What types of activities, tasks, projects are appropriate for Directed Fieldwork students?
DFW students must pursue tasks and projects that constitute professional-level (beginning professional level) work. In addition, since fieldwork is meant to be a learning opportunity for students, DFW tasks usually involve skills and knowledge that the student has already begun to develop through coursework but for which the student has not yet developed a high level of expertise. Also, the supervisor/mentor should be more knowledgeable than the student for most of the DFW tasks. (Sometimes information professionals do have projects which require skills they do not have and for which they would like assistance from students who do have these skills. For this type of situation, students might be able to arrange an “Independent Study” rather than a Directed Fieldwork.) Some fieldwork experiences actually involve project work, but other DFW experiences are characterized by the daily activities of an information professional. Either of these (or a combination) works well.
