Library Instruction in the College of Pharmacy: A Flipped Classroom Model

Background: The purpose of our program was to provide asynchronous, flipped-classroom instruction for Third-Year Pharmacy students to supplement the in-person portion of their course. Five tutorials, covering PubMed, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials, SCOPUS, and ECRI Trust, were created around drug information questions. Our aim was to provide a framework for searching to support the evidence-based medicine curriculum and include real, searchable, research questions to simulate an advanced search.

Description: We developed scripts in consultation with the College of Pharmacy liaison librarian to cover database searching skills for evidence-based pharmacy related topics. Pre-test questions were then created to ensure that students watched these tutorial videos before the in-person class. We recorded videos from those scripts using the Camtasia video editing software. These tutorial videos were then uploaded to a module for the Canvas course shell for the class. Students then watched the tutorial videos and completed the pre-tests. Finally, the College of Pharmacy liaison librarian presented more advanced searching techniques during the in-person class. These concepts built on what was introduced in the five tutorial videos they viewed as pre-class work.

Conclusion: The primary outcomes from this project were the creation of tutorial videos to be used in various contexts. The videos are able to introduce search skills in scholarly databases for evidence-based medicine, and can be applied cross-discipline. The scripts and pre-test questions were also saved so the tutorials could be updated if the need arises. Outcomes for the instruction itself were to enable the pharmacy liaison librarian to cover more advanced searching techniques in the in-person class.