Engineering design and information literacy in the PSET division

BY MICHAEL FOSMIRE

PILLAR: Learning

Over the past semester the Physical Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PSET) Division has been heavily involved in instructional initiatives surrounding engineering design. Engineering design is the fundamental method that engineers use to solve problems, so embedding information literacy into the design process from the very beginning (indeed in the first year) helps Purdue produce better, more informed graduates.

ENGR 131 — This first-year course, required of all engineering majors, provides their first experience with the design process. Amy Van Epps was eagerly sought after to participate in “Teaching in a Second Discipline” to be the lead instructor for one section of this class. We already had an information literacy component to the course, and this opportunity allowed her to get back into the course and fine-tune the information literacy components, ultimately leading to the course being put forward for consideration as a core curriculum course to meet the information literacy foundational outcomes.

TECH 120 — Jeremy Garritano has been an active and successful participant in the IMPACT program, acting as liaison for several courses in the sciences and engineering. He has frequently persuaded participants to incorporate information literacy activities in their classes, but perhaps his most successful collaboration has been with TECH 120, a first-year course required for all technology majors (sound familiar?). This course focuses on what it means to be a technologist, including, again, a strong emphasis on learning about the design process. Through the guidance of Garritano, TECH 120 has also put the course forward to meet the information literacy core curriculum foundational outcome.

EPICS — Megan Sapp Nelson has been a team advisor for Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) since her arrival at Purdue. Noticing that student engineering design teams struggle with understanding the needs of their clients, and making the connection that a client interview isn’t that much different from a reference interview, she developed a process based on library science principles to assist students in eliciting the information they need and incorporating those needs into their design.

Re-alignment of Learning Spaces
Although it doesn’t fit nicely into my theme for this column, I want to give a big shout out to Lil Conarroe for her leadership in revamping the Physics Library space. Spearheading an overdue reference weeding project and merging the current journals with our new books (and our sci-fi collection) we were able to make a cozy reading area and still have room for a nice collaborative learning space complete with whiteboards, moveable furniture and a projector. Many thanks to Brad Heiss and Dale White for scrounging up the parts to make this happen.

Open Access Week activities

PILLAR: Scholarly Communication

The Libraries celebrated Open Access (OA) week by recognizing a graduate student who has contributed to promoting “global access to knowledge” by advocating that authors retain rights over their articles so they can deposit them in publicly accessible repositories like e-Pubs. Mel Chua, a PhD student in Engineering Education is shown here accepting an award presented on behalf of the Libraries by Mark Smith, dean of the Graduate School and Michael J. and Katherine Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Chua became an advocate of open access after working with Amy Van Epps on a project to expand the capability of Olin College (Chua’s alma mater) to create a repository similar to e-Pubs. Chua has even blogged about open access issues she’s discussed with Donna Ferullo, director of the University Copyright Office.

Also, a group of graduate students came to watch videos on open access topics (such as http://www.phdcomics.com/comics
/archive.php?comicid=1533), eat pizza and ask questions during a panel after the award was presented. Panel members included Smith, Chua, Ferullo and Ada Emmett, special assistant to the dean for scholarly communication. Students learned how easily they could be barred from posting their own work on the web IF they didn’t negotiate rights with publishers.

A big thank you to those who helped make the OA event successful, including Jim Mullins, Carole Tolley, Jamie Seebald and the OA Week Committee members Emmett, Ferullo, Beth McNeil, Dave Scherer, Maribeth Slebodnik, Charles Watkinson and Scott Brandt.

Libraries lead in information literacy

PILLAR: Learning

On October 1, 2009, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation establishing October as National Information Literacy Awareness Month and earlier this fall Governor Daniels proclaimed the first week of October as Indiana Information Literacy Week. Information literacy, or the ability to find, evaluate, and use information effectively, is key in preparing students for competitiveness in the job market, making informed life decisions, and being actively involved in a democratic society. Information literacy lays a solid foundation for lifelong learning.

At Purdue Libraries many librarians are involved in information literacy-related activities: teaching, conducting research and participating in professional associations. And, we are privileged to have two faculty members who are experts in information literacy, Sharon Weiner and Clarence Maybee.

Sharon Weiner, professor and W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy joined Libraries in June 2009. As the Booker Chair she conducts research on information literacy and represents Purdue to develop collaborations and projects with regional, national and international education, business, government and non-profits. She is Vice-President of the National Forum on Information Literacy, http://infolit.org/. As reported in the last issue of INSIDe, governors in twenty states, including Indiana, have issued Information Literacy Awareness Proclamations. Weiner is leading this important nation-wide effort. Activities like these bring recognition to Purdue and enhance the reputation of the Libraries. She reports to the Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins.

Clarence Maybee, assistant professor and information literacy specialist, joined Libraries in Sept. 2011. Maybee coordinates the Libraries information literacy program. He is active in IMPACT, Purdue’s course redesign initiative, http://www.purdue.edu/impact/index.html, is a member of the Undergraduate Curriculum Council that reviews courses for inclusion in the new core curriculum, and recently led a campus-wide workshop to help faculty prepare their courses to meet the core curriculum’s information literacy outcome. He reports to the associate dean for academic affairs, Beth McNeil.

In her role as associate dean for academic affairs, McNeil is the liaison to the colleges’ associate deans for undergraduate academic affairs and a member of the campus academic affairs leadership group. There she represents the Libraries and raises awareness of information literacy and learning initiatives with the campus associate deans.

PILLAR: Scholarly Communication

There is more good news for libraries in the legal arena. On Oct. 10 the Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of HathiTrust against the Authors Guild. The Authors Guild had filed a lawsuit against HathiTrust and five universities claiming that mass digitization is copyright infringement. The HathiTrust is a digital repository of materials that were scanned in part due to the Google book project. The materials in HathiTrust were contributed by many university libraries.

The Court found fair use in three areas; preservation, non-expressive use such as text mining and facilitating access for the blind and visually impaired. The purpose of HathiTrust is for non-profit educational uses and the works are transformative in that they are being used for a different purpose than the original, intended purpose. Other than works in the public domain, HathiTrust does not provide access to the full text of materials still protected by copyright except to the blind and visually impaired. The Court also emphasized that libraries can always raise fair use as a defense and do not have to rely solely on section 108 of the Copyright Act which is the libraries exception.

It is a major victory for libraries. However, there is also a cautionary note from the case. Digitizing works that are still protected by copyright and making the full text of them available to the public without the specific uses articulated in the HathiTrust lawsuit would be beyond the scope of fair use.

In other copyright court cases, UCLA has prevailed in their lawsuit more on technical issues than copyright issues but a win nonetheless. The UCLA case involved streaming video to classrooms. The Kirtsaeng v. Wiley case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 29 with a decision in the spring of 2013. The Kirtsaeng case involves a challenge to the First Sale Doctrine for works manufactured outside the United States.

Distinguished lecturer redefines 'innovation'

PILLAR: Learning

Vijay Vaitheeswaran, China business and finance editor of "The Economist" and author of “Need, Speed and Greed,” was the tenth speaker of the Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series on Oct. 18.

Before his lecture Vaitheeswaran met with students from the Certificate Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, a 15-credit program composed of a series of five courses and experiential programs combining textbook theory with real-world practice, teaching the fundamentals of market analysis, financial statements, funding sources, leadership and team-building.

During the lecture Vaitheeswaran outlined what he thinks to be some of the worst global problems facing today’s societies around the world and continued by explaining his ideas for how these problems can be addressed. He challenged the audience to rethink the definition of innovation — fresh thinking that creates value — and discussed ideas for creating more innovation in today’s world.

Libraries Staff A-Z

Bryan Shaffer
Production and Marketing Manager
Purdue University Press

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job and why?
A. Although I like to help authors publish their book(s) and also walk through a bookstore and see one of our products on the shelf and know that I had a hand in getting it there; what I really enjoy about my job is working with our student interns and seeing them learn on the job, advance their skills and then apply them to getting their own job after graduation.

Q. How long have you worked in the Libraries and at Purdue?
A. I like to add in my student work when people ask this question, so in total it is a little over 15 years (3.5 years as a student; about 14 months as a full-time temporary employee after I graduated; and about 10.5 years as an official employee). I might add this has all been consecutively with the Press except for two summers when I worked at a Scout camp and one month when I had mono.

Q. What is one unforgettable experience that has happened to you or your coworkers while working in the library?
A. The one unforgettable experience is an entire year — 2008. The Purdue Press lost a dear colleague; hired a great editor; said goodbye to a director; and I personally began a year-long term as acting director. It was a physically and mentally exhausting year for everyone at Press, but through hard work and determination by everyone we came out of it for the better and 2009 proved to be a turn-around year with many great new beginnings. It was very much so an unforgettable experience and a learning one for us all.

Q. What is your favorite book, website, movie or database?
A. I don’t have many favorites for books, which may seem odd, but I mostly enjoy biographies and books on leadership and especially servant leadership. Favorite movie is “Tombstone.”

Q. Coffee, tea, water or soft drink?
A. Coffee and water seem to be my habits, but I enjoy all from time-to-time.

Q. What do you like to do for fun?
A. I’m very involved in Scouting and am excited that my oldest son was able to join this year. I also enjoy Purdue sports (win or lose, I’m a true fan), spending time outdoors and with my family.

Q. Feel free to include any information about yourself that you would like to share with the staff?
A. My wife, Candace, and I enjoy trying to keep up with our two boys, Harrison (age 7) and Marshall (age 3). I enjoy volunteering, sometimes too much, and currently volunteer in Scouting (in a few roles) as mentioned before, as an adviser to the Purdue Reamer Club and I serve on the board of directors for the Friends of Columbian Park Zoo.