Abstract
In exploring new ways of teaching students how to use Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), librarians at Boston University's Alumni Medical Library (AML) integrated social tagging into their instruction. These activities were incorporated into the two-credit graduate course, "GMS MS 640: Introduction to Biomedical Information," required for all students in the graduate medical science program. Hands-on assignments and in-class exercises enabled librarians to present MeSH and the concept of a controlled vocabulary in a familiar and relevant context for the course's Generation Y student population and provided students the opportunity to actively participate in creating their education. At the conclusion of these activities, students were surveyed regarding the clarity of the presentation of the MeSH vocabulary. Analysis of survey responses indicated that 46% found the concept of MeSH to be the clearest concept presented in the in-class intervention.
Highlights
IntroductionJ Med Libr Assoc 97(2) April 2009 offered by Boston University School of Medicine’s Division of Graduate Medical Sciences
In the 2007/08 academic year, librarians at AML developed and taught the course, ‘‘MS 640: Introduction to Biomedical Information.’’ MS 640 is a 2-credit, letter-graded course required of all students in the master’s of arts in medical sciences degree programJ Med Libr Assoc 97(2) April 2009 offered by Boston University School of Medicine’s Division of Graduate Medical Sciences
The librarians tabulated the number and frequency of natural language tags submitted in the pre-class exercise that were valid MeSH terms by using the MySQL Count Function
Summary
J Med Libr Assoc 97(2) April 2009 offered by Boston University School of Medicine’s Division of Graduate Medical Sciences. This course was designed by librarians to teach students how to locate, manage, and add to the biomedical literature and to prepare students for further education and for health care careers. With an average age of twenty-three, the majority of the students were recent college graduates and Generation Y members. Librarians hypothesized that social tagging would better enable students to understand controlled vocabularies. To test this hypothesis, librarians designed teaching plans and assignments using natural language tagging to teach MeSH
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