Search

The current research sought to identify what skills, knowledge, and behaviours (SKBs) in advocacy engagement are closely associated with information literacy skills. The paper examines what role information literacy (IL) skills play in making one an effective advocate by drawing on everyday life situations that involve advocacy such as self-advocacy, social advocacy, patient advocacy, parent advocacy, and policy advocacy. A rapid scoping review was completed using articles published within the last ten years (2008-2019). The articles were retrieved from "Academic Search Complete," a multidisciplinary database. The aim of our initial review was to identify what skills, knowledge and behaviours are deemed essential for everyday life situations that involve advocacy. Charting of the literature was then used to map the skills, knowledge and behaviours mentioned in relation to advocacy to information literacy skills. Results showed how the knowledge component in advocacy engagement is closely associated with various IL skills such as finding information, evaluation of information and sharing information. Implications of the study point towards the importance of emphasising IL instruction in broader contexts beyond higher education and/ or academic libraries. The study shows that IL skills are important in the public realm and in primary (elementary) and secondary (high) school contexts as well. Therefore, public librarians and school librarians should be just as engaged in equipping their patrons/clientele with IL skills that may be needed for different types of advocacy such as self-advocacy, parent advocacy and patient advocacy. The study also has implications for humanitarian research and research that involves situations of information poverty as these contexts will often involve advocacy work as well.

With the growing population of undergraduate students on our campus and an increased focus on their success, librarians at a large midwestern university were interested in the citation management styles of this university cohort. Our university library spends considerable resources each year to maintain and promote access to the robust bibliographic management tool RefWorks. A team of librarians wondered whether RefWorks might be used by undergraduate students with the same perceived enthusiasm that we have sensed in graduate students and faculty. More generally, we explored how undergraduate students were managing their citations, if and what kinds of tools they were using to ease the process of creating bibliographies, and their general workflow in incorporating citations into their academic work.

Background: Literature searches underlie the foundations of systematic reviews and related review types. Yet, the literature searching component of systematic reviews and related review types is often poorly reported. Guidance for literature search reporting has been diverse, and, in many cases, does not offer enough detail to authors who need more specific information about reporting search methods and information sources in a clear, reproducible way. This document presents the PRISMA-S (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses literature search extension) checklist, and explanation and elaboration. Methods: The checklist was developed using a 3-stage Delphi survey process, followed by a consensus conference and public review process. Results: The final checklist includes 16 reporting items, each of which is detailed with exemplar reporting and rationale. Conclusions: The intent of PRISMA-S is to complement the PRISMA Statement and its extensions by providing a checklist that could be used by interdisciplinary authors, editors, and peer reviewers to verify that each component of a search is completely reported and therefore reproducible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the massive High School and Beyond data set, this study examined the direct effects of perceived parental involvement on grades and the indirect effect through television time and time spent on homework. Findings are given and conclusions discussed. (Author/MT)