LIS 656: Online Public Services
Online, Spring 2008

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it. "
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson

Instructor
Teresa Welsh, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
The University of Southern Mississippi
School of Library & Information Science
Cook Library, Room 206H
Phone: 601.296.0528
Teresa.Welsh@usm.edu
http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w146169/

Description
This three hour course focuses on applications and issues related to online database services and resources.

Online class discussions are scheduled on Thursday evenings, 6:30-8:00pm Central time.

Prerequisites: Successful completion of LIS 501.

Drop Dates
The last day that this course may be dropped with refund is January 28th.
The last day to drop full-term classes without academic penalty is February 27th.

Required Text may be ordered from BarnesandNoble.com

Online Retrieval: A Dialog of Theory & Practice
Second Edition (1999)
by G. Walker & J. Janes

Students will be assigned temporary Dialog, Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw, and ISI passwords for use during this course. Those passwords will be terminated at the end of the course. Students will be required to submit a Student Use Agreement. Students will need regular access to computer resources and to the Internet. The chat software will require that your computer be java-enabled and your security settings at medium.

Additional course materials will be available online from the vendors, such as Dialog.


Course Objectives

After completion of the course students should be able to:

  1. Demonstrate via chat and discussion board an understanding of the professional ethical concerns of an ALA member as regards the issues relevant to protecting patron confidentiality, record maintenance, and compliance with copyright.

  2. Apply the concepts of information organization and retrieval to determine the appropriate resources and techniques to effectively retrieve materials using online computer resources.

  3. Recognize, discuss and apply the concepts and principles of question negotiation, communication skills, information seeking behaviors and retrieval, including being able to coherently explain the differences and implications of precision and recall.

  4. Evaluate information resources based upon subject coverage, ease of use, level of coverage and economic considerations.

  5. Apply vendor database systems and Internet resources to the successful resolution of information inquiries. Demonstration of this will involve conducting and presenting a detailed reference search on topics provided by the instructor.

  6. Demonstrate an understanding of the effects of technology on communication and organizational structures.

Weekly Schedule
Subject to Revision

Week 1: Information Retrieval
Walker & Janes, Chapters 1 & 2

Week 2: Searching the Net
Walker & Janes, Chapters 3 & 4
Internet Exercise Due

Week 3: Introduction to Dialog User Needs; Boolean Operators
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapter 1
Boolean Exercise Due

Week 4: Recall and Precision
Walker & Janes, Chapter 12
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapter 2
Dialog Exercise Set 1 Due

Week 5: Database Construction
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapter 3
Walker & Janes, Chapter 5
Dialog Exercise Set 2 Due

Week 6: Search Techniques
Walker & Janes, Chapter 6
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapter 4

Week 7: Database Selection
Walker & Janes, Chapter 7
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapter 5
Dialog Exercise Set 3 Due

Week 8: Formatting
Walker & Janes, Chapter 8
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapter 6

Week 9: Spring Break

Week 10: DB Indexes and Vocabulary
Walker & Janes, Chapter 9
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapter 7
Dialog Exercise Set 4 Due

Week 11: Refining, Customizing Search Results
Walker & Janes, Chapter 10
Dialog Lab Workbook, Chapters 8 & 9
Dialog Exercise Set 5 Due

Week 12: Lexis-Nexis
Walker & Janes, Chapter 11
Lexis-Nexis Exercise Due

Week 13: Westlaw
Walker & Janes, Chapter 13
Westlaw Exercise Due

Week 14: ISI Citation Indexes
Walker & Janes, Chapter 14
ISI Exercise Due

Week 15 & 16: Final Research Paper
Database Research Paper Due


Course Requirements

  1. Exercises (50%)

  2. Database research paper (25%)

  3. Class Participation (25%)
    • Students are expected to read the online material and required texts in order to participate in discussion board postings and chats.
    • Students are expected to attend each chat for the entire time of the session. All absences from chats will be recorded. Points will be deducted from the final grade for missed chats or failure to post responses to questions on the Discussion Board.

Grading

A95-100
A-93-94
B+91-92
B86-90
B-84-85
C+82-83
C75-81
C-73-74
D+71-72
D66-70
D-64-65
F0-63

Course Policies
Students are responsible for reading syllabus content and becoming familiar with course policies and procedures

Students will not be granted an Incomplete for this course for failing to complete assignments. A student who receives an Incomplete will have only ONE semester in which to complete the work, and will not be eligible to receive an A.

If a student stops attending class and does not complete the appropriate withdrawal papers or procedures with the registrar, that student will be assigned an F. If this is the only class a student is taking then the student must call the USM graduate school to properly withdraw.

If a student commits plagiarism, that student will receive an F in the course.

A student may not self-plagiarize or submit work done in another course unless receiving prior permission from the instructor. Any assignment that is self plagiarized without prior permission from the instructor will receive zero points.

Virtual classroom attendance and participation is expected. Participation is a large part of the grade and consists of the virtual classroom participation and discussion board postings.

Students are required to subscribe to lisnews, the LIS listserv. Subscribe to lisnews by sending an email to: Majordomo@usm.edu with nothing in the subject box and the following command in the body of the email message: subscribe lisnews

All assignments should be saved in .doc or .rtf format and posted to the Digital Drop Box. Work not turned in on time will be assessed a penalty of 10% per week without prior approval from the instructor.

Failure to follow specific instructions for content and formatting of assignments will result in lower grades.

Writing skills: All work must be in standard English; inappropriate grammar, punctuation, and/or spelling will result in lower grades.

Academic Code of Conduct
Students are expected to follow the Academic Code of Conduct, which includes mutual respect and academic honesty.

"When cheating is discovered, the faculty member may give the student an F on the work involved or in the course. If further disciplinary action is deemed appropriate, the student should be reported to the dean of students. In addition to being a violation of academic honesty, cheating violates the Code of Student Conduct and may be grounds for probation, suspension, and/or expulsion. Students on disciplinary suspension may not enroll in any courses offered by The University of Southern Mississippi." USM Graduate Bulletin, p. 30.

"Plagiarism is scholarly theft, and it is defined as the unacknowledged use of secondary sources. More specifically, any written or oral presentation in which the writer or speaker does not distinguish clearly between original and borrowed material constitutes plagiarism. Because students, as scholars, must make frequent use of the concepts and facts developed by other scholars, plagiarism is not the mere use of another's facts and ideas. However, it is plagiarism when students present the work of other scholars as if it were their own work. Plagiarism is committed in a number of ways:

  1. Reproducing another author's writing as if it were one's own.
  2. Paraphrasing another author's work without citing the original.
  3. Borrowing from another author's ideas, even though those ideas are reworded, without giving credit.
  4. Copying another author's organization without giving credit.
Plagiarism is a serious offense. An act of plagiarism may lead to a failing grade on the paper and in the course, as well as sanctions that may be imposed by the student judicial system." USM Graduate Bulletin, p. 30; USM Student Handbook, p. 73.

Disability Statement
If a student has a disability that qualifies under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and requires accommodations, he/she should contact the Office for Disability Accommodations (ODA) for information on appropriate policies and procedures.  Disabilities covered by ADA may include learning, psychiatric, physical disabilities, or chronic health disorders.  Students can contact ODA if they are not certain whether a medical condition/disability qualifies.
Address: The University of Southern Mississippi, Office for Disability Accommodations, 118 College Drive, # 8586, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0001
Voice Telephone: (601) 266-5024, or (228) 214-3232;  Fax: (601) 266-6035
Individuals with hearing impairments can contact ODA using the Mississippi Relay Service at 1-800-582-2233 (TTY) or email Suzanne.Hebert@usm.edu.



Note: This is an abbreviated version of the course syllabus. The complete syllabus is posted on the Blackboard LIS656 course site.

Webpage Design
Teresa S. Welsh
e-mail: teresa.welsh@usm.edu
Updated 10/10/2007