Information literacy course design based on student survey: The practice of subject librarians at NSL, CAS

Purpose: This paper aims to explore best practices in academic and research libraries in providing information literacy(IL) instruction to science and engineering graduate students.Design/methodology/approach: Using the questionnaire survey method, we conducted an IL assessment study on 114 graduate students enrolling in graduate courses offered by College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences(GUCAS).Findings: The current situation of graduate students' IL competencies and the need to develop them are revealed. An IL course was designed by subject librarians of National Science Library(NSL), Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS), with three patterns addressing the development of graduate students' IL competencies.Research limitations: It is only about the practice of subject librarians at NSL, CAS, in designing IL courses for graduate students enrolling in graduate courses offered by College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, GUCAS.Practical implications: The results can provide a lot of useful information for the improvement of IL competencies of graduate students in science and technology disciplines.Originality/value: It is significant for assisting future subject librarians in incorporating IL skills into their course, especially for academic and research librarians to prepare and develop IL courses for science and engineering graduate students.

Scale for Evaluation of Humanities Courses: Development, Reliability and Validity

The present paper deals with development of a course evaluation survey (CES) questionnaire regarding evaluation of humanities courses (e.g., Commerce/Economics/Law) and assessment of its validity and reliability. Taking help from available questionnaires and also incorporating views from the teachers of the related subjects, the relevant Likert type items were selected. The drafted version of the questionnaire was finalized taking into account feedback from the subject experts. The focus was on simple language to ensure clarity to the students to facilitate accuracy of the collected data. The developed questionnaire consists of five domains involving fifteen Likert type items including a global item. For assessment of its reliability and validity, data were collected among two groups of undergraduate students studying two courses namely Accounts (n = 190) and Law (n = 90). For assessing questionnaire, Karl Pearson Correlation Coefficient, Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient and four factor solutions under factor analysis were used. The analytical results were quite consistent across the data sets (that are, accounts, law and pooled together) that exhibit good psychometric properties. It may thus be concluded that the questionnaire is valid, reliable and may measure what it is intended to measure.