Faculty, librarians partner to teach genetics to undergrads

University of Florida undergraduates are learning how to make the most of genetic databases through a partnership between faculty and medical librarians.

Developed by Michele Tennant, Ph.D., M.L.I.S., the collaboration bolsters regular coursework by teaching students how to find and evaluate genetic reference material.

“Undergraduates for the first time become involved with databases routinely used by researchers,” said Tennant, the bioinformatics librarian with Health Science Center Libraries and the UF Genetics Institute. “We teach students that there’s a real difference in the quality of genetic information out there and to be careful to find real, peer-reviewed material — all information is not created equal.”

Tennant published a case study that detailed the role medical libraries play in UF’s undergraduate genetics courses in the Journal of the Medical Library Association. The paper was recently named one of the top 20 bibliographic instruction articles printed in 2002 by the American Library Association.

The idea to partner instructors with librarians to teach genetics at an undergraduate level sprouted in 1996, when Tennant’s husband, Michael Miyamoto, Ph.D., a UF professor and associate chairman of zoology, wanted students in his genetics class to augment what they learned from lectures and textbooks. Rather than give his students a list of journal articles to find, Miyamoto believed they should use the same tools practicing geneticists use to solve their research problems.

That’s when Tennant entered the picture, developing three library lessons designed to teach students to become independent learners of genetic concepts. Undergraduates were required to write a paper on the genetics of a particular disorder using information from sources such as Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, GenBank, the Molecular Modeling Database and PubMed, which is the National Library of Medicine’s search service.

“Students often had to overcome two phobias — fear of computers and fear of the library,” Tennant said. “One of the biggest things that has changed since the inception of the course is that students are more computer savvy. The first year, we had students who never used a computer or mouse or the Internet before. Now, because so many students are computer literate, it can be difficult because they think they already know how to find information, and they don’t understand why they should use the library. But figuring out the right resource or database to use, then finding the best way to search to solve a problem, are the lifelong learning skills we teach.”

Health Science Center librarians have master’s degrees in library science and are partners in the education process, actively working with faculty to integrate information skills and resources into the curriculum, said Beth Layton, M.L.S., deputy director of Health Science Center Libraries.

“Librarians have a skill set that includes knowledge of how to find information and how to use information resources,” Layton said. “In Michele’s area, as in others where databases can be very intricate and complex, finding information effectively is not a simple task.

Consider that PubMed has 12 million citations in it. Type in something general such as ‘cancer,’ for example, and you’ll find more than a million articles. In that respect, what appears to be easy to find is really quite difficult to find, especially when someone’s looking for specific information. What Michele has done that is particularly unusual is to provide this degree of information-finding instruction at the undergraduate level.”