library
Student FeedbackStudent finishing his first year on a UROP Humanities project“I remember feeling overwhelmed when I first began working on my research project and I had to search for historical documents and information within the vast records of the University libraries. My involvement with UROP has helped me overcome this inhibition, and has allowed me to navigate the University’s libraries for use in my both research and academic requirements.”
Workshop Evaluation Question: What will you do differently as a result of this session? "I will search my topic in different ways and also evaluate the sources more critically, asking myself if they are biased and making sure I really analyze them instead of just accepting the information."
"As a result of this session, I will be able to do research on my own time to gain a deeper understanding of my UROP project. Before I only read papers my sponsor gave me, but now I know how to find papers from other researchers through outside resources. "
Workshop: Deciphering the Biomedical Literature "This session was very helpful in learning about the peer review process. I am now more aware of what it takes to write and publish a credible paper."
Workshop: Scholarly Resources for Social Sciences Research"This session gave me a more thorough understanding of the resources available to me through the University. I feel less overwhelmed now in approaching library resources like databases. This has been very helpful, and I look forward to exploring the databases. Thank You!"
Taught by UM Librarians Taught by non-librarians
Academic Research with Google Introduction to Statistics TerminologyDeciphering the Biomedical Literature Keeping a Lab NotebookEndNote Matlab Essentials of Library Research SPSS Excel STATA GIS Google Sites 101MendeleyPhotoshop PowerPointQualtrics New this Fall: Lab MathRefworksScholarly Resources for Biomedical ResearchScholarly Resources for Engineering ResearchScholarly Resources for Humanities ResearchScholarly Resources for Natural Sciences ResearchScholarly Resources for Social Sciences Research
Skill-Building Workshops
