Michael Wesch details an assignment he gave his undergraduate class to read 94 articles before the next class session. Sound impossible?
The students used ZohoCreator to enter their citations and self-written abstracts. Wesch noted that the students who got their readings in first (each student was assigned to find five articles on 'anonymity') had an easier job than the students who put off the assignment (and had to try to find articles that weren't yet listed in the database.)
The final outcome is here (I'd love to know what they used to put together this database.)
I had a few thoughts on this assignment. Of course, I wondered, first and foremost, if Wesch worked with a librarian on this. (I'm paid to wonder that.)
Did the students receive instruction (from Wesch or anyone else) on searching scholarly databases? That part of the process isn't apparent. The quality of the articles is very scattered. White papers, conference proceedings (some back to 1997), law journal articles, web pages, Google Books... It looks like some students used Google Scholar, some used ProQuest and other library databases, others just searched the Web. The quality of student-contributed abstracts is also very inconsistent.
While this is a noble assignment---a community-created reading list for the class---I think the outcome could have had more utility for the class. These are not the best, most accessible and readily understood articles on anonymity for the undergraduate reader. What would the students gain from this reading list?
Criticism aside, I can see how this assignment was powerful in the context of Wesch's class, and how it could be refined further to provide more useful readings for students.
Here's how I would do this assignment:
1) Teach the students how to search for articles on anonymity in specific library databases that are undergraduate friendly, discussing and brainstorming good keywords for a more focused search on the specific aspects of anonymity being explored in class.
2) Help the students learn how to use Refworks and create a Shared folder for the class in the Penn State Shared area. Create an rss feed for the Shared folder. (Admittedly, this is a solution only applicable for Refworks-subscribing institutions)
3) Give students time, in class, to search for five articles and add them to the Refworks Shared area.
4) Discuss what makes an effective abstract, and ask students to review their contributed articles and author the accompanying abstracts prior to the next class.
5) Encourage students to continue keyword tagging and adding articles to the Refworks Shared area throughout the semester. No need to republish the selected articles in another database---the Shared folder and feed are all that is needed.
There's no doubt that this is a cool assignment. It's also a ripe opportunity to help students learn effective, focused techniques for finding, selecting and annotating articles that are relevant to the class.
The students used ZohoCreator to enter their citations and self-written abstracts. Wesch noted that the students who got their readings in first (each student was assigned to find five articles on 'anonymity') had an easier job than the students who put off the assignment (and had to try to find articles that weren't yet listed in the database.)
The final outcome is here (I'd love to know what they used to put together this database.)
I had a few thoughts on this assignment. Of course, I wondered, first and foremost, if Wesch worked with a librarian on this. (I'm paid to wonder that.)
Did the students receive instruction (from Wesch or anyone else) on searching scholarly databases? That part of the process isn't apparent. The quality of the articles is very scattered. White papers, conference proceedings (some back to 1997), law journal articles, web pages, Google Books... It looks like some students used Google Scholar, some used ProQuest and other library databases, others just searched the Web. The quality of student-contributed abstracts is also very inconsistent.
While this is a noble assignment---a community-created reading list for the class---I think the outcome could have had more utility for the class. These are not the best, most accessible and readily understood articles on anonymity for the undergraduate reader. What would the students gain from this reading list?
Criticism aside, I can see how this assignment was powerful in the context of Wesch's class, and how it could be refined further to provide more useful readings for students.
Here's how I would do this assignment:
1) Teach the students how to search for articles on anonymity in specific library databases that are undergraduate friendly, discussing and brainstorming good keywords for a more focused search on the specific aspects of anonymity being explored in class.
2) Help the students learn how to use Refworks and create a Shared folder for the class in the Penn State Shared area. Create an rss feed for the Shared folder. (Admittedly, this is a solution only applicable for Refworks-subscribing institutions)
3) Give students time, in class, to search for five articles and add them to the Refworks Shared area.
4) Discuss what makes an effective abstract, and ask students to review their contributed articles and author the accompanying abstracts prior to the next class.
5) Encourage students to continue keyword tagging and adding articles to the Refworks Shared area throughout the semester. No need to republish the selected articles in another database---the Shared folder and feed are all that is needed.
There's no doubt that this is a cool assignment. It's also a ripe opportunity to help students learn effective, focused techniques for finding, selecting and annotating articles that are relevant to the class.
Ellysa, thanks for this post. I have a question about RefWorks in comparison to Endnote. I have not used the online features in EndNote yet, but I am intruigued by RefWorks especially if it could be a cloud solution for my references (I use EndNote to take reading notes too, so I would want to share some references but not others, or some fields in a reference, but not others). Also, can I import references from EndNote and do I need to be online to use RefWorks?
Hi Chris!
Refworks is a great cloud solution for storing and sharing references. The only part of it that I'm not a fan of is Refworks' integration with Word (via Write N Cite). I think Zotero or Endnote are better choices in that area.
If you want share some fields in a reference (but not all), you can make duplicates of the references you want, deleting the fields you don't want exposed in the references selected for the Shared folder.
You can definitely import references from Endnote---they just need to be saved as a text file in .ris format. Also, you can use Refworks offline--it involves using Write-N-Cite---the Word integration piece. I've never tried it, but if you do, I'd love to hear what you think of it. More info is here: http://www.refworks.com/RefWorks/help/Working_Offline.htm
Let me know if there's anything additional that I can help out with!