Philippine E-Journals

Glimpse: An Analysis of Resources in Course Syllabi of De La Salle University (DLSU) Graduate School of Engineering

Candy May N. Schijf | Bob P. Cauilan | Jorge B. Bundalian

 

Abstract:

Libraries play a very significant role in providing educational materials to graduate school students as well as faculty members. As technology advances, libraries have evolved to provide a wide range of resources, including print and electronic books, journals, multimedia, and online databases. The quality and availability of these resources are critical factors in determining the effectiveness of libraries in meeting the needs of their users. In this study, the researchers identified the resources in the course syllabi of the graduate courses in Engineering of DLSU used by faculty members in teaching. It aimed to check the materials employed in courses not available in the library collection, the different resource types usually used, and their recency to assist in the collection building. The study determines if the Graduate School College of Engineering (GS COE) library collection suffices or meets the reference needs of the course materials used by the faculty in teaching and identifies the collection's weaknesses. It will serve as a guide for the collection buildup area of engineering to support its programs. Copies of course syllabi for the graduate programs of the school of engineering were requested from the Head of the PAASCU Library Area Committee. A total of 138-course with 634 titles were received. All listed references were entered into a spreadsheet by the assigned librarians identifying their resource type, availability in the library collection, and publication year. Entries were double-checked, and columns left blank during the initial encoding were filled with author information. Percentage distribution was used to determine the needed data. The study is limited to identifying resource materials listed in the GS COE program course syllabi and their availability in the library collection to support the teaching needs of the faculty. Findings revealed that the library has sufficient resources to support the references listed in the graduate courses of the GS COE, with 61.5% availability from the title listed in their course syllabi. The study found that most of the references listed in the course syllabi are printed books, comprising 58.4%, followed by online articles (11.1%) and e-books (6.6%). This implies that faculty members of the GS COE uses different formats in their teaching and are aware of and use the various formats available in the library collection. The primary reference material used in teaching by the faculty is books in printed format. Industrial Engineering (IE) has the highest number of materials listed in their course syllabi (69%) that are available in the library collections. In comparison, Manufacturing Engineering Management (MEM) has the least number of materials available in the libraries, with only 35.7%. Materials not available in the collections were thesis/dissertations, unpublished materials, working papers, websites, and unidentified sources. Resources used in the course syllabi are 5.9% updated within the last five years and 23.8% updated within the last ten years. It means that 76.2% of the titles listed in the course syllabi are 11 years and older.