SILS Logo INLS 299 and INLS 91
( Field Experience Policies and Procedures )

FIELD EXPERIENCE SEMINARS

Summer 2004

The purpose of the fieldwork seminars is to allow you to participate vicariously in the experiences of all the other students who are doing fieldwork in the same session. You may not be considering a career as a school librarian or one as a network analyst but through this seminar you may learn a bit about these alternative careers (or others) as well as the one you are exploring.

This summer there will be three on-campus sessions and an ongoing online seminar. You are enrolled in both the on-campus sessions and the online one. You may choose to do all your seminar sessions online if you wish or do some combination of online and face to face or do all the face to face sessions.

If you choose the online session, go to blackboard.unc.edu , log in with your onyen and password and follow the instructions posting at least three substantive entries for each of the three discussion forums during the time period set for them.

If you choose to do all the face to face sessions, these will all be held in Manning 206 from 5:30 to 7:30 on the following dates and topics:

You will also be responsible for logging on to the blackboard site and reading and responding, at least briefly, to two of your colleagues for each of the three discussion forums corresponding to the topics above.

If you choose to do a combination of online and face to face, for the face to face sessions, your entries can be brief but for the sessions that you will miss, please make your three entries substantive.

Below are some guidelines for the seminars.

The first topic for discussion is Description and Issues. For the first meeting please come prepared to describe your site and the services your organization offers (or post the description for those in the online version). Describe your learning objectives and the responsibilities you have assumed for your fieldwork experience. Provide a profile of the site -- who are the staff (professional qualifications, title, years of experience), who are the clientele (by groups and by approximate numbers), what resources are available (collections, equipment, software), what services are offered by the agency and how the services are delivered. Describe one or two aspects of the site that you think would be particularly interesting to other students in your seminar. Identify any issues (real or potential) that you observe having to do with personnel, resources, technology, services, impending change, new policies, or the like. You may wish to refer to your reflective logs and use them for your seminar contributions.

For the online discussion, your first entry will be relatively long (the equivalent of speaking for 5 or 6 minutes) so it will be good to break it up into short paragraphs and even to use organizing phrases. Please make a minimum of three entries by or before July 1.

For the FTF seminars try to think of something that you could bring as a "show and tell." Listen to the remarks that others have made and respond to them looking for similarities or striking differences and in particular trying to identify issues that may form the basis for a theory/reality comparison in the second seminar meeting.

The second discussion topic is entitled Theory and Reality. Here you are asked to relate to one of the issues you have identified to the literature of the field. Typically this is in relation to the paper that you are preparing for your faculty supervisor. Please find and be ready to describe/discuss 4-5 relevant readings -- you may want to focus on one reading and use the others as supporting documents. Choose readings that are substantive and research-based. After a brief summary of what each reading is about, contrast the author's ideas with what you observed on site.

For the online seminar, post a few (4-5) relevant citations (be sure to include author, title, journal, volume, dates, and pages or place, publisher and date if it is a book or chapter or full URL and date accessed if it is a Web document) and provide a short summary of what the readings were about. You may want to make several brief entries with one or two readings each or one longer one incorporating all your readings. As above, please comment on the entries of one or two of your colleagues in the seminar. All entries for this forum should be completed by July 13.

The third and last discussion topic is Management Issues and Conclusions. Here you are asked to assume that you have become the manager or director of the service/department/organization where you are doing your field work (that is, assumed the position of your site supervisor). Describe what things you would do the same way and what you would do differently. Tell us why. Describe your suggestions for improving the work flow or the services at your site. Comment on what your colleagues have said. End with a statement about what you learned about yourself and your career goals as a result of the field experience. This discussion will take place within the the third seminar period for the FTF people; for the online group, one longer entry describing your reaction and then three to four postings responding to your colleagues will suffice. All entries for the online forum should be completed by July 20. I look forward to hearing about your rich and wonderful experiences.

Page revised 5/17/2004.
Evelyn Daniel. Fieldwork Coordinator