Assessment #3 – Assignment 3 Report on searching activities
Relevant graduate qualities
GQ 1 Operate effectively with and upon a body of knowledge
GQ 2 Prepared for life-long learning in pursuit of personal development and excellence in professional practice
GQ 3 Effective problem solver, capable of applying logical, critical, and creative thinking to a range of problems
GQ 4 Can work both autonomously and collaboratively as a professional
GQ 6 Communicate effectively
Max words required = 1500
Max value = 30 marks
Report on searching activities
Assignment 3 requires you to build on your earlier experiences and reflect on them in the context of an authentic \’live\’ reference/information service.
Background
This assessment provides you with the opportunity to experience reference service delivery and answering enquiries first hand, with the support of a mentor. In practice, this means you will need to spend the equivalent of one whole day on site in a library with a mentor. You need to spend half the day on the information desk (or equivalent) and half a day answering deferred queries received by the library i.e. those received either by email or letter or received in person and deferred because the query could not be answered whilst the customer was at the library.
Please discuss your choice of library first with the Course Coordinator as you will need to negotiate this assignment in advance with a suitable library and mentor.
Assessment task – Report
Based on your experience of spending one day at the library, prepare a report for your Course Coordinator. The focus of this report is for you to identify the key issues and main points of the theory and experiences that you have undertaken and applied through Assignments 1 and 2 and to critically reflect, analyse and evaluate how this relates to your one day experience in an authentic live setting.
Students need to integrate and refer to information from professional and academic literature in their report and include a reference list.
The report format should include a Title page, Contents list, Conclusions, Recommendations, Reference list and Appendices.
The Appendices should include meaningful feedback/comments from your mentor(s) on your applied learning. The inclusion of the comments component will be assessed not the actual comments.
Your report on the one day placement should address:
a) in person enquiries
b) asynchronous written/ deferred or virtual research queries
c) synchronous virtual research queries* (*if the library you attend provides this service. )
Your report should include:
1. Your experience during the one day placement (Evidence of extensive application, evaluation and understanding of key concepts during the one day placement).
Some of the issues you may wish to consider in the one day placement are (this list is not prescriptive): * If you have the opportunity to conduct a reference interview how did you find the experience? If you were only able to observe a reference interview being conducted how did your experience measure against the theory and evaluation you experienced through assignments 1 and 2.
*What kind of service standards were in place?
* What information literacy issues did you observe or encounter? What strategies might you use or
suggest to overcome these?
* What ethical/legal issues did you encounter if any? What strategies did you use or might use to
overcome these?
* Briefly describe the types of enquiries you encountered and give examples.
* How did you begin to identify appropriate resources and devise a search strategy in the given time
frame?
*What search strategies did you use? Did you need to modify them?
* How did you apply what you have learnt in the live context of assessing (in a short time frame) that the
resources were
appropriate for the enquiry?
* Can you briefly describe the outcome of your research query? Did the client require further work or
feedback?
* What were your initial expectations of how to cope in this environment? Were they fulfilled?
2.Critique and level of reflective analysis of key concepts
* You will need to demonstrate your understanding, analysis and critiquing of key concepts and theory
throughout the report.
3. Application and Evaluation of the Experience – some issues to consider in this section include:
* What are your reflections on your initial expectations about delivering information services at the beginning
of the semester and how have these expectations evolved over the semester.
*Your Conclusions and Recommendations could include addressing what have you learnt and can apply to
your own future practice.
Assignment Instruction in 1) Assessment_03_Instructions.pdf
Placement Details in 2) One_day_placement_in_library_details
Feedback sheet(please follow how the instructor is going to evaluate my assignment) in 3) Assignment 3 feedback sheet .doc
Assignment 3 is basically a continuation of Assignment 1 and Assignment 2, b
