Two weeks ago I gave my annual lecture to the PY1s on consumer health information / functional health literacy. It went very well this year, in part I think because I incorporated a lot more activity on the students' part. They read actual language from a pregnancy test insert, then amended language. The actual language is written at a 15th SMOG level; the amended is at a 7th grade SMOG level!
I also had them watch a video from the AMA called "Low Health Literacy: You Can't Tell by Looking" (link here), and then write a quick reaction paper to it. Most of the students got at least some of the main concepts - lots of people have low literacy, there's a lot of shame involved in not being able to understand the doctor, pharmacists have a responsibility to their patients by using more understandable language, etc. - and a few could use some attitude help. But overall I'm very pleased with this exercise.
Here are the slides:
Here are the instructions for the assignment that I gave them (due this week). It's a patient handout for the drug that they're covering in both lab and biochemistry class this semester. We'll see how the finished handouts look!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Congrats Assoc. Prof. Pomerantz!
Congratulations are in order for Dr. Jeff Pomerantz, who just received tenure and a promotion to Associate Professor. It is well-deserved!
PS: You need to update your homepage!
PPS: No, not this Jeff Pomerantz!
PS: You need to update your homepage!
PPS: No, not this Jeff Pomerantz!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Library 2.0: Assessing Needs, Goals, Outcomes
This afternoon I'm participating in a panel sponsored by the Duke University Libraries on Library 2.0. The other two panelists are Paolo Mangiafico, Director of Digital Information Strategy for the Duke, and Jeff Pomerantz, Professor of Library/Information Science at the UNC-CH School of Information and Library Science.
My piece of the panel is to discuss what libraries are actually using in the Library/Web 2.0 arena. I'm concentrating on a few techs (OPACs, chat, blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, social networks) in the context of four questions: What need do we see? What technology might help fill this need? How do we assess success/failure of this tech in the context of the need? What are the outcomes of techs that have survived assessment?
Here are my slides (warning: they aren't particularly helpful, as mostly I'm using them to remind myself of which tech I'm discussing next), and below are links to the exemplars that I discuss.
HSL Ask a Librarian - Used to show off the latest chat tool, LibraryH3lp
Carolina Curator - Example of professional library news/information blog
PharmLib Wiki - Community wiki for pharmacy librarians
Meet Your Librarian: Kate McGraw - Staff page for the Dental liaison; shows Delicious tag cloud
UNC HSL on Facebook - Library Facebook page
My piece of the panel is to discuss what libraries are actually using in the Library/Web 2.0 arena. I'm concentrating on a few techs (OPACs, chat, blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, social networks) in the context of four questions: What need do we see? What technology might help fill this need? How do we assess success/failure of this tech in the context of the need? What are the outcomes of techs that have survived assessment?
Here are my slides (warning: they aren't particularly helpful, as mostly I'm using them to remind myself of which tech I'm discussing next), and below are links to the exemplars that I discuss.
HSL Ask a Librarian - Used to show off the latest chat tool, LibraryH3lp
Carolina Curator - Example of professional library news/information blog
PharmLib Wiki - Community wiki for pharmacy librarians
Meet Your Librarian: Kate McGraw - Staff page for the Dental liaison; shows Delicious tag cloud
UNC HSL on Facebook - Library Facebook page
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Science Online: Sessions 4 & 5: History of Science, Arts & Science
Web and the History of Science
Interesting discussion, on the whole. I admit I was totally distracted by trying to derive the pattern for Scicurious' cardigan and thus occasionally lost the thread of the talks. Unfortunate that it mostly turned into a "how we do this" and not so much of the real social and scientific outcomes of blogging on the history of science. Interesting that they all three focus a lot on the "weird science" aspects of the HOS. Having been very interested in the history of biology, in particular, and nearly pursuing that to a greater extent, I was hoping for discussion of how understanding the past - and communicating the past - can influence the future. But it was fun to hear interesting stories and see fun photos.
Art and science — online and offline
Again, an interesting discussion, but not full of hard content. There were a few audience members who dominated the conversation, most of whom I wasn't particularly interested in hearing from. I got most of a baby hat knit during it, and yet even when the conversation turned to handicrafts/arts and science, no one noticed the science knitter sitting in the middle of the room clacking away on her double-points. It was a bit odd, but I didn't feel like talking so I didn't.
Interesting discussion, on the whole. I admit I was totally distracted by trying to derive the pattern for Scicurious' cardigan and thus occasionally lost the thread of the talks. Unfortunate that it mostly turned into a "how we do this" and not so much of the real social and scientific outcomes of blogging on the history of science. Interesting that they all three focus a lot on the "weird science" aspects of the HOS. Having been very interested in the history of biology, in particular, and nearly pursuing that to a greater extent, I was hoping for discussion of how understanding the past - and communicating the past - can influence the future. But it was fun to hear interesting stories and see fun photos.
Art and science — online and offline
Again, an interesting discussion, but not full of hard content. There were a few audience members who dominated the conversation, most of whom I wasn't particularly interested in hearing from. I got most of a baby hat knit during it, and yet even when the conversation turned to handicrafts/arts and science, no one noticed the science knitter sitting in the middle of the room clacking away on her double-points. It was a bit odd, but I didn't feel like talking so I didn't.
Science Online: Session 3: Semantic Web in Science
Semantic web in science: how to build it, how to use it
unprocessed notes
scientists don't share well: IPR, funding, inertia, incentive structures, web doesn't work well for data
need URIs for concepts - reason for failure to date of semantic web is lack of DNS type of mediator
RDF: Resource Description Framework (subject predicate object) - combination of literal and reification statements
also uses OWL: Web Ontology Language allows for meaning to be retained when taken out of context
what are the IP implications of publishing open results of data queries from databases with differing copyright restrictions?
Uses: DNS for life sciences, API to public domain of data, enhanced document markup, activity center analysis
"It's all about the query" - trying to get companies to make wysywig editors for semantic web coding
see slides for various other search tools and collections of ontologies
various links to other things...
unprocessed notes
scientists don't share well: IPR, funding, inertia, incentive structures, web doesn't work well for data
need URIs for concepts - reason for failure to date of semantic web is lack of DNS type of mediator
RDF: Resource Description Framework (subject predicate object) - combination of literal and reification statements
also uses OWL: Web Ontology Language allows for meaning to be retained when taken out of context
what are the IP implications of publishing open results of data queries from databases with differing copyright restrictions?
Uses: DNS for life sciences, API to public domain of data, enhanced document markup, activity center analysis
"It's all about the query" - trying to get companies to make wysywig editors for semantic web coding
see slides for various other search tools and collections of ontologies
various links to other things...
Science Online: Session 2: Video for Research
Not just text – image, sound and video in peer-reviewed literature
Very interesting session focusing on SciVee and the Journal of Visualized Experiments. Audience was surprisingly anti-message on this one, I thought it was really interesting to think about how communication via visual media is often much more effective than in print. Also, raised questions in my head about facilitating learning among different styles of learner rather than just the readers.
Very interesting session focusing on SciVee and the Journal of Visualized Experiments. Audience was surprisingly anti-message on this one, I thought it was really interesting to think about how communication via visual media is often much more effective than in print. Also, raised questions in my head about facilitating learning among different styles of learner rather than just the readers.
Science Online: Session 1: Open Access
Open Access Publishing: Present and Future
unprocessed notes
Overview of what OA is: ROAR/ROMEO gold/green/grey
OAIster - search as if one big archive http://www.oaister.com/"OAIster is a union catalog of digital resources. We provide access to these digital resources by "harvesting" their descriptive metadata (records) using OAI-PMH (the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting)."
Citation advantage to OA - seems to be gaining evidence (article just came out)iHOP: information hyperlinked over proteins (text/data mining)
scalability ex: Genbank, financial implications of journal prices compared to other economic indicators ("toll-access" journals)
problems/questions: so why are "toll-access" journals proliferating?lots of duplication of content, effort, repositoriespoint: title of journal goes on your CV, so reputation counts - OA just don't have that repuation - assessment, evaluation, value, "impact"
real problem: how do you publicize your research and make sure it is used? second real problem: how do you evaluate people based on the quality of their research?
distribute by preprints (example of ArXiv)
so much of this is not new! why can't I get into a discussion of OA that doesn't remind me of discussions from 10 years ago?
unprocessed notes
Overview of what OA is: ROAR/ROMEO gold/green/grey
OAIster - search as if one big archive http://www.oaister.com/"OAIster is a union catalog of digital resources. We provide access to these digital resources by "harvesting" their descriptive metadata (records) using OAI-PMH (the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting)."
Citation advantage to OA - seems to be gaining evidence (article just came out)iHOP: information hyperlinked over proteins (text/data mining)
scalability ex: Genbank, financial implications of journal prices compared to other economic indicators ("toll-access" journals)
problems/questions: so why are "toll-access" journals proliferating?lots of duplication of content, effort, repositoriespoint: title of journal goes on your CV, so reputation counts - OA just don't have that repuation - assessment, evaluation, value, "impact"
real problem: how do you publicize your research and make sure it is used? second real problem: how do you evaluate people based on the quality of their research?
distribute by preprints (example of ArXiv)
so much of this is not new! why can't I get into a discussion of OA that doesn't remind me of discussions from 10 years ago?
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