Best Practice Example

Name: Jenny Schmidt
Title: Reference & Information Literacy Librarian
Institution: Alverno College Library
Street Address: 209C LA Bldg, 3400 South 43rd Street
City/State/Zip: Milwaukee, WI 53234
Phone: 414-382-6355
Email: jennifer.schmidt@alverno.edu

Title of practice of implementation method: Creating & Applying a Company Profile

Primary Audience: undergraduates
Secondary Audience:

Describe the practice: I helped develop this assignment idea for a class entitled Advanced Writing : Professional Applications. It's a 300-level Professional Communications class where students need to perform company research for a single 'client' and then create several professional writing pieces for the company/organization. After researching the company, the students prepare a detailed company profile and then draw upon their profiles in order to write a number of original pieces for the company (e.g. press release, nonfiction feature story, web site content, etc...external and some internal communication pieces).

The library class now consists of about 20 minutes of librarian-led instruction followed by 30 minutes of students hands-on time on the library's computers. The in-class activity consists of having the students conduct company research online and work on their profiles. Along with this, there is one part of the final class assessment where students are asked to write up a 1-2 page description and reflection piece about the process used to conduct research. The student must also submit a final bibliography that features all the sources used for the profile and any of her writing pieces.

Librarian Role:
* Work with faculty to determine the components to be included in the company profile and to offer suggestions for the final self assessment question that deals with the student's research process
* Teach students the process for conducting company research
* Introduce students to appropriate sources for company/organizational information (to include local, national and/or international levels)
* Teach students how to cite resources

Competencies addressed through this practice:
7. Organize, synthesize, integrate and apply the information
8. Self-assess the information-seeking processes used
3. Formulate and efficiently execute search queries appropriate for the information resource
5. Locate and retrieve relevant sources in a variety of formats from the global information environment.

Supporting materials/resources used and their format: A Powerpoint was used for the library class along with a few print handouts:

* The Company Profile (students had to include at least what was listed on our suggested profile document)
* Paths to Suggested Resources (a handout that includes a brief overview to company research and some resource suggestions)
* Business & Company Resource Center (handout for the Gale business database)
* Citing Electronic Resources
* Information Versus Research

Special Requirements: When students are looking for specific pieces of information as in this case (to fill in their profiles), they may want to be able to organize and synthesize the information they find online. Thus, it's a good idea to offer the class where the computers have both Web access and Microsoft Word. Then students could have the option to open up their company profiles at the same time they are doing research online. [You can also let them know in advance how important citing becomes in this scenario.] Not all of our library computers have Microsoft Office so we were somewhat limited last time by how many could do this.

Also depending on the level of technology being used on your campus, you might want to suggest that the students submit their completed writing pieces (and possibly their company profiles) to an online course (course management software) or to their online portfolios if this is available. If it's within course management software there could be room for some group discussion or peer feedback.

References consulted:

Would you provide the committee with a copy of any handouts? yes
Would you allow the committee to share this information on this web site and link to any online resources? yes

 

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