Best Bytes: University of Pittsburgh’s HealthCAS program
Posted on January 3, 2012 by Amy Chatfield | No Comments
Contributed by Meredith Bloom, MLIS, student in the University of Pittsburgh’s HealthCAS program
I am a student in the Certificate of Advanced Study program in Health Sciences Librarianship at the University of Pittsburgh, also known as the HealthCAS program. Perhaps some of you have heard of this program but didn’t know exactly what it was. This program, now in its second year, is meant for professionals who hold MLIS degrees and wish to further specialize in health sciences librarianship. There are 11 people in my cohort from all parts of the U.S. Most of my classmates work in medical libraries, but a few are recent MLIS graduates who want to embark on a career in this exciting field. The faculty and staff are all librarians in the University of Pittsburgh’s Health Sciences Library System.
The program is one year long and is divided up into three courses: Libraries in Healthcare Environments, which provides a theoretical foundation for the rest of the program, Collections and Resources in Healthcare Environments, and Reference Services and Instruction in Healthcare Environments. In addition to these three courses, we are also required to work on a year-long, three-credit research project that culminates in a poster presentation at a capstone event during the 2012 MLA conference. We also submitted our poster abstracts to the 2012 MLA conference.
A technology blog is the perfect forum to discuss the HealthCAS program because technology is so integral to the program. Besides two in-person meetings, one at the beginning of the program and one at the end, the program is completely online. All courses are asynchronous. We rely on the University of Pittsburgh’s online CourseWeb system, powered by Blackboard, for all course assignments and communications. CourseWeb provides access to video lectures from our instructors, links to our weekly readings, instructions for the week’s assignments, and access to the course’s discussion board. Most weekly modules require us to write a short paper, which is submitted on CourseWeb, and to write two substantive posts on the discussion board. We have had quite a few modules that center around learning, evaluating, or using technology. For example, in our first semester, we completed a large group project in which we evaluated mobile devices and apps for physicians. In the second semester’s Collections and Resources class, we evaluated point of care databases and compared integrated library systems, among other technology-related assignments. Our final project for this class involved creating a PowerPoint presentation with audio narration and posting it on CourseWeb for other students to critique.
Many people have asked me how the certificate of advanced study will enhance my career. Although the program is still in progress, I already feel more confident in all of the topics and technologies we have learned so far, and more knowledgeable about the field of medical librarianship in general. I have also forged supportive relationships with the members of my cohort and my instructors. I look forward to learning more as I complete the program, and maintaining positive relationships with my University of Pittsburgh community.
For more information on the University of Pittsburgh’s Certificate of Advanced Study in Health Sciences Librarianship, visit their web page. Application deadline for the next cohort is February 15, 2012.
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