NUR3165 Libguide; Review and Initial Assessment

Audience and Purpose

The primary audience of the NUR3165 Research guide are college students enrolled in the Nursing Program at UCF, with special focus on those students currently taking NUR 3165: Nursing Research. The Nursing Research Libguides purpose is to assist students in mastering the component resources available through the college library: resources available through the online portal as described by the Libguide within the introduction: This Libguide is designed to help UCF Nursing students enrolled in NUR3165 identify, understand, and effectively use relevant electronic sources, including eBooks and article databases. To this end, NUR3165 Libguide is focused on walking students, step-bystep, through three basic areas of instruction: ! ! ! The various methods of obtaining relevant documents, How to store and cite those documents for later use, How to obtain a library card and log into the system through the EZProxy Remote Login.
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The Libguide objectives are in accord with the objectives of the Baccalaureate Nursing Program at UCF, which stresses the following five objectives for all nursing graduates: ! ! ! ! ! Synthesize knowledge from nursing and the physical, biological, behavioral, psychological and social sciences, and the humanities in the practice of professional nursing (1) Use critical thinking as the basis for professional nursing practice (2) Apply innovative technologies to optimize outcomes for self, clients, and communities.(5) Demonstrate competency in the performance and evaluation of nursing techniques and skills (6) Use research in the exploration of health problems and the implementation of evidence based practice (11)
From the Twelve Objectives for Nursing Students as listed in the UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA, COLLEGE OF NURSING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT HANDBOOK, 2013-2014

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To meet these objectives, nursing students are required to successfully

complete the exercises that make up the main body of NUR 3165. The course description of NUR3165 suggests that students in this course are to be presented with projects involving real-life scenarios, that is, problems the student might encounter in the workplace. The main objective of these types of assignments is to provide experience acquiring research to develop solutions to their problem. It is helpful to note that NUR3165 is an upper-division course and has the prerequisite of successfully completing NUR3805 (Dimensions of Professional Practice), Statistics, and Gordon Rule English courses in composition and writing. To understand the purpose of the Libguide, a sample CORE assignment for NUR3165 is included below: Writing Assignment/Project for NUR 3165 Nursing Research Problem You are a staff nurse on an oncology unit. A significant number of the patients are admitted for treatment of lung cancer. Although advances in chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy have led to a steady increase in cancer survival, the outlook for the great majority of people with lung cancer remains poor. During the last few months of their lives, the patients often undergo a range of invasive and/or toxic therapies that may include chemotherapy, radiotherapy or both. During this difficult time, the general health of the patient declines both as a consequence of the illness itself and because of side effects from the treatments they receive. In addition to physical symptoms, the patients face a depressing and anxiety-provoking future, an outlook that can have a devastating effect on their psychological and emotional health as well as that of their families, friends and caretakers. At a recent staff meeting, the nurses discussed the high prevalence of treatment-related side effects as well as the symptoms of disease progression in patients with lung cancer that often did not respond to conventional pharmacological therapies. The charge nurse suggested the nursing staff develop a holistic package of palliative and supportive care measures that could minimize symptom distress and improve quality of life for patients with lung cancer. She asked for volunteers to investigate which palliative nursing interventions for patients with lung cancer are supported by
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research evidence and present the results in a PowerPoint presentation to fellow nurses at the next staff meeting. You volunteer to be on the committee. The five members of your committee are charged to develop a research question, conduct a search of the literature, critique relevant studies, and synthesize the findings for presentation to the staff. Assignment 1. Research Article Critique: You will be assigned to a team of 5 students that will synthesize the researchon a research question that addresses the nursing problem you have been given. The first week of class you will be assigned a research article on a quantitative study published in a peer-reviewed journal that is relevant to the nursing problem for your team. The critique will be a work in progress throughout the first part of the course. Each week you will critique a section of the article (critique piece) and receive feedback from fellow team members and the instructor. A rubric is provided to guide your writing of the critique. The final critique will be submitted to Turnitin. 2. Critique Pieces: Each week you will critique a designated section of your assigned article (critique piece) that corresponds to the section of the research report addressed in the weeks module. You will post your critique piece post on your team page (wiki-type page) and provide feedback on the critique pieces of your team members. Feedback should be meaningful and address those criteria described in the Critique Rubric. Six critique pieces. Critique Piece 1: Title and abstract Critique Piece 2: Research problem, research question/objective/purpose, hypothesis and theoretical framework Critique Piece 3: Research design Critique Piece 4: Sample, setting and ethical considerations Critique Piece 5: Measurement and data collection Critique Piece 6: Interpretation of finding and discussion 3. Final Project: Your team will synthesize the findings from all your critiques in order to make evidence- based recommendations and

suggest future research on the research question. This project will be done as a PowerPoint Presentation according the Final Project Rubric. This is a team assignment and all team members earn the same grade. Final Projects will be posted in the Final Project Showcase. Teams will vote for the best Final Project. Best project earns 2 bonus point. Careful consideration of the course is necessary to ensure that the Libguide supports the class activities and goals, thereby engaging with the student. It doesnt matter how well the Libguide is designed if it doesnt help the students taking the course!

Stakeholders
Clearly, the student enrolled in NUR 3165 is the primary stakeholder. The research course requires mastery of the database research systems, and the Libguide claims that a student who engages with the online document and completes the exercises will have learned everything they need to pass the course. However, nursing students are only primary stakeholders. Others include: ! Andy Todd, the librarian who put the course together, as well as librarians who work at the Answer desk (if students master the knowledge through the Libguide, the librarians and research assistants will have far fewer basic questions to answer and can focus on more technical research issues), Professors and instructors of the course (less class time devoted to how to use the material and more time devoted to methodology and analysis), Intellectual property right owners and the authors of various articles available on the database and ebook collection (it is in the interest of data companies like EBSCO that their search engines are accessible to college students so that they will continue to earn the significant access fees that they charge the institution; it is in the interest of authors that their work can be found and properly cited), Nursing program administrators (successful, well-prepared students stabilize the program), and UCF administrators and alumni (the Nursing programs future depends on current students doing well in the marketplace, and that depends on students understanding and practicing solid research methodologies).

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All the stakeholders share the same perspective; the document should be clear in its presentation, effective in its instruction, and intuitive in its application. The presentation of the information and instructions, from initial reading to execution, should flow naturally and simply. Upon completion, nursing students should be able to intuitively apply the information learned to academic and real-world research.

Impressions
After spending a few minutes acclimating to the tab menu, we found the interface to be cluttered. The multiple fonts, embedded images, multiple colors, and confusing left-right-left position of information made access difficult. We are very familiar with the UCF database, especially EBSCO, and were surprised that the Libguide didnt offer more on the special terminology used within search engines. There is a basic guide - a list of words with descriptions - but little else. All these elements compete against each other rather than work with each other. We spent a precious hour struggling with navigation. There are three columns separated into several different blocks of information. The information all seems to run together. The home page for the Libguide was better in that there was less information being presented at once. However, the numerous tabs across the top of the page were not well organized. The articles listed under the Finding and Citing tabs are easy to find and use, but the Practice Exercises are listed under three separate tabs and are not even directly next to each other or on the same rows. This makes locating the Practice tabs a little confusing. Our biggest concern comes from the visuals. The following is a snapshot from Exercise 1:
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(Note: in the actual libguide, the font is much smaller and the spacing between text/ image/ clipart much more limited than we have displayed it.) Upon close inspection, six distinct colors and seven distinct font styles can be clearly distinguished. A random billiard ball is used to distinguish this section from others, for no reason and without reference to the material. Worse, this snapshot is embedded with very little surrounding space within a chunk of text and instruction. Rude and Eaton speak of visual noise. We think that the NUR3165 Libguide is an excellent example of such noise. Suggestions 1. Parameters: The parameters for editing the document will determine

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our suggestions. We need to know how much can be changed about the NUR3165 page, as well as the Practice, Finding, and Citing Articles. 2. Organiztion: It would be great if the number of tabs on the NUR3165 Libguide page could be reduced to one row. Some information could be shifted to other tabs as long as it is related. For Example: Practice Exercises 1-3 could be placed under one tab named Practice. 3. Typography: Good typography can help guide the user through the completion of steps, create the desired emphasis with clear visual signals, and provide ease of use for the students. For Example: We recommend the use of bold fonts in the document to indicate clickable/ action items. 4. Purpose: A user test would be both helpful and appropriate. For Example: Checking to ensure that the Libguide is meeting the real-world needs of the nursing students by discovering what the nursing students already understand and what they might need explained for thorough use. (I.e.: are the students familiar with CINAHL? The abbreviation is used throughout the Libguide and I couldnt find an explanation. But perhaps the students are already familiar with the term and others like it, such that explanation would be redundant.) 5. Clarity: The careful arrangement of information on the screen/page would be improved tremendously by merely making a clear delineation between sections. For Example: The inclusion of a How do I... tab, even if only used for cross-referencing other sections would offer end-users clear direction. We would like to proceed by performing a kind of house cleaning; stripping the Libguide of all its formatting - separating instructions from screenshots - and then considering the material in a pure state would allow us the bestopportunity to begin a comprehensive edit.!

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