This seminar, per its syllabus for the Fall 2009 semester, “provides support and preparation for engagement in the [LIS] scholarly community.” This was accomplished through sessions covering both research and teaching in the LIS field, most of which included one or more guest speakers. The School of Library and Information Studies’ colloquium series was also integrated into this proseminar. The proseminar can be taken for anywhere from one to three credits; I took it for two credits during Fall 2009 and 2010 and Spring 2010 and 2011, and have taken it for one credit since then.
Fall 2009
As part of the Fall 2009 offering of the proseminar, I was a panelist for and facilitated one of the colloquia, entitled At the Boundaries of the iField: Virtual Organizations and the Mag Lab, in late October 2009. The main speaker was Dr. Michelle Kazmer, and myself and Plato Smith II were the panelists. I also introduced Dr. Kazmer, Plato, and myself to the audience and facilitated Q & A and discussion with the audience after the presentation and panelist responses. I prepared some speaker’s notes for myself prior to this colloquium which I have made available here. You can also watch a video of the colloquium.
Besides the above, I also completed the required blog posts relating to the “Goal Setting and Assessment” assignment, as required of students taking the proseminar for two credits.
Spring 2010
During the Spring 2010 offering, I completed the “Goal Setting and Assessment” assignment for one of my credits; the other credit came from completing the “Research” category of the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program (see my PFF plan for details of this).
Fall 2010
During the Fall 2010 offering, I was part of another colloquium, entitled Collaborative syllabus development: A case study. This colloquium was presented by Dr. Michelle Kazmer, Dr. Gary Burnett, and myself, and discussed the development of a doctoral-level qualitative research methods syllabus, to be submitted for approval by appropriate bodies at FSU. This stemmed from my completion of a DIS in qualitative methods with Drs. Kazmer and Burnett during Summer 2010. My contributions to this colloquium were throughout, but focused on the processes of constructing the syllabus, adapting from other LIS/iSchool qualitative methods syllabi, and vetting of readings. You can watch a video of this colloquium as well.
Along with participating in the colloquium above, I also posted the required short abstracts of each week’s session to the course blog. In addition, I heavily edited and refined my teaching statement, providing feedback on the statements of fellow doctoral students and incorporating their feedback into my statement. You may view the version of my teaching philosophy statement that I completed for the proseminar, as well as my current teaching philosophy statement.
Spring 2011
During the Spring 2011 semester I was part of a panel of three doctoral students — Kyoungsik Na, Melinda Whetstone, and myself — who led and contributed equally to a Proseminar discussion session on current and future research questions in library and information science. We covered key challenges suggested by the NSF; the implications of questions in relation to professional organizations, conferences, funding sources, and publication outlets; and developing personally relevant research questions. Our combined slides for this panel session are available for viewing.
Along with participating in the panel session above, I also posted the required short abstracts of three of the sessions to the course blog. In addition, I wrote and edited my service statement, providing feedback on the statements (primarily research statements) of fellow doctoral students, and incorporating their feedback on my service statement into the final version submitted to Dr. Burnett. You may view the version of my service statement that I completed for the proseminar, as well as my current service statement.
Fall 2011
During the Fall 2011 offering, I presented (alongside Yong Jeong Yi) on my research collaboration with Dr. Sanghee Oh on a study of the quality of online health answers as perceived by health reference librarians and Yahoo! Answers questioners. Forty evaluators from each group reviewed ten answers each on ten evaluation criteria; we found that librarians’ quantitative ratings were significantly lower on most criteria. Our presentation slides are available. We also presented a poster at ASIST 2011 in New Orleans, LA, which counted towards my course credit for Fall 2011.
