LIS 512: Advanced Field Experience in LIS

At Simmons, all SLIS students are invited to take this elective course.  Previously three distinct courses (LIS 501, LIS 502, and LIS 503), LIS 512 brings advanced library, archives, and cultural heritage field experiences into one course.  This course is offered in the fall, spring, and summer semesters and is only offered online.

As an advanced course, students cannot enroll in LIS 512 until they have completed all core SLIS courses and their concentration requirements.  This course requires the permission of the faculty instructor to enroll.

SLIS faculty has identified program learning outcomes for all its courses; the first learning outcome listed is particularly relevant to these field experiences: “Apply professional standards, tools, and best practices in the information field and across specialized areas.”

Course Overview

This course is a focused field experience combined with a related academic components. The field experience involves a minimum of 130 hours in an LIS setting and approximately 20 hours of coursework completed online. As a 3-credit course, it has a significant hands-on learning component. Through discussion with key personnel in the organization and working under professional supervision, the student gains hands-on experience in the information environment.

Course topics include: transitioning from a student to a practitioner; workplace environments and organizational analyses; networking strategies; and the importance of professional development.  Student assignments and course work may include: readings; discussion forums; reflections and journal entries; and field experience reports.

We are happy to provide a full course syllabus if you are interested.

Course Assignments

There is one section of LIS 512 offered online in the fall, spring, and summer.   Syllabi may vary from semester to semester, but here is a brief overview of assessments students are expected to complete for the course.

Readings

Optional readings are assigned to students to complement and encourage students to think critically about experiential learning and the workplace across LIS environments.

Digital Journal

Students are required to contribute to a digital journal each week they work over the course of the semester.  These entries allow for students to reflect on their work that week, discuss their progress toward identified goals, and raise any questions for the instructor.  These will be an invaluable tool for the students’ final reflections.

Discussions and reflections

The course, broken into five multi-week modules, prompts students with five distinct discussion forums.  Topics include: organizational analysis, where students examine the management structure and mission of their host site; theory reflection, where students think about which theories learned from course work relate to their field experience; networking, where students identify possible references from their existing professional network and think about career development; leadership analysis, where students reflect on experience with and/or observations of leadership and management styles in LIS; and reflection, where students look back on their experience and look forward to their professional futures.

Field Experience Reports (Contract, Midpoint, Final)

In addition to weekly journal entries and discussion participation, students complete three course assignments relative to their field experiences: a goals statement (identifying site location, supervisor, project scope, deliverables, and schedule, as well as short- and long-term goals); midpoint report (review of work thus far and basic research on field experience site); and final reflection with products (reflection of work and experience, with final deliverables appended).