Brandon Patterson, Technology Engagement Librarian at the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, has been named a Martha Bradley Evans Teachings Fellow. Each year, fellows’ projects focus on critical issues in twenty-first century, post-pandemic higher education to maintain the high instructional quality at the U. In 2024-25, Brandon and three other fellows will focus on innovative applications of AI to teaching and learning in higher education. Brandon’s project is titled, “Examining the AI Scholarly Research Writing Landscape,” and he received $10,000 to investigate current AI scholarly research software and how they align with current information practices used by trained librarians.
The Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah is constantly evolving to meet the needs of its patrons. As AI plays a bigger role in how we consume and curate information, faculty and students must rely on information experts at the library to help navigate the changing information landscape so they can pursue their scholarly goals. Students are curious to try out AI tools on assignments while faculty may express concerns around privacy, ethical consequences and academic honesty. Because of these circumstances, librarians are being called upon to help answer questions pertaining to these issues. The aim of Brandon’s fellowship will be to determine how AI is used within scholarly writing. After better understanding the AI scholarly writing landscape, Brandon is interested in understanding how these tools can fit within a workflow by librarians who teach scholarly writing in courses. Understanding these tools is more vital than ever for health sciences education, where research is fast moving and new evidence valuable to improve patient care.
Brandon recently presented his proposal to a group of librarians at an instruction librarian retreat held at the Marriott Library in August. He received good feedback on ways AI is being used in library instruction and cases he can use to help understand the AI tools most widely used. He will continue to work alongside librarian faculty from the Eccles and Marriott Libraries to determine which AI tools to investigate and consider training needs and deployment strategies for further adoption of these tools, if they are determined helpful. The University of Utah is investing in institutional licenses with some of these tools, such as Scite.ai and Grammarly, so the first step will be to determine how closely these tools match current information and scholarly writing practices since students and faculty already have access to them. He hopes to provide students and faculty with practical uses of AI at the University of Utah and is starting to provide resources for them to use like the AI at the University Guide created by his colleagues at Marriott Library, Luke Leither and TJ Ferrill.
Brandon looks forward to investigating new uses of these technologies to share with the academic community at large. He hopes to empower staff expertise on the tools, seek faculty collaboration to teach these tools to students, and evaluate the impact of these AI tools.
Congratulations, Brandon!
