IS 495 Curriculum Meeting #2

Thursday afternoon the ScienceLinks2 fellows meet with post-doc Miriam Davis plan the new course we're developing for the Information Science department. It's called "Environmental Information." Miriam is the lead, and David, Elizabeth, Jim, Priyanki, Todd and I involved as part of our assistantship.

Meeting two was an update. We shared what we had accomplished over the past week. At the first meeting, we assigned tasks and responsibilities. My job is the lit review. The purpose of this review is to learn what's been done and what's missing in undergraduate environmental information education. On the 30th of Sept., I will present what I have noticed in the literature - common themes, what kind of research has been done, who are the authors, etc.  I won't compose a formal lit review with citations or a bibliography at this point, but this will be included in the paper we eventually publish.

We were all reminded to DOCUMENT our methods, such as "on Sept 12 I searched Web of Science using these search terms and got this many hits" or "on Sept 14 I looked at the NGS website and called the science librarian..." This is vital for our future paper.

Another important thing we were reminded was to use our Open Wet Ware site. This is a wiki where we  record our search methods, key terms and synonyms, useful syllabi and literature, etc.  I have yet to utilize this site, but this is a priority!  I used wiki software at Nat Geo, so I just need to reteach myself. :)

Dr. Allard, our advisor, suggested I assign ascension numbers to the articles/resources I discover.  This is an idea I want to try, in addition to making notecards with info such as: author of article, key points, research methods, etc.

We had a visitor at today's meeting. Vandana Signh is the coordinator of the Info Science and Technology major at UTK so she is interested in our course. Our course will be offered as an elective for this minor.

This was a good meeting, but I felt overwhelmed afterwards. So much to do!  I will lift this up to God and ask Him to help me and show we what to do and how to manage the many responsibilites of my studies.  My friend Justin reminded me of a wonderfully encouraging verse in Jeremiah, "for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you . . . "

:)