Every day’s a heptathlon for the librarian

Well I’m looking forward to a bit of the old Olympics over the next few weeks, wonder how the Brits will do  – looking out for Tom Daley in the diving, such a nice lad, can I take him home? Wave 102 FM was proudly announcing how many Scots were in Team GB. I think it was about 31. I was in the gym at the time, being very un-0lympian yet equally smug. The Saltire is banned though, I could be amused at this but it may offend some of my regular readers.

Had a dream about work last night – got disciplined by Information Manager for playing too much Tetris. Chance would be a fine thing. I need the equivalent of a long orange one to make all my work problems fall into place.

Teaching is looming large on the agenda, busy updating and writing presentations, working out who’ll have IT accounts when, etc etc. Reassessments I’d forgotten about are back – will I never be shot of this assignment, which I was first marking in December? Really must get the old quality assurance hurdles cleared more smoothly otherwise liable to injure informatic hamstring.

Bloodstain spatters: the verdict

About to embark on a flurry of emails to first year forensic science students. They had four classes with librarians and several with IT trainers this semester, and have submitted a portfolio of 5 different assessments. The administration, scrutiny and marking experiences have been educational in themselves, but the submitted work is also fascinating.

The first library assessment is a structured literature search: the students choose a topic, list keywords and phrases, list resources searched and evaluate the effectiveness of their search. They also describe how they refined their search, and then list references for two of the items retrieved. Popular topics are forensic ballistics, blood spatter analysis, and fingreprints. I wince while reading the one on forensic odontology and bite mark analysis. At the top end, there’s some thoughtful reflection and analysis which is really pleasing. At the bottom end, the approach is minimalist and tells us what they think we want to hear about the evils of Wikipedia.

The second assessment is a 500 word evaluation/comparison of two websites. The students came up with their own list of evaluation criteria during the class, and recorded it on the class wiki. They’re supposed to refer to the agreed criteria in their assessments so it’s easy to spot who skipped the class! Referencing of websites foxes many of them. They are often preoccupied with design issues and fail to consider authority, currency and bias. I look up some of the sites myself but come over all queasy when there are pictures.