The document summarizes a partnership between Wallace Library at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and RIT's First Year Enrichment (FYE) program. The library gave tours to FYE students and created an online guide to library resources to support an interdisciplinary research assignment. Library staff provided an interactive instruction session and individual consultations. While students struggled with topics and citations, the collaboration increased student awareness of library services and resources. The partnership provides a model for engaging first-year students.

1. Partnering for First Year Success Jennifer Freer and Roman Koshykar Wallace Library, Rochester Institute of Technology 2008 WNY/O ACRL Spring Conference May 2, 2008

2. Overview Background – the Library and First Year Enrichment (FYE) Designing the assignment Creating a guide to resources Interactive instruction sessions Follow-up – were sources in student papers any better?

3. First Year Enrichment at RIT First Year Enrichment (FYE) program – first implemented in 2000 – continually evolving Currently: one credit, once a week course meeting during Fall (FYE I) and Winter (FYE II) quarters Intent is to introduce students to college life, teach time management/wellness skills, give details on campus policies and procedures, and highlight campus resources

4. Wallace Library and FYE RIT’s Wallace Library is an important campus resource – FYE appreciates this fact and incorporates library into curriculum FYE I (Fall Q) – all students tour library by section with their instructors – tour led by library staff members and student supervisors Tours conclude with a survey – have you used, heard of but not used, or not heard of 25 library services? Follow-up done in Spring Q (post-FYE II) – same survey sent, results compared – gauge change in use/awareness through first year at RIT

5. What about research instruction? RIT used to require Writing and Literature (W&L), where much basic library instruction was given W&L has been phased out as FYE has expanded No time during library tour to cover research methods, online searching, etc. Where are there new opportunities for basic library instruction for first year students?

6. New Opportunity for Collaborative First Year Library Instruction Late Fall 2007 – we were contacted by FYE instructor Prof. Karen Violanti Idea was to create business ethics assignment for IT and Networking students Interdisciplinary assignment - offered opportunity for internal partnership – liaison librarians from two colleges involved

7. Initial Meetings Details First meeting: brainstorming Instructor: scope of assignment, curricular goals Librarians: relevant library resources, thoughts on potential topics Next meeting: suggested potential assignment topics based on our survey of current trade magazines, having read instructor’s criteria

8. Curriculum goals Curriculum goals: Understands employer values and expectations Practices and understands the values of writing and speaking skills

9. Consensus list of topics

10. Resource List/Web Guide http://library.rit.edu/pubs/guides/fye/fye1.html Drew from respective subject fields (business and computing) to identify the resources students would use to find materials to support the research topics An interdisciplinary list of resources mutually agreed upon Categorized resources with links to preformatted “starter” searches – balancing need to assist with need to instruct

14. Interactive Instruction Sessions We presented a library instruction session to each of the five sections in the third week of the quarter Interactive - used Turning Point to create question slides and Keypads for student responses Builds in an element of active learning to generate more student interest Gives liaisons and instructor instant feedback to create some discussion during session, reinforce what we are teaching, and see how they are interpreting some of the material

15. Example of Question Slide

16. Example of Session Report

17. Student Presentations We offered one-on-one follow-up consultations, but no takers Last two weeks of class were group presentations – this allowed students to get early feedback on the assignments and have fellow students, librarians, and other staff asked questions that could help them polish their papers We attended some of these – gave us a chance to see resources they were using and to lead them to narrower topics by asking them questions

18. Student Presentations

19. Student Papers Biggest positives: Early connection to librarians and library resources for students Increased awareness of library resources and services Introduces them to the expectations of college-level research Use of clickers drew praise from students – students enjoyed being “involved”

20. Student Papers Biggest problems: Students still struggled with narrowing down topics Major problems with both in-text citations and works cited lists Students largely didn’t ask for help from us, though help was offered (for research and for citations)

21. Student Survey Attempted to briefly survey students in these FYE sections about their experience 9% response rate - may not be very representative Half of respondents said they didn’t use library resources – but 70% said they used the web guide we created Respondents frequently cited Google, Wikipedia, and news web sites as other sources Several positive comments about how helpful our presentation and guide were A few negative comments – primarily expressing displeasure over the assignment

22. Conclusion Instructor was very pleased with our close collaboration with her Interdisciplinary nature of the assignment is a big new direction for RIT instruction Brought two worlds together to provide expertise – business and computing – plus teaching expertise offered to librarians Beginnings of a working relationship with students during their first year Challenges remain: best way of introducing research expectations, assisting students with topic selection, and proper citation and citation formatting in particular

23. Together explore assignment opportunities around targeted outcomes to create topics with identified library resources Create web guide for class that acts as a single point of access for resources, strategies and contact information Present library instruction to the target class Offer students consultations at set times, by appointment or immediately after class Before due date, have students do short preview presentations of the projects to provide opportunity to ask questions and offer suggestions on information, content and overlooked resources Ask faculty member for feedback after projects are graded Initiate partnership with faculty member teaching freshmen/first years Model for Partnering with Faculty for First Year Success Freer/Koshykar Partnering For First Year Success WNY/O ACRL - May 2, 2008

24. Jennifer Freer Library Liaison E. Philip Saunders College of Business [email_address] IM me at bizlibrarian (AOL, MSN, Yahoo) Friend me on Roman Koshykar Library Liaison Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences [email_address] IM me at gccislibrarian (AOL, MSN, Yahoo) Friend me on More Questions? Feel free to contact us