Impact starts with librarians

Meet Olga Koz: supporting students with their research outputs

At Kennesaw State University, Dr Olga Koz, Collegiate Librarian and Professor, recognized a gap many doctoral students feel before they know how to name it. The students she supported were expected to produce dissertations, but the five doctoral programs she worked with did not have a dedicated course on how to find, evaluate, organize and synthesize the literature their research would depend on.

Olga understood the challenge because she had lived it herself. After completing her own doctorate, she remembered the uncertainty of moving from learning about research to creating it. She turned that understanding into practical support.

As an embedded librarian in the College of Education, Olga became part of the students’ research environment, not just someone they could consult from outside it. She went into online classes, taught students how to search, find and organize research in their field, developed accessible resources they could return to when they needed them, and created a dedicated webinar series on conducting and writing literature reviews.

Her support gave students structure at a point when many were trying to build a research foundation for the first time. It helped them move beyond simply collecting sources, and towards designing a review, evaluating evidence and synthesizing their findings with purpose.

Dr Julie Moore, Professor at the School of Instructional Technology and Innovation (SITI) in the Bagwell College of Education at Kennesaw State University, nominated Olga as an impact maker because saw the difference her support made for students at KSU: “Our doctoral students would have struggled pulling together resources and writing up a meaningful literature review.”

Olga’s work also extends into the tools students use to learn research design. As part of the Bagwell College of Education Interactive Research Methods Labopens in new tab/window (now the Research Center), she helped develop resources to support the Hopscotch Research Design platform and the Literature Review Design (LRD) framework. The interactive Hopscotch LRD tool assists early career researchers in building robust, well-informed research designs, with more guidance in searching and reviewing evidence.

The balance between exploration and structure matters even more as AI increasingly becomes part of the research process. Olga sees technology as a useful support for methodological rigor, but not a replacement for it. Her work helps students understand how AI can assist them without weakening the critical evaluation and evidence synthesis they need to develop as scholars.

Olga’s story shows how an academic librarian can close a hidden gap in doctoral education. By building out the literature review education and resources students were missing, she has helped reposition the library right at the heart of the real work of creating knowledge.

Meet Jefferson Garcia: helping researchers use AI tools critically

At Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, Jefferson Garcia’s work responds to a new challenge in academic research: helping students judge the quality of AI-generated information. A growing number of students and researchers have been coming to the library for support after using AI tools that produced fabricated or unreliable references. As a Digital Services Professional supporting the School of Medicine and Health Sciences and the School of Engineering at Universidad de los Andes, his role helps them understand the difference between fast, and trustworthy information.

A group of medical students came to the library while completing a systematic review as part of their research training. They had started the work, but their search strategy was limited, using only a narrow selection of sources. The review needed a clearer and more reproducible method, and Jefferson helped them build it from the ground up.

He worked with the group on controlled vocabulary, including MeSH terms, Boolean logic and defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. He guided them towards appropriate medical and multidisciplinary databases and helped document the search process transparently, so the review met the standards expected of evidence-based medicine.

With Jefferson’s expertise and support, the students completed a high-quality systematic review that was evaluated positively by faculty supervisors. More importantly, they developed essential research skills: knowing how to search with precision, choose the right sources and to involve the library earlier in their research process.

His nominator and colleague, Marcela Gómez, Digital Services Leader at Universidad de los Andes described the impact as both immediate and lasting: “The students developed lasting competencies in evidence-based medicine and now approach research tasks with greater confidence, frequently engaging with the library at earlier stages of their projects.”

Jefferson’s story shows how subject-specialist library support strengthens medical research. By helping students turn a limited search into a transparent, reproducible systematic review, Jefferson gave them research skills they can carry into future clinical, academic and evidence-based work.