Hello Everyone,
I am following up with slides (attached) and notes from the HSIG First Friday Forum on February 3rd, "Communicating Evidence-Based Practice: Using Standards to Find Common Ground" with Caitlin Plovnick. We were thrilled to have Caitlin lead such a timely and fascinating discussion! Thank you, Caitlin!
These are some generalized and anonymized notes from the chat conversation. These are not necessarily written in the order of the conversation but grouped by themes and topics discussed.
Zoom Chat Notes
- Attendees reported working with EBP guidelines from programs across and beyond the health sciences:
- Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Medicine (DO & MD), Social Work, Exercise Science, Public Health, Veterinary Medicine, Nurse Anesthesia, Sonography, Dental Medicine, Bioengineering, Business, Nutrition and Dietetics, Pharmacy, Psychology, Optometry, etc
- For those who support clinical & academic learning, some reported differences in outreach and instructional opportunities (esp. reaching clinicians/practicing level learners efficiently/effectively is challenging)
- Reports of instructional challenges included:
- Not enough instructional time to cover EBP well / properly
- Too many areas/departments of support to meet all needs (either in instruction or sitting on all their curriculum committees)
- Generally being overloaded / very busy (sometimes for good reasons like proper integration in curriculum, but still over-busy)
- Not able to cover EBP in instructional opportunities leading to overwhelm during consultations
- Push to teach to boards/exams can feel "at odds" with teaching EBP
- Last-minute instructional requests / faculty intention to invite into classroom but no follow through
- Lack of interest / engagement with topic / skills (sometimes due to focus on exams/boards)
- Previously recorded/provided materials get reused without librarian's knowledge or ability to update / properly scaffold them
- Not/improperly integrated into the curriculum (this was a big one in the chat)
- Instruction opportunity occurs at the wrong time in the curriculum – often on the first day/week/too early (lots of chat about this)
- Not enough scaffolding of EBP practice throughout the curriculum / EBP as a one-shot only / lack of integration into practice/experientials/other learning areas / not longitudinal
- Can't get library into curriculum conversations / can't get integrated into the curriculum
- Library brought in late to/after the curriculum development process (after the point where impactful changes can be made)
- Faculty feel squeezed by more & more accreditation requirements and/or shorter semesters so pushed to cover EBP in less time
- Challenge: lack of access to impactful assessment impedes library EBP instruction & conversations on curricular integration
- Need access to assessment #s for advocacy, instructional design, and decision making purposes
- Use of an online portfolio to demonstrate student's level of mastery
- EBP in accreditation standards as good communication points
- CME opportunities
- Seen as the reason why curricular integration has been successful
- Magnet status re-designation
- Resource alignment vs curricular alignment communication challenges (& opportunities) regarding library relevance to accreditation standards
- Tie core competencies to syllabus audit & a good pitch so as to get to the table for these conversations
- Strong communication tool for academic deans / assistant/associate deans
- Challenges:
- Talking EBP accreditation & curriculum integration w/ the right folks in the right way (building your champions at all levels)
- Curriculum committee
- Individual faculty
- Deans
- Can sometimes feel like EPAs are treated as just a checklist
- Curriculum committees cover a lot and much is not relevant / moves slowly
- How to apportion time commitment?
- How to get these conversations going
- "infiltrate" key committees
- Sometimes asking to be invited is not enough. Show up.
- "oh, the library hasn't shown up to this meeting before? Geee I didn't know"
- Get a faculty champion to invite you
- Get in on an upper lvl curriculum committee and works down (Univ curriculum committee to school/college committees)
- Have your elevator speech prepped and ready
- Get to know the Deans/Assoc Deans/Assist Deans of the different colleges
- Get your own admin involved in the conversation / arm them with an elevator pitch for when they talk with academic unit admin
- Share stories of clinician pain-points when they haven't had library EBP instruction
- Share previous ROI for library led instruction
- Know when accreditation visits are scheduled and know the accreditation standards at play
- Protect the trust you have built w/ colleges – it's a very valuable resource
- Get in on / develop faculty orientation that includes your elevator pitch / student orientations
- Challenge:
- Support so many programs, you just can't be engaged w/ all their curriculum/key committees or even maintain conversations on this topic w/ each program
- Recognize when it's too much for you to support – if you ask and can't commit, you break trust. Be strategic
- Also recognize when a specific tactic is itself a huge ask of library staff (like initiating a high volume of orientations)
- Other tactics:
- Asynchronous learning modules
- An online foundational learning module introducing EBP as a requirement
- Asynchronous tutorials for basic and foundational skills
- Develop content that plugs into the campus LMS
- Challenges:
- Assessment of learning
- Assessment of reach
- Time commitment to develop and update
- Reusing other's content means it sometimes doesn't align with your resources/curriculum/etc
- Solutions: pre/post tests, pooling of asynchronous learning objects (MLA Education Hub is working towards somtheing like this), use MLIS students/interns for building the learning objects
- Promote the AACU rubric in alignment with the ACRL Information Literacy Framework
- Offer drop in workshops at lunch times when lacking classroom time
- Offer a badge or certificate (specifically for clerkship/practicing learners)
Links shared in the chat:
Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative (HPAC): https://healthprofessionsaccreditors.org/
Health Information Literacy Competencies Map, Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) Competency-Based Medical Education Task Force (2018): https://www.aahsl.org/assets/docs/Health%20Information%20Literacy%20Competencies%20Map%20%28excel%29.pdf
AAC&U VALUES Rubric: https://www.aacu.org/initiatives/value-initiative/value-rubrics/value-rubrics-integrative-and-applied-learning
HSIG Nursing Information Literacy Framework Working Group: https://acrl.libguides.com/health/framework
AACN Core Competencies for Nursing Professionals (2021): https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/AcademicNursing/pdf/Essentials-2021.pdf
Medical Student Course Guide for accessing UCI Libraries' Resources: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/c.php?g=334306
Be on the watch for a forthcoming publication: Information Literacy Curriculum Mapping in the Health Sciences: A Scoping Review from Devon Olson, Sandi Bates & collaborators.
Regards,
Anna
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Anna Ferri, MLIS, MEd
pronouns: she/her(s)
Assistant Professor | Evidence Synthesis Librarian
Colorado State University Libraries
P: 970-491-1146 |
anna.ferri@colostate.edu1201 Center Avenue Mall | Fort Collins, CO 80523
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