WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE AVP FOR RESEARCH & THE DEAN OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
“It is of paramount importance that researchers and scholars at Cal State LA have access to and receive value from the lasted technologies for preparing, presenting, publishing, and archiving their work. ORSCA is pleased to partner with the University Library to provide these technologies and services to our faculty and students through IRIS. This partnership will allow ORSCA to leverage the resources and visibility of the University Library and provide services that could not be provided without such a partnership. University constituents will be able to find many new ORSCA resources at IRIS as well as link from IRIS to the ORSCA webpage to access existing compliance, funding, and grant writing resources. We look forward to serving the campus research, scholarship, and creative communities more efficiently with IRIS.”
~Jeffrey Underwood, Associate Vice President for Research Office of Research,
Scholarship, and Creative Activities
"One of the Library’s four Strategic Directions is to transform the library experience and the role of library professionals to advance research, digital scholarship, teaching, learning and student success. In collaboration with the Office for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities (ORSCA), I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative that will promote best practices in research and provide education and increase awareness around issues related to the creation, use, management and preservation of scholarly information developed at Cal State LA through the establishment of the Institute of Research and Information Studies."
~Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Dean, University Library
About IRIS
The goal of IRIS is to provide professional development opportunities for faculty that support their research and scholarship. IRIS also provides courses and workshops on issues related to the access, use, and production of information. The work of IRIS centers around online programming (expanded to F2F when campus re-opens) directed at faculty that helps them achieve excellence in teaching and scholarship by offering online self-paced workshops and webinars in the areas of research compliance and funding as well as information ethics, pedagogy, and technology.
Activities include the following:
- Programming regarding the use of ORSCA, University Library and other campus resources to enhance faculty research and support teaching.
- Collaboration with ORSCA and library faculty about new technologies that facilitate excellence in scholarship and teaching.
- Educational workshops on research topics such as IRB, grant writing, and dissemination of scholarship.
- Programming and individual consultations on topics related to information literacy such as scholarly publishing, information literacy assessment, copyright, and research ethics.
- Topical webinars and self-paced courses related to the critical role of information justice including filter bubble, news deserts, weaponized information, fake news and disinformation.
In short, IRIS is a primary vehicle for informing and educating faculty about the fast-changing landscape of information tools and technologies that support excellence in research and publishing.
IRIS Programming
IRIS programming includes self-paced Canvas workshops and webinars on topics related to research, information literacy, and scholarship. Links to professional development opportunities are provided below.
Self-paced Courses
IRIS offers self-paced courses on important concepts and resources. Read more about sample courses below.
- Library Orientation for Faculty: Introduces the University Library to faculty with emphasis on services and resources for online instruction. Continue to this self-paced orientation.
- Online Information Literacy Instruction and Assessment: Explores best practices for integrating information literacy instruction into classes that include information literacy-related student learning outcomes. Continue to this self-paced course.
- Scholarly Communication and Measuring Your Research Impact: Helps faculty understand the fast-changing world of academic publishing and emerging alternatives for distribution of scholarship. Additional topics include copyright issues surrounding scholarship as well as technologies for evaluating the impact of published works. Continue to this self-paced orientation.
- Copyright and Information Ethics: Provides a solid basis for understanding copyright and fair use so that confident decisions can be made regarding the inclusion of copyrighted materials in online courses. Continue to this self-paced orientation.
Webinars
IRIS hosts webinars on special topics of interest to faculty. Descriptions of recent and upcoming webinars are provided below:
- Pedagogical Approaches to Information Literacy: Lettycia Terrones, Learning & Instructional Services Librarian, leads a webinar focusing on how learners perceive information literacy skill development along with best practices regarding how to convey the critical nature and central importance of information literacy to student success. Recorded live on October 15, 2020.
- Assessing Information Literacy: Jennifer Masunaga, Instruction and Reference Librarian, explores the creation of rubrics, quizzes and games that support measuring information literacy skills online. Recorded live on October 29, 2020.
- Visit the IRIS Webinar Recordings Archive to view recordings.
The Office of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities (ORSCA) periodically holds workshops to provide training and information on grant writing, identifying funding opportunities, compliance issues, and more. Visit the ORSCA Workshops webpage for more information.
