An attempt to Design your own self-study course.
Initial proposal:
Because of timing, it looks like I won't be able to take either Community-Led Services nor Health Science Literature during my time in the program. I am thinking about doing a reading course in the fall and wondered about combining elements of these two courses. The topic would be something like "how to support community-led health research," taking elements of community-centered practices and combining that with the knowledge synthesis work of healthcare literature reviews and research processes. Obviously I wouldn't be able to fit both courses into a single reading course, I might need to exclude topics like library program design and evidence-informed practice and some of the bibliometrics aspects. However, I'm getting plenty of bibliometrics and data management coverage in my other courses, and having been a licensed paramedic for 12 years plus the practicum experience I'll have working with the PEP program over the summer will address some of the healthcare-specific aspects.
This is what I want to do when I graduate. The skills identified above are the ones that other courses in the program won't cover for me. Does this sound okay as a topic for a reading course starting in September?
But it turns out that the Community-Led Services course is being offered after all, so we need to refine the scope down to only that which is health-specific.
The goal of this course is to gain a broad familiarity with the field of health science librarianship with a focus on research support. This topic is important to me primarily because this is the field I want to enter when my studies are complete, but also because I find the topic interesting and want to learn more about it, and because the processes and outcomes of health research directly impact me. I will have succeeded if I am prepared for the health-specific aspects of working as a health science librarian, able to contribute in a meaningful way to the process of health research and producing positive health outcomes in my community.
Topic
Health Science Librarianship. Epidemiology and health research with a focus on community involvement/needs centring. Exploration of health-specific metadata, information sources and collection development, ethics, critical reflexivity, knowledge synthesis and literature reviews, science communication and information literacy, policy, research data management and research support, publication assistance.
Time
This should be roughly equivalent to a standard course for this university, in terms of total duration and amount of time expended on learning activities. Keep in mind, since I'm having to design and conduct the course in addition to learn it, expectations should be adjusted accordingly so that total time invested doesn't exceed what it typical for a course.
Learning objectives and core competencies
- Identify and evaluate core resources in health and biomedical information.
- Describe the steps of the health research lifecycle from conception through publication and community impact.
- Discuss the information specialist's role in supporting the information needs of healthcare providers and researchers, and in helping the public locate, evaluate, and interpret health information.
- Identify key differences between systematic reviews, scoping reviews, rapid reviews, narrative reviews and other forms of literature reviews and knowledge synthesis.
- Demonstrate familiarity with medical subject headings and controlled vocabularies and grey literature searching.
Assignments
- List of experience/education requirements for health librarian jobs (w2, 5%)
- Compare/contrast literature review types (w3, 10%)
- Table of prominent health research databases/resources (publisher, size, coverage/focus) (w5, 10%).
- On a health topic of your choice, produce a transparent/reproducible search strategy utilizing MeSH or other appropriate subject headings and including grey literature (w8, 30%).
- Utilizing the search strategy, produce a research-focused knowledge synthesis of the current understanding of the topic to be delivered to a research team about to undertake a study of the topic. Should cite at least 10 sources (w12, 40%).
- End of course reflection (w12, 5%)
Read-talk-write
General course approach will be to read and otherwise ingest information, discuss with advisor and/or health librarian, and use the results to fulfill assignments. This will be conducted as a repeating cycle, with discussions acting as checkpoints once a week to validate understanding and confirm I'm heading in the right direction my assignments.
Texts, lectures, and other materials
I could use some help with this, but I need to try to find some of these myself before asking.
Who else?
Look for online discussion groups, professional associations, other learners and mentors that I can engage with. Atlantic Health Library Association would be a good place to look for mentors.
Todo
Point-of-care, reading list.
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