Information Literacy: A means to an end

1
Information Literacy A means to an end
James Parrigin Reference Instruction
Librarian QEP Development Workshop on
Information Literacy North Carolina Wesleyan
College, Summer, 2009
2
What do we want students to learn about
information?

• Information Competencies (abbreviated)
• Students should be able to
• Refine a topic determine information needed
• Find and search information tools effectively
• Locate get their hands on the information
• Evaluate information to possibly select better
  information
• Use information well, use it ethically

Attributing credit to creators of outside
information
3
Information literacy is a means for students to
advance their knowledge of the discipline
Information Literacy defined
Information literacy is a set of abilities
requiring individuals to "recognize when
information is needed and have the ability to
locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed
information."
Association of College and Research Libraries
http//www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/
informationliteracycompetency.cfmildef
4
Utilitarian perspective Information literacy is
a set of abilities that students most effectively
develop through completion of coursework.
Take a moment and think about your office desk
and book cases and the physical and electronic
information resources that you use to follow
research interests.
Which journal titles come to mind? Which websites
have you bookmarked or keep up with through
journal subscriptions or RRS feeds? Which
reference books, discipline-specific or general,
do you use?
5
Integrating Information Literacy in Lower- and
Upper-Level Courses Developing Scalable Models
for Higher Education Workshop Article

• Mackey and Jacobson suggest two main models
• In Gen Ed Art of Annotation
• In majors the Research Paper

The research paper assignment requires several
pre-planning activities that take place in class
and via the course management system Students
develop concept maps and outlines for their
research papersstudents further expand on the
writing started in class with a proposed topic, a
draft thesis statement, and a 500-word proposal.
Each student receives comments in the
Bulletin Board from at least one other student in
class and an individual email response from the
instructor with specific feedback about their
proposal. (217)
6

• Fire forget assignments
• Instructor assigns paper
• Student writes paper
• Student turns in paper
• Student receives graded paper

7
Re-think the research assignment as a process
that invites recursion
Worthen, H. (1990, July 20). A Way To Break Down
Writing Research Papers into Steps That Emphasize
the Discovery Aspect of Research.
Reprinted in Student Cheating and Plagiarism in
the Internet Era  By Ann Lathrop, Kathleen Foss,
2000.
A seven-step process helps students writing
research papers distinguish between what they
already know before they do any research and what
they find out, and also avoids cut-and-paste,
redeye, and plagiarized research papers. Students
first narrate the story of the research process
(which will be the structural spine of the paper)
and then go through a brainstorming and class
response process to choose topics, the seven
steps to write the paper.
8
Re-think the research assignment as a process
that invites recursion

• students
• Begin by investigating broad topics to be
  refined
• develop questions based on the difference between
  what they know and what they want to know
• make lists of possible ways (resources) to shed
  light on these questions
• investigate these resources until they find out
  something they didn't know before this is the
  refined topic
• write a first draft and share it with instructor
  (and class)
• write another draft, integrating instructor
  recommendations
• write final drafts, including evaluative
  conclusions instead of just summaries.
• This process may span the entire semester,
  happening concurrently with other
• assignments. Source citation is also concurrent
  within this process.

9
Some best practices exist in developing
effective research assignments
Some additional Do's and Don'ts of creating
information-oriented assignments (PDF)
More from the U. of Maryland Libraries
Creating Effective Research Assignments
http//www.lib.umd.edu/guides/assignment.html