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Archive for the ‘Education & Training’ Category

MedlinePlus No Longer Providing Interactive Tutorial Modules

As of Friday, February 27, the National Library of Medicine’s MedlinePlus resource is no longer providing a library of interactive tutorials from the Patient Education Institute. The Anatomy and Surgery videos remain available. This decision is based on trends NLM has observed from users, and the desire to provide information that most closely aligns with user needs. NLM welcomes feedback about how MedlinePlus information should be presented and what type of content is missing. Feel free to send suggestions or comments through the Contact Us form.

Michael E. DeBakey Library Services Outreach Award Nominations Due June 1!

The Friends of the National Library of Medicine is seeking nominations for this year’s Michael E. DeBakey Library Services Outreach Award.

  • Nominees must be currently employed as a health sciences librarian and have worked in such a position for at least five years immediately preceding the award.
  • Nominations may be made for contributions by the librarian as demonstrated by excellence and achievement in leadership, publications, teaching, research, special projects, or any combination of these.
  • Nomination must be made in writing and include the following information:
    1. Official nomination form
    2. Five page description of the nominee’s achievements
    3. Current resume or curriculum vitae
    4. Additional information (no more than 5 pages double-spaced) that would assist the jury in the evaluation of the nomination and selection of the recipient
  • Self-nominations are accepted and encouraged.
  • Nominations must be received by June 1, and can be submitted via mail, email or fax.

Survey on Systematic Reviews: Respond by March 27

Information professionals who either serve medical/health sciences clientele or have job functions within a medical/health sciences environment are invited to participate in a research study entitled Challenges, Barriers, and Outcomes of Health Sciences Information Professional Involvement in Systematic Reviews, being conducted by librarians at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the experience, challenges, and outcomes of information professionals’ participation in systematic reviews. The online survey will ask questions about experience, challenges, barriers, and outcomes related to supporting and conducting systematic reviews. No prior experience with systematic reviews is necessary to participate in the study. The survey will take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete, and will be open through March 27, 2015. The study results will be presented as a poster at MLA 2015.

The National Library of Medicine Wants Your Stories!

Do you know any stories about people using NLM resources to find out something interesting, forge a new path, or improve their lives in a unique or dramatic way? Or, more simply, have you ever found just the right information at just the right time, for yourself or for a patron? For this year’s theater presentations at the Medical Library Association annual meeting in Austin, TX, NLM staff members who develop the resources are interested in teaming with the librarians who use them. They are interested in stories (great and small) about any NLM resource, but especially:

  • HSRProj
  • Health Services Research Resources on Comparative Effectiveness, Patient Centered Outcomes, Health Technology Assessment
  • DIMRC and other disaster resources
  • BIBFRAME and Linked Data
  • History of Medicine social media (e.g., Circulating Now)
  • MedlinePlus
  • PubMed Central
  • PubMed
  • PubMed Health

Anyone interested in sharing their story should contact Kate Majewski at NLM.

Mapping an Outreach Project: Online Training Opportunity!

Cindy Olney, PhD, Acting Assistant Director of the NN/LM Outreach Evaluation Resource Center (OERC), is presenting the online training opportunity Mapping an Outreach Project, a series of four one-hour online sessions with the potential for up to 8 CEUs, beginning February 24. This webinar series is designed for anyone who wants to garner support, financial or otherwise, for a new project or service, and will be especially useful for anyone planning to submit an outreach award proposal. You will learn how assessment and evaluation are effective tools for project planning and proposal writing. Community assessment allows you to gather compelling information about the need and viability of your project. It also helps you build relationships with potential partners. Adding evaluation methods to your program plan helps you “begin with the end in mind,” making desired results the centerpiece of your project proposal. After completing this series, participants will be able to do the following:

  • How people adopt new ideas. Know the factors that influence people to adopt new ideas and technology so you can choose the best strategies for your project. (Part 1)
  • Meeting the Community through Community Assessment. Gather community information that is most effective for planning your project. (Part 2)
  • Planning Outcomes-Based Outreach Programs. Use a project-planning tool that allows you to logically link resources and activities to desired results. (Part 3)
  • Adding Evaluation to Your Plan and Next Steps: Proposal Writing. Incorporate evaluation into your project and understand how your plan can be expanded into a full proposal. (Part 4)

The webinars will be held February 24, February 26, March 3, and March 5, all from 10-11 a.m. PST. They will be recorded for those unable to attend the live sessions. One MLA CEU will be awarded per live or recorded webinar attended (1-4 CEUs). Up to four extra CEUs can be earned for a four-part homework assignment. All webinars must be viewed and homework completed and sent to the instructor by Thursday, March 12. Registration is available for any or all of the sessions.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Better Evaluation!

BetterEvaluation.org is an international collaboration that encourages sharing of evaluation methods, approaches, and processes for improvement. BetterEvaluation offers yearly blog themes for their staff and guest writers to focus on, with highlights of the 2014 theme published as a blog posting, 52 Weeks of BetterEvaluation. For 2015 they are featuring 12 Months of BetterEvaluation, with multiple posts each month, starting with impact evaluation in January. Following are five selections from 2014 that may be of special interest to NN/LM Network members:

  1. Top ten developments in qualitative evaluation over the past decade, Part 1 and Part 2.
  2. Fitting reporting methods to evaluation findings and audiences.
  3. Infographics, including step-by-step instructions in piktochart.
  4. Innovation in evaluation.
  5. Presenting data effectively.

“Guide on the Side” Software for Creating Interactive Tutorials

The University of Arizona (UA) libraries developed an open-source tool called Guide on the Side for creating interactive tutorials. The left frame of the screen contains instructions and can also have quizzes or links to other information, and the larger, right side has the live website to interact with, without losing your place in the tutorial. A four-minute introductory video about the software is available for viewing on the NLM National Training Center (NTC) web site.

Guide on the Side is an open source PHP and MySQL program and needs to be installed on a server. The program requires a handful of common PHP packages enabled. Once installed, it is very easy for someone without programming experience to create interactive tutorials, which can be easily updated if the interface of the database or other web resource changes. Several examples of Guide on the Side tutorials for TOXNET resources are available on the NTC web site. The UA Libraries have developed more than 25 tutorials using the tool, which have received nearly 73,000 uses in one year. Other libraries have installed the software, begun creating tutorials, and joined a discussion group to continue improving the software.

Mobile Data Solutions Online Course

Are you curious about the use of smart phones, tablets, or other mobile data resources to collect data for your assessment project, but are seeking more information on how to determine if this is the right approach for your project or program and how to process the data you collect using this method? Then check out Mobile Data Solutions, which was created as part of the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project, with expertise provided by U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Digital Development Lab and designed by TechChange.

The primary goal of this freely available and accessible online course (free registration is required) is to learn more about mobile tools, processes, and strategies for data collection in order to use mobile devices (referred to as mobile data solutions) to their full potential. The course will take about two hours to complete and can be done at your own pace over time. Progress in the course is saved so you’ll be taken to the point where you stopped to continue learning the next time you access it.

The learning objectives of the course are:

  • Describe examples of mobile data solutions from collection through visualization
  • Articulate the benefit of using these solutions
  • Analyze the challenges and limitations associated with mobile data solutions
  • Assess whether or not particular mobile data solutions are appropriate for a project, program or problem
  • Outline how to design a project or activity to include mobile data solutions
  • Explain the steps involved in implementing mobile data solutions
  • Summarize how to analyze, visualize, and share mobile data

Evaluation “Coffee Breaks” from the CDC

Want to build your repertoire of evaluation skills? Check out this library of evaluation-related podcasts and webinars from the CDC’s Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. These are archived documents from 20-minute presentations about evaluation. The usual basic topics are represented, such as Making Logic Models Work for You and How Do I Develop a Survey? But a number of the presentations cover topics that are not standard fare. Here are a few titles that stand out:

Most presentations consist of PDFs of PowerPoint slides and talking points, but there are a few podcasts as well. All presentations seem to be bird’s-eye overviews, but the final slides offer transcripts of Q&A discussion and a list of resources for more in-depth exploration of the topic. It’s a great way to check out a new evaluation interest!

NLM Selected as a Host Site for the 2015 National Digital Stewardship Residency

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce its participation in the second year of the National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR), a significant partnership of the Library of Congress (LC) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), to build a dedicated community of stewards capable of managing, preserving and making accessible the nation’s digital assets. The NDSR enables recent Master’s program graduates in relevant fields to complete a paid 12-month residency at host institutions in the Washington DC area, where they work on significant digital stewardship projects. Similar NDSR programs are on-going in Boston and New York.

NLM’s NDSR project proposal, to select and preserve an NLM-produced software product, was chosen in a highly competitive process from about 15 other proposals. NLM will join the American Institute of Architects, the DC Public Library, the Government Publishing Office and the U.S. Senate, Historical Office as a host institution beginning in June, 2015. A detailed list of all five projects can be found at the NDSR website. This is the second year that NLM has been chosen as an NDSR host site, evidence of NLM’s commitment and support of digital stewardship.

NDSR is now accepting applications for qualified applicants for places in the five Washington DC host institutions. The residency application period is open from December 17 to January 30. The application instructions and list of requirements can be found on the NDSR website. Candidates may apply online for one of the five residencies.
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