CAPSTONE ESSAY

Assignment Title: Capstone Essay - Professional Development Plan

Participation: Individual.

Due dates:
Draft: 28 March 2001.
Final: 2 May 2001.

Format: Formal five or six page essay in APA final manuscript format.

Submission Method: Email to the course emailbox with the essay attached as a MSWord document.

Maximum points: 15.

Introduction: This assignment is intended as one capstone of the course. As such, it allows students to integrate much of what they have read, heard, and written this semester with their personal, professional plan for the future.

Goals: The goals of this assignment are:

• To integrate all that you have learned in this course in an essay about your plan for the future.
  
  
• To think about and document the professional goals you have and venue(s) in which you wish to practice. While there is no assumption that you will have a particular answer to this question, or that your answer may change later, you should nevertheless, in one paragraph, specify your current view of your future.
  
  
• To think about and document the specific information technology opportunities and problems you will face in this venue citing things you have learned in this course in general and the readings you have been assigned in specific.
  
  
• To think about and document how will you ensure that you develop new comprehension, skills, abilities, and other IT-related competencies to meet the opportunities and problems you identified citing things you have learned in this course. We recognize that both your professional goals and information technology are very volatile, you should nevertheless be as specific as possible in addressing this, considering such topics as:
  
  
  
  • The formal and informal courses might you take to keep developing your IT skills?
    
    
  • The professional organizations (and sub-organizations) to which you will belong to in order to fulfill your professional goals related to IT and why.
    
    
  • The digital sources, e.g., mailing lists, Web sites, and other tools, that will be of value to you in your professional development and how they will be of value.
    
    
• To think about and document the contributions the class readings, experiences, or other elements of this course have made to this plan and to your growing sense of being an information professional.
  
  
• To think about and provide feedback on how this course can be improved to support the development of future students' understanding the role of information technology in the field of library and information science and its impact on society.

Tasks:

1. Write a formal, clear essay that describes and specifies a plan for your professional development that clarifies your approach to the future and addresses the above questions as follows:
   
   
   • One paragraph addressing your goals venue(s) in which you wish to practice.
     
     
   • Two pages addressing the venues opportunities and problems.
     
     
   • Two pages addressing how you will keep up with the changing technology.
     
     
   • One page addressing what contributions of the course to your being an information professional and what improvements may be made in the course for future students.
   
   
2. Email the draft (annotated outline) and final essay to the class emailbox as a MSWord attachment.