Chemical Information Instruction in Academe: Who Is Leading the

Research: Science and Education edited by

Andrea Twiss-Brooks University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637

Chemical Information Instruction in Academe: Who Is Leading the Charge? Jeremy R. Garritano* and F. Bartow Culp Chemistry Library, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2058 *[email protected]

Students should be able to use the peer-reviewed scientific literature effectively and evaluate technical articles critically.

The ACS Committee on Professional Training (CPT) states this quote in its Guidelines for the Professional Education of Undergraduates in Chemistry (1). No one disputes the importance of today's students needing to know how to articulate their information needs, how to choose correct sources, how to search those sources effectively and efficiently and, finally, how to organize and evaluate the results. As early as 1984, the ACS Task Force for the Study of Chemical Education noted in its Tomorrow report: “[E]very professional chemist must use a variety of printed sources as well as an increasing number of computerized databases. Further, the pace of change in information systems is greater than can be accommodated by self-help efforts” (2). In the present information-saturated environment, these competencies are paradoxically more difficult to achieve by today's students than they were a generation ago. Today, whether students need to find the melting point of acetanilide, the mechanism of the Diels-Alder reaction, or a biographical sketch of Glenn Seaborg, most of them will initially seek their answers from an online source. Frequently what students find is a large number of answers with no gauge of either the validity of the answers or the authority of the sources. In this flood of sometimes-dubious information, many valid resources, both online and in print, can be lost. Chemistry is arguably the most information-centric of the natural sciences, and it is therefore even more important that the chemistry curriculum includes many and varied opportunities for students to learn and practice information skills. Fortunately, the United States has a long history of including chemical information instruction (CII) in the curricula of its colleges and universities. In the first decades of the 20th century, American chemistry educators realized that the rapidly growing number and diversity of publications were making it virtually impossible for both researchers and students to keep up with the literature, even in their own areas of specialization. Courses in “chem. lit.”, taught by both librarians and chemistry faculty, were established at the University of Illinois (1913), the University of Pittsburgh (1914), and at Purdue University (1921). Somerville has reviewed CII activities from those early courses up to 1984, covering the number of courses taught, the course content, and who taught them (3). In a continuing effort to track the changes in CII, we have carried out a survey of ACS-approved colleges and universities that continues and expands the studies done by Somerville in 1984 and 1993, and summarizes how CII has changed over the last 20 years (4, 5). 340

Journal of Chemical Education

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Previous CII Surveys Prior to 1984, nearly all surveys reviewed by Somerville examined CII activity taught only within formal course settings, even though such courses were available in fewer than half of the institutions surveyed. Mainly these studies focused on (a) whether or not a course was taught, and (b) what was the course content. In 1983, the Education Committee of the ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF) created a survey instrument with a more practical approach (4). Its stated purpose was to help chemistry departments identify difficulties in CII implementation. Survey development took into account CII activities both inside and outside formal courses, and sought to assess the availability and quality of CII teaching resources in terms of available time, staff competence, and financial commitment. The survey results from 280 departments pointed out major obstacles in implementing CII, and challenged all involved parties to work to meet the CPT guidelines. The 1993 follow-up survey of 390 departments showed that the problems in CII implementation continued to center around these four areas (5): • Insufficient funding • Lack of subject faculty time and support • Lack of librarian support

Lack of access to instructional materials. These problems were further exacerbated by uncertainties concerning the increasing shift toward new modes of information access. 2005 CINF Survey The survey instrument was sent to the heads of chemistry departments that offered ACS-approved degrees at the time of the survey. Addresses were obtained from the CPT. Although the survey was sent to each department head, the cover letter did allow for the survey to be passed along to anyone who could best answer the survey questions, such as another chemistry instructor or a librarian. To encourage a significant number of responses, the authors offered to donate $1 to the ACS Project SEED for each survey returned. Of the 632 surveys sent out, 249 were returned, yielding a response rate of 39.4%. While this rate is lower than the 65.5% response from the 1993 survey, enough responses were obtained to be statistically significant for a confidence level of 95% with a margin of error of 5%. With a population of 632, the total sample size required to achieve the desired rate of error of 5% can be calculated by an equation described by Yamane (6): N 632 ¼ 245 ¼ n¼ 1 þ Ne2 1 þ 632ð0:052 Þ Where n is the sample size, N is the size of the total population, and e is the rate of error. Responses were analyzed as a whole and

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Vol. 87 No. 3 March 2010 pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. 10.1021/ed800085h Published on Web 02/09/2010

Research: Science and Education Table 1. Percentage of Institutions Offering CII as a Separate Course, by Survey Year Program

2005, %

1993, %

Table 2. Comparison by Survey Year of Who Serves as the Instructor in a Separate CII Course

1984, %

Instructor

2005, %

1993, %

1984, %

Overall

37

41.5

32

Faculty

74

72

69.0

% of all B.S.

33

32

30

Librarian

11

11

14.5

% of all M.S.

52

60

40

Jointly

13

17

16.5

% of all Ph.D.

36

40

32

Other

2

;

;

also by highest chemistry degree granted (B.S., M.S., or Ph.D.). The respondents were self-selecting so we did not obtain a true random sample; however, the response rates were similar across all levels: 40.1% of all B.S. (130 out of a possible 324), 37.9% of all M.S. (44 out of 116), and 39.1% of all Ph.D. granting institutions (75 out of 192). Core questions from the 1984 and 1993 surveys were kept, while some outdated questions were modified or dropped and additional questions added. The survey consisted of nine questions, with many of the questions having multiple parts. (See the supporting information for the full survey instrument.) Questions on the survey asked about the context in which chemical information was taught (separate class, within other courses, workshops, etc.) and who taught the content (faculty, librarians, etc.). Additional questions attempted to identify problems and barriers in providing chemical information instruction, what topics and resources were taught most frequently, and how instructors kept up with the latest trends and resources in chemical information. Finally, questions were included that specifically concentrated on Chemical Abstracts and SciFinder Scholar prevalence within the surveyed institutions. Several questions that were not answered by a significant number of the respondents were not able to be included in the analysis.

Table 3. Separate Chemical Information Courses Instructor by Program Type, 2005 Survey Data Instructor Faculty Librarian

B.S., % (N = 43) M.S., % (N = 22) Ph.D., % (N = 27) 79

95

48

5

5

30

Jointly

16

;

15

Other

;

;

7

Separate Chemical Information Courses

Table 2 shows the data from Table 1 detailing who has traditionally taught separate chemical information courses over time. Overall, the instances of a single faculty member as the sole instructor in a chemical information course has slightly increased while librarian involvement has slightly decreased. A comparison by institution type for the 2005 data in Table 3 shows clear differences in who is teaching CII at each level of institution. At B.S. and M.S. institutions, rarely do librarians teach the courses by themselves, and only in a minority of cases does a librarian jointly teach the course at a B.S. institution. At Ph.D. institutions, it becomes a little more balanced: a significantly greater number of librarians either teach on their own or jointly with a faculty member. The “other” category of instructor in Tables 2 and 3 accounts for two particular courses in which one was taught by informatics faculty members and the other was taught by a cancer information service specialist from the National Institutes of Health.

The first survey question focused on the various settings where chemical information was taught and who was teaching it. One major method by which a chemistry department might teach chemical information would be offering a separate credit course. The percentages of institutions offering such an undergraduate or graduate course over time, including data by type of institution, are given in Table 1. While the number of institutions offering any level of separate course has slightly decreased since 1993, performing a χ2 test on the 2005 and 1993 data shows no statistical difference between the two time periods. However, when looking at only undergraduate courses, a significant change emerges in the number of institutions requiring the separate course be taken. In 1993, 65% of institutions offering a separate course indicated that it was required for undergraduate majors. In 2005, this number had increased to 82% of institutions that offered a separate course. The χ2 value between the two is 8.20, greater than the value of 6.63 at a 0.01 level of significance. Therefore, even though fewer classes devoted to chemical information are being offered, of those that are, they are now significantly more likely to be in the required curriculum for undergraduate majors. Of the 10 schools that indicated they offer separate courses on chemical information for graduate students, 5 were institutions offering the M.S. and 5 were Ph.D. institutions.

Teaching Chemical Information within Other Courses CII can also be incorporated into other courses by devoting lectures to the topic, requiring the use of chemical information resources for projects, or merging chemical information principles into laboratory modules. In the 2005 survey, 21% of all institutions indicated that chemical information instruction was present within the framework of only one undergraduate or graduate course or lab compared to 34% in 1993. In addition, in 2005, 52% of institutions reported that chemical information instruction was spread across multiple courses or laboratories compared to 42% in 1993. Combining both percentages in order to compare data across time, 74% of institutions incorporated chemical information into other courses in 2005, compared to 76% in 1993 and 63% in 1984. While it appears little has changed since 1993 regarding the number of institutions incorporating chemical information into other courses, there appears to be a tendency toward spreading chemical information across multiple courses compared to simply including chemical information in one particular course. According to the survey responses, chemical information is most likely to be incorporated into organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, or undergraduate chemistry seminar courses. This same course distribution was observed in the 1993 study.

r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

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pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc

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Vol. 87 No. 3 March 2010

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Research: Science and Education Table 4. Comparison of Who Serves as the Instructor When CII Is Taught within Another Course Instructor

2005, %

Table 6. Comparison of Other Methods of Teaching Chemical Information

1993, % Methods

2005, 1993, 1984, % % %

Faculty

66

67

Librarian

26

16.5

Formal workshop or seminar series

17

10

;

Informal dissemination by faculty

50

44

41

Informal dissemination by librarians

27

27

;

Self-taught (using documentation, tutorials, etc.) 21

17

;

3

;

Jointly

33

28

Other

1

1

Table 5. Comparison by Program Type of Who Serves as the Instructor When CII Is Taught within Another Course (2005 Survey Data) Instructor Faculty

B.S., % (N = 95) M.S., % (N = 35) Ph.D., % (N = 51) 76

60

51

Librarian

22

3

49

Jointly

31

40

33

Other

;

;

2

Table 4 provides data on who has usually taught the chemical information component within other courses over time. Overall, faculty involvement has remained stable; however the likelihood of a librarian being the sole instructor or assisting faculty in teaching chemical information has increased since 1993. Percentages for Table 4, and subsequently Table 5, do not sum to 100% because multiple choices were possible. For example, one institution could have chemical information taught by a faculty member in the organic chemistry course, but then by a librarian for that department's seminar course. A comparison by institution type for the 2005 data in Table 5 shows clear differences in who is teaching within courses at each institutional level. At B.S. institutions, faculty are more likely to be teaching the chemical information component, although in some instances librarians are involved whether coteaching with a faculty member or not. This is in contrast to M.S. institutions where librarians are very unlikely to teach by themselves, though they seem to have more joint involvement than librarians at B.S. institutions. At Ph.D. institutions, faculty and librarians are equally likely to teach some component of chemical information by themselves, while still collaborating at a rate close to that found at B.S. and M.S. institutions. The “other” category of instructor in Tables 4 and 5 relating to the 2005 survey accounts for one instance in which an institution reported a teaching assistant was teaching the chemical information content. Other Methods of Teaching Chemical Information Besides incorporating chemical information instruction into credit courses, a variety of other methods exist for imparting efficient discovery and use of chemical information. Table 6 summarizes the frequency of such methods from the current and previous surveys. CII appears to be growing outside the traditional curriculum as the use of all of the alternative methods of teaching chemical information has increased or remained level over time. Problems and Difficulties in Providing Chemical Information Instruction Another survey question asked about problems and difficulties a given chemistry department has faced in providing CII. This question garnered a response from 212 institutions 342


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None

2

(85.1%); percentage responses across time are given in Table 7. While exact statements were not carried over from survey to survey, similar statements are grouped together in the table. Overall, the percentages of institutions experiencing particular problems or difficulties have remained level over time. The only significant changes appear to be in those areas related to faculty attitudes. In all cases, it appears that more faculty have made teaching chemical information a priority, they feel more comfortable teaching it, and faculty are more able to take the time to teach chemical information when compared to responses in 1993. Also, librarians have made themselves more available to teach or co-teach chemical information than in the past. Another issue emerges in looking at the institutions that cited insufficient funds for both print and electronic resources in the 2005 survey. Several institutions indicated financial barriers to providing the appropriate chemical information resources in both print and electronic formats: 25 B.S. (19% of all B.S. schools responding); 8 M.S. (18% of all M.S.); and 7 Ph.D. (9% of all Ph.D. institutions). With close to 20% of B.S. and M.S. institutions struggling to provide adequate resources in 2005, it can only be assumed that more institutions' budgets are strained in these difficult economic times. Using Chemical Abstracts and SciFinder Scholar Of particular interest are the survey questions dealing with Chemical Abstracts and SciFinder Scholar. When asked, “Does your library have a current print subscription to Chemical Abstracts?”, 70% of responding institutions indicated “yes” in 1993. In 2005, this number had plummeted to 17% of institutions having a current print subscription. By institution type (B.S., M.S., Ph.D.), the percentages in 1993 of institutions having a current print subscription were 55, 77, and 91%, respectively, compared to 12, 14, and 29%, respectively, of institutions in 2005 having a current print subscription. While significant, these results should not be surprising given the advent in 1995 of SciFinder Scholar. The widespread adoption of this user-friendly resource that provides online access to Chemical Abstracts, the MEDLINE database from the National Library of Medicine, as well as related databases, has allowed many institutions to cancel their print Chemical Abstracts subscription(s). A CPT Library Survey conducted in Fall 2000 indicated that 17% of all survey respondents had a current subscription to SciFinder Scholar (7). By the time of the 2005 CINF survey, this number had jumped to 62% of all survey respondents. Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), the provider of Chemical Abstracts and SciFinder Scholar, has steadily increased opportunities for access by providing a variety of programs in which multiple institutions share the same pool of concurrent users or “seats” for access to SciFinder Scholar. These programs appeal to smaller institutions with


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Research: Science and Education Table 7. Distribution of Problems and Difficulties in Providing Chemical Information Instruction Statement of Problem or Difficulty

2005, % (n = 212)

1993, % (n = 390)

1984, % (n = 280)

Curriculum too crowded for separate course

51

56

56

Not enough time in courses

29

27

26

Low priority for faculty

15

21

23

Faculty too busy

22

38

38

8

14

10

Not enough funds for print resources (2005)

20

;

;

Major reference works too expensive (1984)

;

;

25

Not enough funds for electronic resources (2005)

27

;

;

Online searching costs too expensive (1984)

;

;

43

Lack of appropriate curriculum materials (2005)

20

;

;

Lack of curriculum materials (1993, 1984)

;

12

19

Lack of practice questions (1993, 1984)

;

19

27

Lack of tests (1993, 1984)

;

7

17

Librarian unavailable

2

8

10

Librarian too busy

2

4

3

Librarian does not feel qualified to teach

8

7

7

Low priority for librarian

2

5

2

Insufficient access to computer lab

6

;

;

Other

8

14

;

Faculty do not feel qualified to teach

relatively few chemistry graduates. Comparison of the 2005 CINF survey to the CPT survey shows this general increase in adoption of SciFinder Scholar by B.S. and M.S. institutions. In the 2000 CPT Library Survey, only 3, 4, and 38% of B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. institutions, respectively, had current subscriptions to SciFinder Scholar. The 2005 survey data indicates that 41, 61, and 97% of B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. institutions, respectively, had access to SciFinder Scholar at the time of the survey. Furthermore, only 12% of all institutions in 2005 indicated a current subscription to both print Chemical Abstracts and SciFinder Scholar (5, 7, and 26% for B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. institutions, respectively). The means to pay for SciFinder Scholar were also examined in the survey. Of those who had a SciFinder Scholar subscription, 57% indicated taking advantage of either a discounted share program, bundling of seats, or further discount through a consortium. Most institutions that have SciFinder Scholar (93%) currently fund it from money from their library or library system, while only 10% indicated that the chemistry department provided any funding for the SciFinder Scholar subscription. Overall, only 7% of subscribing institutions indicated funding from multiple sources to help cover the costs of SciFinder Scholar. Of the 86 institutions (35%) that answered the survey question regarding reasons for not currently subscribing to SciFinder Scholar, 93% of these institutions indicated lack of funds as a reason, while 9% reported not finding partners for the share program and 3% cited barriers to implementing the software. Although multiple reasons could be selected, 71 institutions (29%) reported that lack of funds was the sole reason for not subscribing to SciFinder Scholar. CAS currently helps institutions find share partners so any difficulty in finding partners should continue to diminish. Additionally, CAS introduced a Web version of SciFinder Scholar in 2008 that should remove barriers related to software implementation.


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How Instructors Keep Current How faculty and librarians keep current in the field of chemical information is as relevant to the curriculum as how and in what context chemical information is taught. In 1993 the main strategies for chemical information instructors to stay current were through self-instruction (25%), by a colleague or mentor (15%), or via STN (14%) or CAS (13%) workshops. Of the respondents in the 2005 CINF survey, 91% answered the survey question relating to this concern. For these respondents, the main methods of staying current were through self-instruction (86%), attending conferences (36%), by learning from a colleague or mentor (31%), or by learning from the producer or vendor of a database (19%). While more instructors appear to be keeping current using a variety of methods, we note a sharp increase in many instructors relying on teaching themselves. In 2005, 30% of respondents indicated that the only means by which their chemical information instructors kept current was by being self-taught. Considering only the 92 institutions that indicated having a separate course on chemical information, the rate drops to 24% of respondents who reported that the only means by which their chemical information instructors kept current was by self-instruction. However, the χ2 value between the two percentages is 1.11, which is even less than the value of 3.84 at a 0.05 level of significance. Therefore, no significant difference emerges in the percentage of instructors who are self-taught, whether they teach a separate course on chemical information or not. The current survey did not attempt to evaluate the quality of chemical information taught to students; however, it is suggested that those chemical information instructors who rely solely on being self-taught should make sure they also are aware of other opportunities for training, such as at conferences, through vendors' visits, workshops, and so on. (See Table 8 for a full comparison between the 1993 and 2005 surveys.)


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Research: Science and Education Table 8. Distribution of Strategies CI Instructors Use To Keep Current Professional Development Strategy

2005, %

1993, %

CAS workshop(s)

16

13

STN workshop(s)

12

14

1

10

Dialog workshop(s) By producer or vendor of database

19

Attending conferences

36

5

By colleague or mentor

31

15

Self-taught

86

25

6

3

Local workshop(s)

8

3

2

1

10

4

Library school course Other a

Literature Cited

a

Locally produced manuals

Not an option in the 1993 survey.

Conclusion In the last 20 years, the changes in how information is produced, perceived, gathered, and used have been revolutionary, and the results of our survey and those CII surveys of 1984 and 1993 have shown that, for the most part, chemical information instruction has been keeping up with these changes. While the majority of CII continues to be provided by chemistry faculty, librarians play a significant role, and have increased their participation in CII within the context of subject courses. The occurrence of chemical information taught as a separate course in 2005 has, at 37% of the departments surveyed, remained fairly constant over this period. Nonetheless, “keeping up” in this fast-changing, information age is not enough. All practitioners of the chemical sciences, teachers and students alike, need to be able to use the best information tools at their disposal and at the highest level of sophistication possible, to succeed as true professionals. The statement by the 1984 ACS Task Force concerning the inadequacy of “self-help efforts” is even more valid today (2). Information competencies for chemistry undergraduates developed by the Special Libraries Association Chemistry Division are specifically targeted to librarians and educators to help “improve instruction and assessment of information literacy skills in chemistry undergraduates” (8). A number of publications and resources are available both for designing CII courses and for teaching specific topics within particular course contexts (9-12). The CPT, with the encouragement and support of the CINF Division, has underscored its commitment by reaffirming

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and strengthening the Chemical Information Retrieval topical supplement to the current Guidelines since the previous surveys (1, 13). It is incumbent on both teachers and librarians to provide students with pertinent and timely opportunities to become not only information competent, but also information fluent.

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1. Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor's Degree Programs, 2008 ed.; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2008; p 14. http://portal.acs.org/portal/fileFetch/C/WPCP_008491/pdf/ WPCP_008491.pdf (accessed Dec 2009). 2. Tomorrow: The Report of the Task Force for the Study of Chemistry Education in the United States; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1984; pp 45, 48. 3. Somerville, A. N. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 1985, 25, 314–323. 4. Somerville, A. N. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 1990, 30, 177–181. 5. Somerville, A. N. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 1998, 38, 1024–1030. 6. Yamane, T. Statistics: An Introductory Analysis, 3rd ed.; Harper and Row: New York, 1973; p. 1088. 7. ACS Committee on Professional Training. Report on the Results of the CPT Library Survey in Fall 2000. http://portal.acs.org/portal/ fileFetch/C/CTP_005781/pdf/CTP_005781.pdf (accessed Dec 2009). 8. Ad Hoc Committee on Information Literacy, Special Libraries Association Chemistry Division. Information Competencies for Chemistry Undergraduates: The Elements for Information Literacy. http://units.sla.org/division/dche/il/cheminfolit.pdf (accessed Dec 2009); p. 1. 9. Walczak, M. M.; Jackson, P. T. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 1385– 1390. 10. Currano, J. N. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82, 484–488. 11. Somerville, A. N.; Cardinal, S. K. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 574– 579. 12. Wiggins, G. Clearinghouse for Chemical Information Instructional Materials. http://cheminfo.informatics.indiana.edu/cicc/cis/ (accessed Dec 2009). 13. ACS Committee on Professional Training. Topical Supplement: Chemical Information Retrieval. http://portal.acs.org/portal/fileFetch/C/CTP_005584/pdf/CTP_005584.pdf (accessed Dec 2009).

Supporting Information Available The full survey instrument. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.


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Chemical Information Instruction in Academe: Who Is Leading the

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