Referencing in Scientific Practice: a Course for PhD. Students at BUT

Abstract

The Central Library at Brno University of Technology (BUT) has a wide range of information literacy courses, workshops and instructions for students and academic staff. In the last three years PhD. students have become the main focus of the library educational activities. Besides e-learning courses about scientific publishing we prepared a blended-learning course about different aspect of citations, referencing and publication ethics. The course also focuses on electronic information resources, critical thinking and Open Access. These topics are really important for the students, but they do not feel competent enough. As most of the PhD. students at BUT lead seminars for undergraduate students, the aim of the course is not just to equip the PhD. students with the necessary knowledge, but they should also learn how to explain these topics to their own students. The study materials are provided in Moodle e-learning system where there are discussion forums, tests and tasks readily available for the students all the time. In the face-to-face lectures we use different creative techniques of teaching and working with information. Students learn the subject not just by reading the study materials, but also through actively engaging in different games and tasks. The relaxed atmosphere also helps students to discuss and question what they have learned and fix their knowledge. For evaluation of the impact of the course and students satisfaction we used few different methods – pre-testing and post-testing, evaluation questionnaire, artefacts analysis and focus group. Those tools helped us to identify the gaps in the knowledge, the topics that should be covered in lectures for PhD. students and teaching techniques that are effective. Students generally find the course beneficial for both their publishing and teaching experience and indicate that they have already used some of the knowledge and teaching techniques in their own teaching. They appreciate good communication within the course, informal atmosphere and the inclusion of creative techniques and game elements into learning. Many have explicitly expressed that the lessons were form of relaxation for them, but also associated with the transmission of quality educational content. They considered meeting face to face associated with e-learning support as a convenient way of learning. They judged the e-learning part as exceptionally good, but personal contact is also important for them. In the best practice presentation we aim to share our experiences with teaching information literacy topics using non-formal activities and present the information we received from the evaluation methods we used.