Browsing by Author "Van Loon, James"

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    Enhancing accessibility in STEM: A survey of accessibility errors in STEM academic databases
    (Taylor & Francis, 2024-09-19) Van Loon, James; McCann, Shawn
    Academic libraries must provide accessible electronic and information technology to patrons using assistive technology to access library materials. Accessibility of scholarly material is particularly important in the STEM disciplines, where attrition rates of students with disabilities is higher than in other fields. In this study, the accessibility of STEM indexing databases was evaluated using the WAVE accessibility tool, and the frequency of errors, alerts, and features encountered during the completion of typical searching tasks for each database was noted. The use of accessibility-checking tools like WAVE can supplement other methods used to verify the accessibility of vendor-created library databases.
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    Work in progress: Promoting the use of standards by faculty through improved access
    (2022-03-18) Van Loon, James
    Technical standards can provide an effective instructional scaffold for undergraduate engineering coursework, and exposing engineering students to appropriate standards is one of the requirements for program accreditation by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). However, providing access to standards can be challenging for academic libraries due to their expense and the restrictions imposed by publishers on borrowing these documents from other libraries. As a first step towards improving access to standards for students and faculty at Oakland University (OU), the use of standards by faculty in their teaching and research is investigated via survey research. It is hoped that this study will not only provide guidance on which standards are the highest priority for access by our affiliates, but will also yield insight into how standards are being integrated into coursework in the engineering curriculum at OU.