The academic library profession is being redefined by the shifting research and scholarly landscape, the transformation in higher education, and advances in technology. A survey of librarians working in Canada's research-intensive universities was conducted to explore new and emerging roles. This study focuses on librarians' activities in: Research Support, Teaching and Learning, Digital Scholarship, User Experience, and Scholarly Communication. It addresses the scope and nature of the new roles, the skills required to provide new services, and the confidence librarians have in their abilities to perform the new roles. It also reports on librarians' job satisfaction and their perceived impact on the academic enterprise.
Graduate students at the University of Manitoba were surveyed to find out if they used reference management software (RMS), features used, challenges and barriers to using RMS. Interest in different types of PDF management features and training options were also investigated. Both users and non-users of reference management software were invited to participate. Non-users managed their citations and references with a variety of other tools. The principal reasons for non-use were that students were not aware of options that were available, and the amount of time needed to learn the program. RMS users also mentioned the steep learning curve, problems with extracting metadata from PDFs, technical issues, and problems with inaccurate citation styles. Most of the students saved PDF documents to their computer. Students were most interested in full-text searching of PDFs, automatic renaming of PDFs, and automatically extracting citation metadata from a PDF. PDF annotation and reading tools were also of some interest. Mobile features were of the least interest. There were no statistically significant differences in the interest of PDF management features between the user and non-user groups but there were statistically significant differences in the interest of some of the training options between the groups.
In this study, a rapid grey and academic literature scoping review was conducted to investigate how Indigenous Knowledges, perspectives, values and cultures are being incorporated into engineering education in several colonialized countries. The findings were used to make recommendations on advancing the Biosystems Engineering curriculum at the University of Manitoba to educate future engineers who have the cultural capacity to work ethically, respectfully, and reciprocally in engineering practice and partnership with Indigenous Peoples and communities. The study was spurred in part by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 94 Calls to Action. In collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, calls for integrating Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms and building student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect. Sources for this review were gathered from Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, countries that share a similar history of European colonization and are developing methods for curricular change. The findings demonstrated that incorporation of Indigenous Knowledges perspectives in engineering education can be organized into five main themes: 1. capacity building for engineering educators, 2. consultation and collaboration with Indigenous Peoples and communities, 3. coalescing dominant, Indigenous and engineering perspectives, 4. preparing students for professional practice with Indigenous Peoples, and 5. developing a new curriculum. By incorporating these recommendations, engineering educators will help create an educational environment where Indigenous Peoples and their ways of knowing, being and doing have space alongside Western and engineering worldviews. This will prepare engineering students for culturally sensitive and ethically sound professional practice and support the students who will see themselves reflected in Biosystems Engineering.
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