Information
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources edited by
Chemical Information Instructor
Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Learning To Search in Ten Easy Steps: A Review of a Chemical Information Course
John Crerar Library University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637
W
Judith N. Currano Chemistry Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6323;
[email protected] Introduction
Goals for the Students
Since 1995, the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) Department of Chemistry has mandated a course in chemical information searching for all of its first-year graduate students. This course has evolved over the years to meet the needs of beginning chemists in a changing information environment. The current model consists of a ten-week series of classes covering the major sources in chemical information. Students are required to complete a homework assignment for each resource learned, take a final exam based on all of the resources, and create a guide to the literature on a subject of their choice. Students pass the course if they complete all of these requirements and receive a score of at least 70% of all possible points.
By the end of the course, the successful student should demonstrate competence in these areas.
The proliferation of information sources and the exponential increase in the number of papers written in all areas of chemistry make it very difficult for chemists to efficiently navigate the chemical literature, a skill imperative to their effectiveness. The American Chemical Society’s Committee on Professional Training has recommendations for information retrieval skills in which students graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry should be proficient (1). By the early 1990s, the chemistry faculty at Penn had become very dissatisfied with the skills demonstrated by students admitted into the doctoral program. The Chemistry Department has always admitted a broad spectrum of graduate students into its Ph.D. program; in some years the incoming class was composed of 30–40% international students, while others came from non-ACS accredited schools with poor information resources. It was clear that a baseline for information retrieval skills was needed so that students would be prepared for work in the lab at the end of their first year of study, faculty would know what skills could be expected of their students, and all researchers would be getting the best value out of the library resources available to them (2). In 1995, at the recommendation of the graduate committee and with the approbation of the full faculty, the University of Pennsylvania instituted a mandatory information course, taught by the chemistry librarian, in the curriculum of all first-year graduate students (3). Although the course carries no credits, all students are required to pass it in order to receive their doctoral degrees, thus demonstrating competence in the retrieval of chemical information.
Journal of Chemical Education
• Understanding of the organization of these sources • Ability to select the most appropriate source or sources to address a particular query • Ability to structure an efficient and effective search in the resource of his or her choice • Ability quickly to evaluate results and refine the search accordingly • Knowledge of the existence and utility of finding aids and information professionals
Course Rationale
484
• Familiarity with the basic information sources particular to a specific field of chemistry, and an understanding of their strengths and limitations
•
• Understanding of the organization and content of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries’ physical and digital collections in chemistry and the related sciences
In order to evaluate the students’ prior knowledge and to impress upon them the value of the course, all were given a ten-question pre-test on the first day of class. They were asked to answer seven questions on general topics in chemical information, as well as three additional questions specific to the area of chemical research that they intended to pursue at the University of Pennsylvania (see box below).
Pre-Test General Topic Questions 1. What are CAS Registry numbers? Why should you care about them? 2. What is citation searching? 3. Approximately how many journals are indexed by Chemical Abstracts? 4. Where would you look to find the chemical name for taxol? 5. What does the number US5694956 mean? 6. What is the most efficient way in which to do an online card catalog search for a book by White and Smith? 7. Where would you look to learn what the journal abbreviation Eff. Ispol. Gazo. Topl means?
Vol. 82 No. 3 March 2005
•
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
Information
Evolution and Structure of the Course Penn’s Chemical Information Course was designed in 1995 as a series of lectures held a week after the close of spring semester. The chemistry librarian at the time (Carol Carr) consulted syllabi and worksheets filed in the Clearinghouse for Chemical Information Instructional Materials (4), and created an eight-lecture series designed to teach students the most important resources in chemistry. The students were not divided according to discipline and took the lectures on consecutive days. As the teaching technology improved, Carr was able to develop the course from a lecture series into a seminar class meeting weekly, with the students divided into discipline-specific sections for hands-on workshops during the last two weeks (3). The present course is based almost exclusively on the eight-week model initiated by Carol Carr in 1997. Student evaluations had indicated that the course would be more valuable if it focused on individual areas of chemistry. Students also enjoyed the hands-on sessions. By dividing the class along disciplinary lines, the individual sections were small enough to fit into the library’s electronic classroom for each class. Although it entailed a larger time commitment on the part of the instructor, restructuring the course in this way seemed to meet students needs better. Students from the 2000 class complained less about having to learn material outside their subdisciplines and about being bored than their earlier counterparts. The 2002 course was taught in ten sessions composed of nine classes and a final examination. Each session lasted one and one-half hours. The students were divided into four sections according to the area of chemistry in which they had interest: organic, physical, inorganic, or biological. It was assumed that students were competent in locating and evaluating Web sites on subjects of their choice, and the course centered almost entirely on basic and highly advanced methods of searching the chemical literature. Since the majority of the lectures described electronic resources, it was deemed most effective to teach the entire course in a computer facility, allowing students to perform the demonstrated searches and independently complete several exercises in class. The Van Pelt-Dietrich Library and Information Center, the largest of Penn’s fifteen libraries, had a room exactly suited to this model. The Goldstein Electronic Classroom contained a computer for the instructor and sixteen student terminals, all equipped with the necessary Web plug-ins to design STN substructure searches and to view three-dimensional molecular representations. Each computer also had the most recent versions of SciFinder Scholar, Beilstein/Gmelin CrossFire, and EndNote applications. The instructor had the ability to display his monitor or that of a student either on a screen at the front of the room or on one or more students’ monitors. This technique allowed visual learners to watch the demonstrations, while their kinesthetic colleagues performed the searches on their own terminals. The ability to display one search on multiple monitors was invaluable in teaching databases with a limited number of simultaneous users. Each session was structured in the following manner. At the beginning of class, the students had five or ten minutes in which to ask questions about the previous week’s home-
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
•
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources
work assignment. When their questions had been answered, they handed in their assignments and listened to a forty-tofifty-minute lecture about the resource of the day. After the lecture, they were given a handout on the resource and an in-class assignment of three or four problems, which they completed in the classroom, either individually or in groups. They were allowed to begin their homework problems or to leave class when they had completed the in-class assignments. The interdisciplinary nature of chemical research indicated the utility of having certain sections of the information course team-taught. In past years, the Math/Physics/ Astronomy Librarian had assisted in the instruction of the physical chemistry section. The resignation of the MPA Librarian in early January created some challenges to team teaching in 2002. The acting MPA Librarian taught the physical chemistry students MathSciNet, and the Assistant Engineering Librarian delivered three lectures to the inorganic chemistry students, as well as teaching the ISI Web of Science in the physical and biological sections and INSPEC in the physical section. However, despite these challenges, team teaching was still quite successful and will be continued in future iterations of the course. Syllabi Syllabi were, whenever possible, designed to support the information needs that students had in their other courses, since it is most effective to teach information skills when students have an immediate need for them. Discussion with faculty instructors and comments from the class evaluations of previous classes afforded a fairly good schedule of need for various resources by students in the four disciplines. The organic chemistry students, in particular, needed a special syllabus, designed to provide them with tools for research in other classes. Most first-year organic chemists take a springsemester class focusing on techniques of organic synthesis, in which they are required to do a comprehensive literature search on an assigned natural product and propose and research two different synthetic schemes for its creation. As a result, they required advanced SciFinder, Beilstein, and STN substructure skills by early March. To accommodate this need, more general topics such as patents and the Internet, which are more peripheral to their research needs, are placed later in the semester. Syllabi for each of the four sections appear in the Supplemental Material.W Course Requirements In lieu of a letter grade in the information class, students received a score of pass, fail, or incomplete. Each student was required to complete all homework assignments, take a final examination, and complete a term project. Those who completed all requirements and received at least 70% of all possible points earned a score of pass. Students who failed to complete one or more required assignments received a score of incomplete, while those who completed all assignments without earning at least 70% of all possible points failed the class. Table 1 details the total number of points possible for in-class assignments, weekly homework assignments, the final exam, and the term project.
Vol. 82 No. 3 March 2005
•
Journal of Chemical Education
485
Information
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources
To answer criticism from past classes that the homework and example questions had little to do with the types of questions the students were going to need to answer in their actual research (Carr 2001), topics for the various assignments were drawn from the students themselves. On the first day of class, each student was given a three-by-five index card and told to write on it the name of his research advisor and three to five topics in chemistry that interested him. Homework and test questions were derived using the topics of interest, as well as the broader areas of research in which the research advisors were involved. Individual homework assignments were weighted according to the importance of the resource to the students’ areas of chemical research; for example, the inorganic section’s INSPEC assignment was weighted less heavily than that of the physical section.
In Class Assignments In-class assignments were distributed to all students who attended class or who were absent for a legitimate reason. The in-class assignments, worth either 13 or 15 points each, consisted of two to four questions that repeated the database techniques taught during the lecture. Examples can be found in the supporting information for this article. In addition to enforcing the search strategies, the in-class assignments provided incentive for class attendance. They were worth 25% of the students’ final grades, so students who did not attend the lectures found it difficult to earn at least 70% of all possible points. The in-class assignments were popular with students and instructor alike. The students had the opportunity to experiment with the databases in a controlled setting, in which they had easy access to the resources, fast computers with Ethernet connections, and instructor assistance. The techniques of database searching were fresh in the students’ minds while they were completing the in-class questions, and the assignments reinforced what they had learned with immediate application.
Homework Assignments Homework assignments were the most important learning device in the class; therefore, they composed the largest single percentage of the student’s grade: 40%. Each was worth 20 or 25 points and consisted of five or six questions, the topics of which came directly from the students’ index cards. The homework topics for each section can be seen on the Table 1. Weightings of Course Assignments Type of Course Task
Point Value
Percentage of Final Grade
In-class Assignments
125
25%
Homework Assignments
200
40%
Final Exam
100
20%
Term Project
075
15%
486
Journal of Chemical Education
•
class syllabi, and examples of assignments can be found in the supporting information for this article. Homework was due one week after it was assigned and was collected after the brief question-answer session at the beginning of class, during which the students had the opportunity to ask lastminute questions. Students who did not complete and submit every homework assignment were given a score of incomplete until they did.
Final Examination The final session of each section was devoted to a one and one-half hour final examination, worth 20% of the students’ grades. The exam tested whether or not the students could select a resource and design a query to obtain a desired piece of information. Students were given ten questions on topics in their fields of chemistry and told to answer at least nine of them, and those who completed all ten questions received extra credit. Using their class notes, handouts, and graded assignments, they were to select the database best suited to locate the information required. Once they had selected a database, they were asked to run a search and record their results. Students were allowed to ask direct questions about search syntax (i.e. “What is the truncation symbol in Ovid MEDLINE?”), but they were not allowed to ask any questions about the scope or date coverage of the databases. A sample final exam for each of the four sections can be found in the supporting information for this article. Students who were not present for the final exam were given the score of incomplete until they took a makeup exam.
Term Project As their final assignment, the students were asked to construct a guide to the literature on a topic of their choice. A researcher unfamiliar with the topic and the information sources available at the University of Pennsylvania should be able to use the guide to locate pertinent information on that topic. The guides needed to contain the following components. • Scope of the guide: a paragraph describing the topic • Monographs: a list of books located using Franklin, Penn’s OPAC, the keywords used to locate them, and the library locations and call numbers of each book • Overview publications: books that provide a good overview of the area of chemistry described in the guide. Library location and call number (if available) of the overview publications must be present, as must a brief description of their importance. • Patent: one patent on the topic of the guide • Database reviews: evaluations of the core databases in the chemical discipline of the project. Evaluations must include keywords used, relevance of hits returned, keywords to avoid, and one result located in each database. All course sections used SciFinder and Web of Science Databases. Each section also reviewed another topic-specific database: Organic—Beilstein; Physical— INSPEC; Inorganic—Gmelin; and Biological— MEDLINE.
Vol. 82 No. 3 March 2005
•
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
Information • Citation search: identification of a lead article and at least three sources that cite it • Review articles: three to five review articles on the topic of the guide, complete with the database in which they were found and keywords used to find them • Internet site: one Internet site containing content on the topic of the guide (not a search engine), and a brief description of that site
Students who failed to submit a term project were given the grade of incomplete until they did so. Student Response to the Chemical Information Course The student response to the 2002 iteration of the chemical information course was very positive. Four students received scores of incomplete as a result of missing assignments, which they completed before the end of the next fall. No students failed the course. 2002 was the first year in which a final exam was given, and it was instituted at the request of students from previous years who found the homework assignments to be “unrealistic” (5). Each assignment was designed around a particular resource; therefore, the students knew before beginning their homework which database should be employed. The students became aware that a large factor in finding pertinent information is the selection of database; therefore, they believed that they should be evaluated on their ability to do so. The purpose of the final exam was to draw together all of the information gained during the semester and apply it in a “real world” setting in which students were forced to select the information source most appropriate for a particular query. This served as a valuable evaluative tool because it indicated whether or not the students had fully grasped the subtle differences among the many information sources they learned. Each section was given a different exam, highlighting the resources critical to that particular subdiscipline. Some exams were more difficult than others. In the biological exam, it was very easy to determine whether a BLAST search or a MEDLINE search was required. The differences between the databases in physical chemistry were much more subtle. Often, the students were uncertain whether to select SciFinder or INSPEC for a particular query, although several mentioned that if they were performing the search as part of their research, they would use both resources.
Table 2. Distribution of Final Exam Scores
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources
The final exam scores were very high (Table 2). All sections had average scores above 80%, indicating that they understood the differences in the information sources and felt comfortable selecting a database for a particular type of query. The class point percentages were also very high (Table 3). For all students who received a score of pass, the average percentage of total points earned across the four sections was 90.98%. This was very encouraging; as the students’ scores on the initial pre-test varied from three to eight correct answers out of ten questions, it was obvious that they had learned a great deal by the end of the course. Although few students submitted a course evaluation, most of those who did were very complimentary about the course. Many commented that the number of information sources available greatly exceeded their expectations. None requested that additional resources be taught. All agreed that the techniques taught in the class would be useful to them in their research. The most common complaints were: • The amount of homework was too great. • Too much lecture time was devoted to the library Web site, patents, Internet sites, Chemical Abstracts Print, and STN. • Too little lecture time was devoted to Internet sites and evaluating them, STN, and Beilstein.
The most common compliments were: • The exercises demonstrated the functionality of the resources learned. • The exercises provided practical tips on getting information in the students’ areas of chemistry. • The instructor was patient, helpful, and/or available to answer questions. • Doing exercises in class helped students learn to use the resources.
Future Plans The 2002 iteration of the chemical information course at Penn was, on the whole, a great success. This model was carried into 2003, with only slight modification. The results of the final exam indicate that the physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry students had difficulty grasping the subtle
Table 3. Distribution of Final Scores
Course Section
Final Exam Average Score
Lowest Score (out of 100)
Highest Score (out of 100)
Course Section
Average Points Earned (out of 500)
Percentage of Points Earned
Organic
94.17%
62.5
108
Organic
456.59
91.32%
Physical
80.06%
60.5
199
Physical
443.06
88.61%
Inorganic
85.83%
60.5
199
Inorganic
447.70
89.54%
Biological
93.25%
85.5
107
Biological
472.25
94.45%
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
•
Vol. 82 No. 3 March 2005
•
Journal of Chemical Education
487
Information
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources
differences among their primary information sources. More time was required in these two sections to highlight the unique features of those resources and how to discern exactly when to use one resource instead of another. Due to the improved substructure capabilities available through SciFinder Scholar, the lectures on STN substructure searching were eliminated from all syllabi but that of the organic section. Likewise, with the addition of older abstracts to the CAS database, the importance of print Chemical Abstracts was downplayed in all classes. The former lecture on Chemical Abstracts in print and via STN was changed to a lecture on the organization of Chemical Abstracts and basic principles of substructure searching. Print searching techniques that duplicate search capabilities on SciFinder Scholar were eliminated; those that complement the electronic database were emphasized. Most college information literacy requirements aim to teach students to perform Internet searches and evaluate the information retrieved. As a result, the instructor assumed that students were competent and comfortable doing research of this type. However, the students’ comments that not enough time was spent on Internet searching and site evaluation indicated an area of possible course development. With less time spent learning to use different formats of Chemical Abstracts, there is a larger amount of time to devote to searching for information on the free Internet, providing students with the tools that they need to acquire different types of information, even if their future workplaces do not have the same resources as the University of Pennsylvania.
488
Journal of Chemical Education
•
W
Supplemental Material
Example in-class assignments, homework assignments, sample final exams, and syllabi from the 2002 offering of each of the four sections of this course (organic, physical, inorganic, and biological) are available in this issue of JCE Online. Acknowledgments Many thanks to Carol Carr, for help and support in every stage of manuscript preparation, and to Carol Carr and George Palladino, for supplying valuable information on the history of the information course at the University of Pennsylvania. Literature Cited 1. Chemistry.org. Chemical Information Retrieval, http:// www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC= education\cpt\ts_cheminfo.html (accessed Oct 2004). 2. Palladino, G. F. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Personal communication, 2003. 3. Carr, C. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Personal communication, 2001. 4. Clearinghouse for Chemical Information Instructional Materials. http://www.indiana.edu/~cheminfo/cciimnro.html (accessed Oct 2004). 5. Currano, J. N. Abstracts of Papers, 222nd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Chicago, IL, U.S., August 26–30, 2001; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2001; CINF 016.
Vol. 82 No. 3 March 2005
•
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
