Information Literacy Faculty Workshop Materials

in four parts:

What exactly IS information literacy?

"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."

From that deceptively simple statement, a wide variety of educational institutions, agencies and organizations have derived their own lists of more specific skills, competencies, performance indicators, learning outcomes, standards, and so on, demonstrating what is involved in achieving this state of information literacy. The one of greatest interest to us is that from the Association of College and Research Libraries. ACRL has defined and described 5 standards, 22 performance indicators, and myriad associated learning outcomes. The 5 standards are:

1. The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.
2. The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently.
3. The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.
4. The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
5. The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.

Closer to home, the California State Universities Academic Senate adopted a List of Core Information Competencies in 1995 that has been the basis for curriculum revisions, faculty development and collaborative projects across the campuses of the CSU. The number and types of collaborative projects resulting from this initiative grows every year. They maintain a lovely webpage with descriptions and models. Have a look at it: http://www.lib.calpoly.edu/infocomp/ Their list of core competencies are summarized here:

1. Define the research topic.
2. Determine the information requirements for the research question, problem, or issue.
3. Locate and retrieve relevant information.
4. Use the technological tools for accessing information.
5. Evaluate information.
6. Organize and synthesize information.
7. Communicate using a variety of information technologies.
8. Understand the ethical, legal, and socio-political issues surrounding information and information technology.
9. Use, evaluate, and treat critically information received from the mass media.
10. Judge the product and the process.

An Australian researcher, Christine Bruce, has described information literacy in a different way. In her research she asked a group of Australian higher educators to define information literacy and then created a relational model based on their definitions. This model is referred to as the "Seven Faces of Information Literacy in Higher Education" and is widely quoted in the literature of higher education. In a nutshell, these 7 view information literacy as:

1. information technology, or using information technology for information retrieval, communication, networking.
2. information sources, or knowledge of a variety of information sources in different media.
3. information process, or executing a process for effective problem solving or decision making.
4. information control, or storing information in a way or ways that make it available when needed.
5. knowledge construction, or building a personal knowledge base in a new area of interest, requiring the use of subjective evaluative criteria.
6. knowledge extension, or working with knowledge for novel insights and creativity.
7. wisdom, or using information wisely for society's benefit and developing personal values in relation to information use.

Another useful way to think about information literacy is to relate it to information technology and computer literacy. Often there is confusion about the three in the education literature. While there is overlap in some ways, the three are quite different. In 1999 the National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board issued a report entitled Being Fluent with Information Technology. Much in the way the education and library communities have described information literacy in terms of skills and characteristics, this document outlines FITness (Fluency with Information Technology). FITness is described as a set of 30 concepts, skills, capabilities in three broad areas: Intellectual Capabilities, Information Technology Concepts, and Information Technology Skills. In describing each of these, the document clearly distinguishes information technology literacy from the more basic set of skills that are "computer literacy" and does a very good job, too, of distinguishing Information literacy and FITness. It is worth quoting their own words here:

"Information literacy focuses on content and communication: it encompasses authoring, information finding and organization, research, and information analysis, assessment, and evaluation. Content can take many forms: text, images, video, computer simulations, and multimedia interactive works. Content can also serve many purposes: news, art, entertainment, education, research and scholarship, advertising, politics, commerce, and documents and records that structure activities of everyday business and personal life. Information literacy subsumes but goes far beyond the traditional textual literacy that has been considered part of a basic education (the ability to read, write, and critically analyze various forms of primarily textual literary works or personal and business documents). By contrast, FITness focuses on a set of intellectual capabilities, conceptual knowledge, and contemporary skills associated with information technology. . . Both information literacy and FITness are essential for individuals to use information technology effectively. . . "

The differences are discussed, too, in an often quoted article, "Information Literacy as a Liberal Art," in the higher education magazine, Educom Review. One paragraph summarizes these distinctions:

"Information and computer literacy, in the conventional sense, are functionally valuable technical skills. But information literacy should in fact be conceived more broadly as a new liberal art that extends from knowing how to use computers and access information to critical reflection on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure, and its social, cultural and even philosophical context and impact - as essential to the mental framework of the educated information-age citizen as the trivium of basic liberal arts (grammar, logic and rhetoric) was to the educated person in medieval society."

A nice description of the characteristics of an information literate student, expressed in non-librarian language, can be found in this document from Pierce College: http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/Library/information/ICdefinition2001.doc

Why Is That SO Important?

Information literacy is inextricably linked to higher education's commitment to educating students for "lifelong learning". The phrase, lifelong learning, has become standard in higher education mission statements. It is in Santa Clara's for one! While this isn't a new idea (remember the proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."), the information age seems to have infused it with a new urgency.

Listen to an interview with Patricia Breivik, quoted in the box above, on information literacy by clicking on the links to mp3 files in this Table of Contents from an online refereed journal dedicated to information literacy, Communications in Information Literacy: http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php/cil/issue/view/Spring2007/showToc

Information literacy is also associated with several recent "report cards" on undergraduate education. For example, the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, in 1998, issued a report, "Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities." Of the Commission's 10 recommendations (1)make research-based learning the standard; (2) construct an inquiry-based freshman year; (3) build on the freshman foundation; (4) remove barriers to interdisciplinary education; (5) link communication skills and course work; (6) use information technology creatively; (7) culminate with a capstone experience; (8) educate graduate students as apprentice teachers; (9) change faculty reward systems; and (10) cultivate a sense of community), real, authentic, implementation of five (specifically 1, 2, 3, 5, 6) would absolutely require an information literacy based curriculum. The other five would certainly be assisted by its presence.

Over the last few years, several key books have been published on the importance of information literacy in higher education. See an annotated list at: http://www.infolit.org/resources.html.

In the wider academic universe, beyond the library walls, higher education accrediting agencies have begun to recognize information literacy and incorporate it within their accrediting documents. One such document includes this description:

"Several skills, collectively referred to as “information literacy,” apply to all disciplines in an institution’s curricula. These skills relate to a student’s competency in acquiring and processing information in the search for understanding ...

These skills include the ability to:

determine the nature and extent of needed information;

access information effectively and efficiently;

evaluate critically the sources and content of information;

incorporate selected information in the learner’s knowledge base and value system;

use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose;

understand the economic, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information and information technology; and

observe laws, regulations, and institutional policies related to the access and use of information."

Middle States Commission on Higher Education. (2006) Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Edcuation: Eligibility Requirements and Standards for Accreditation. Retrieved May 18, 2006 from http://www.msche.org/publications/CHX06060320124919.pdf

WASC's Handbook of Accreditation, 2001, mentions information literacy under Standard 2: Achieving Educational Objectives Through Core Functions, Teaching and Learning, p. 20, 26. They also discuss information literacy in the 2005 Substantive Change Manual on pages 20 and 29.

NOTE: For a more complete description of information literacy in higher education accreditation documents go to: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/infolitstandards/infolitaccred/accreditation.cfm

In addition to accrediting agencies, numerous educational organizations and associations with educational missions have taken up the cause of information literacy in various ways. Most of them are members of the National Forum on Information Literacy, which was founded in 1990 as a response to the work of the American Library Association. Besides educational accrediting bodies like the one quoted above, members include the American Association for Higher Education, the AAUP, EDUCAUSE. Have a look at the full list.

All this interest is described as arising from several key societal changes. One has been discussed for decades now, and that is our "information society", where we are faced with an almost incomprehensible amount of information in an ever-expanding international arena. Another is how quickly things change is today's world , and this rate of change only seems to constantly increase. Related to these two is one of the fuels for both and that is technology. These three elements together create a world in which people constantly need to reinvent themselves. Today's society requires individuals who are critical thinkers, who can create knowledge from this glut of information, who are adaptable and responsive. In other words, people who know how to learn. Lifelong learning is, then, nothing more than a coping strategy in this information age!

"People . . . will not come to the workplace knowing all they have to know,
but knowing how to figure out what they need to know, where to get it, and how to make meaning out of it."

Perhaps the most important thing about information literacy from the faculty perspective is that it makes for a better student. As a matter of fact, most faculty probably ASSUME students are information literate when they design their research assignments. Surely, this is nothing more than one would EXPECT a college student researcher to do, isn't it? But, ARE they doing it? Things brings us to the next part of this document:

Statistics demonstrate that our students are increasingly dependent on the Internet as a source of information. Here are a few relevant statistics:

According to the 2002 UCLA/American Council on Education CIRP (Cooperative Institutional Research Program) Freshman Survey (an annual and the largest and oldest empirical study of higher education, involving data on some 1,700 institutions and over 10 million students since 1966):

78.4 % of freshmen used the internet for homework or research during the last year, compared to 67.4% in 2000 or 74.5% in 2001.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyed 754 12-17 year old students with home internet access in November-December 2000 and found that:

 

94% use the internet for homework.

71% "used the internet as the major source for their most recent major school project or report."

24% "used the library as the major source for their most recent major school project or report."

Not surprisingly, an April, 2008, report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Writing, Technology & Teens, found that technology is American teens' primary method for conducting research for school.

Researchers at Cornell did a comparative analysis of the bibliographies of undergraduate research papers in Econ 101, Introduction to Microeconomics, a class that is taken by over 300 students per year, in 1996 and 1999, a period of rapid increase in internet use, concluding that there has been a significant decrease in the frequency with which scholarly resources are cited. They found that:

book citations decreased from 30% to 19%

newspaper citations increased from 7% to 19%

internet citations increased from 9% to 21%

Davis, Philip M. and Suzanne A. Cohen. "The Effect of the Web on Undergraduate Citation Behavior 1996-1999." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 52:4 (2001): 309-314.

Somewhat more recently, preliminary data from a 2001/2002 examination of 116 term papers from six different classes at a small private college showed that in classes where instructors did not specify types of sources, students were more likely to use web sites and, in a sociology and a humanities class web sites were used more often than books or articles in their papers.

Jenkins, Paul O. "They're Not Just Using Web Sites: A Citation Study of 116 Student Papers." College & Research Libraries News 63:3 (2002): 164.

Researchers at the University of Georgia surveyed Family and Consumer Sciences students and professionals in 1998 and 1999 to determine what type of use and how much use they made of computers and the internet. Among other things, they found that, even back in 1998 and 1999, 83% used the internet to research a paper, yet only 40% knew how to cite an online reference!

Sweaney, Anne L., and others. "Computer Experience and Skills of Fmaily and Consumer Sciences Undergraduates and Professionals." Education 121:4 (2001):773-780.

The good news is that professors can influence the sources that students use. An article reporting on a study of student term paper bibliographies and grades found that instruction in using library databases combined with academic penalties for not using academic sources did, in fact, influence student use of sources and improve their grades.

Robinson, Andrew M., and Karen Schlegl. "Student Bibliographies Improve When Professors Provide Enforceable Guidelines for Citations." portal: Libraries and the Academy 4:2(2004):275-290.

This brings up some additional questions, like:

Why is dependence on the internet such a problem?

There's a quote from an American Library Association President and former Dean at several university libraries that clearly states one problem:

"The net is like a huge vandalized library. Someone has destroyed the catalog and removed the front matter, indexes, etc. from hundreds of thousands of books and torn and scattered what remains..."Surfing" is the process of sifting through this disorganized mess in the hope of coming across some useful fragments of text and images that can be related to other fragments. The net is even worse than a vandalized library because thousands of additional unorganized fragments are added daily by the myriad of cranks, sages, and persons with time on their hands who launch their unfiltered messages into cyberspace."

Michael Gorman, "The Corruption of Cataloging" Library Journal 120 (15 September, 1995):34.

In other words, there is so much out there that is so easily retrieved, students rely totally on what "pops to the top" in a Google search to determine what is valuable, useful, reliable, on their topic. They can get so much information so quickly through Google that they never dream of going anywhere else. After all, if they are writing a paper on Jane Austen, they can get over 7.5 MILLION pages by search Google with just that phrase. If they add the word RESEARCH, they still get almost a million. And, the very first one is "Jane Austen Essays and Term Papers on Jane Austen". And, many of you remember when the Multicultural Center was recommending the white supremacist website, martinlutherking.org, to students as a source of information on Martin Luther King!

Perhaps even scarier are the statistics that relate use of the internet to plagiarism activity:

Results from the latest Center for Academic Integrity Assessment Report, June, 2005, indicate that 77% of students surveyed said that cutting and pasting blocks of text into their papers was not a serious issue, and 40% admitted to doing it themselves.

Center for Academic Integrity. (2006) CAI Research. Retrieved May 18, 2006, from http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research.asp

Didn't they learn all that in high school?

That April, 2008, report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Writing, Technology & Teens, mentioned above that found that technology is American teens' primary method for conducting research for school also found that only 3% of teens say that most of their school writing involves major writing assignments of 5 pages or more in length in English classes. Outside of English classes 78% say they usually write pieces of less than a page. So, it would appear that high school students do very, very, very little research-based writing at all.

And, in California, we are even worse off than most states in that students are introduced to many of the concepts/skills that comprise information literacy throughout their school years by collaborations between classroom teachers and librarians in school libraries. Unfortunately, California consistently ranks in the bottom 1-2-3 in the nation when it comes to library facilities, resources and staff. Furthermore, it has been that way for a couple of decades now, so today's teachers in California are not educated in this area.

According to the latest California Basic Educational Data System (CBEDS) survey:

Only 23 percent of California schools have a credentialed library media teacher on campus PART TIME or more (these are mostly at the secondary level and are not likely to actually be librarians with accredited ALA Master's degrees);

The national ratio of library media specialist to students is 1:889 but in California, which ranks 51 out of 51, it is 1:5,965 (and that is actually an improvement over the 1993 ratio of 1:9421!).

According to the latest National Center for Education Schools & Staffing Survey California ranks worst in the nation:

in the ratio of library media specialists to students

in the percentage of schools lacking a state-certified librarian/media specialist.

in the percentage of schools lacking any "librarian" of any sort.

in the percentage of library/media centers having an internet connection.

Why do they use the Internet so much?

Students are very comfortable using Google. A 2002 research report, "OCLC White Paper on the Information Habits of College Students," reported that 42% of students rely on search engines for every assignment. Another 37% rely on search engines for most assignments. I would guess that has only increased since 2002. And, they do pretty much just use Google these days.

Don't they cover all this in some freshman class, like English 002?

Information literacy is, like literacy, a developmental skill. It cannot be taught in one class, in a one shot effort. It has to become part of education in general. Like critical thinking it belongs in every class that requires students to THINK.

Can't they just "pick it up" along the way?

What students have "picked up along the way" is web surfing! They are fluent at tapping keys, emailing, chatting. Using the library databases databases requires an entirely different skill set. It is MUCH, MUCH harder. It is very complicated.

"I Don't Think I Click," a study examining how students used an online library catalog found that both experienced and first-time catalog users approached this library database as they would a search engine and were unable to use Boolean effectively or modify their search in any sophisticated way at all. These researchers also came to the same conclusion as several other studies they cite, and that is that students do not seem critical of their searching and, instead, have faith that the computer will give them what they need without their becoming more expert searchers.

Novotny, Eric. "I Don't Think I Click: A Protocol Analysis Study of Use of a Library Online Catalog in the Internet Age." College & Research Libraries 65.6(2004):525-537.

A trend or characteristic of college students hinted at in studies and reported anecdotally is that students feel as though they are skilled at searching but, in fact, are not. Frequently quoted is a 2001 report of a study of 600 graduating seniors at University of California, Berkeley. Although it varied from year-to-year and department-by-department, students consistently perceived their skill level to be significantly higher than it actually was.

Maughan, Patricia D. "Assessing Information Literacy among Undergraduates: A Discussion of the Literature and the University of California-Berkeley Assessment Experience." College & Research Libraries 62.1(2001): 71-85.

A 2007 publication reported on a study of incoming freshmen who tested as non-proficient on a standardized test of information literacy also found a negative correlation between their performance and perceived need for instruction in information literacy.

Gross, Melissa, and Don Latham. "Attaining Information Literacy: An Investigation of the Relationship Between Skill Level, Self-Estimates of Skill, and Library Anxiety." Library and Information Science Research 29.3(2007):332-353.

Clearly, students aren't going to put out that extra effort (and it would require a great deal of extra effort) to tackle complex academic research tools unless we require them to do so in their research assignments.

I'm Convinced!
How Do I Put a Little Information Literacy Into My Class?

The most important thing to do is to make it clear at the very start of the class that you have high expectations for their research, that Google & Wikipedia alone will not do. Describe these expectations right in your syllabus! Often, too, it is simply a question of modifying assignments you already have your students do and/or asking them some good questions about the decisions they make and the processes they use. Make choices of information sources an issue. Talk about information sources. Below are some tips that make for good practice in designing and executing research assignments that promote information literacy. At the end of the tips section are some examples of information literacy assignments collaboratively designed by librarians and teaching faculty, ideas for short exercises to improve information literacy, and some rubrics used to assess information literacy.

If you have students do an annotated bibliography, be specific about what you want them to include in the annotation so that they have to comment critically on the information source. We have a somewhat generic guide to writing annotations that you can direct students to at: http://www.scu.edu/library/research/general/upload/writingannot.pdf. Or you can download a version in Word and modify it: http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/writingannot.doc. You can also download a rubric for assessing an annotated bibliography created by a librarian and an English professor here at SCU at this url: http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/annotatedbibliographyrubric.doc

If you have your students do an annotated bibliography ask them, for each cited source, to specifically describe HOW they found that source. This requires them to think about the processes they use for finding information. It will also help you understand better how your students do research.

A good way to encourage students to think about the PROCESS of finding information is to have them keep a detailed research log. Ask them to keep track of what databases they use and what terms they search with.

Also very important, but much harder for them, is to get them to critically evaluate all potential information sources and be selective. Require them to articulate the role each information source will play in their research. Ask them to explain what each particular information source contributes to their research. You can also ask them to submit a list of perhaps 10 POTENTIAL sources and then have them refine that set and explain their criteria for selecting one source over another. Asking them to do this as they go along, rather than at the very end, is also a good way to discourage plagiarism.

If a student says "the library doesn't have anything on my topic," ask them detailed questions about where they looked and how they looked. (Students tend to overestimate their skill level, and they are often wrong about what is available and how much is available.) Then, while you are with them, call a librarian (the Research Assistance Desk is 554-5074!) and have them set up a meeting for some one-on-one help. We make appointments with individual students all the time.

Along those same lines, REQUIRE students to meet with a librarian. Obviously, you would need to give the librarians a bit of a "heads up" for this to work well for an entire class, but it isn't as big a deal as it might first appear. Information and materials for doing this can be found HERE.

If a student seems to be working on a topic that is too large or very vague, ask them to bring you ONE article on the topic that they found interesting and look at that article with them. In discussing the article's coverage, what they found particularly noteworthy, or questions that the article raised, it is often possible to get them to discover possible topic.

Talk to YOUR librarian about your class! Every department and program has a librarian liaison who would be happy to assist you in designing an exercise or revising a current exercise or anything. If you do not know this person already, get acquainted. A list is available on the library's homepage at http://www.scu.edu/SCU/Library/Orradre/info/contact/liaison/

Work with a librarian on designing a web page related to the information assignments your students will be doing. Take a look at some of the web pages we have now to assist students in doing research in specific subjects or classes. They are listed under Research Guides on the library's homepage.

If you have a librarian provide some database instruction, timing is crucial! Because of how complicated these databases are, the size of the GAP in their knowledge, they need to be PRIMED to receive instruction. If a librarian shows them how to use PsycInfo, for example, on Monday, but they don’t use it until the following Sunday (because the assignment is due on Monday), they will have a terrible time. And Sunday night is not the best day for them to be looking for help either!

Don’t back down! They CAN get over a higher bar than they think. To achieve their aims, good information literacy assignments require an attention to detail and some uncomfortable moments that students will find frustrating. They give up quickly (study showing ONE try in a database, then back to Google..) They are SO comfortable with Google and really, truly believe that Google is all they need and that they ARE doing a good search if they just keep typing different words into Google. But, they really can do it, and, after they do, they will be empowered!

Those assignments . . .

An assignment designed by English faculty and a librarian here at Santa Clara has students look up a quote and then write a short paper based on the quote and what they learn about the person who said it. To do this, they must find a diverse set of encyclopedia and dictionary articles on the person. You can download and read the Quote Assignment at http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/quoteassignment.doc. A rubric is also available for this assignment at: http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/rubricquoteassignment.doc

If you have the class reading a book that was widely reviewed, you could have them write a synthesis of a subset of those reviews. This CAN be a very substantial assignment. The key is to move students beyond simply summarizing the reviews. You can download and read a generalized version of the assignment at:http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/SynthesisofBookReviewsgeneralizedassignment.docand download the rubric at: http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/synthesisofbkrevrubricgened.doc

A difficulty that many students, especially freshmen, have is discerning more subtle differences in published information sources and identifying reasons for those differences when those reasons have to do with characteristics of information sources they have never before considered, like date of publication, type of publication, audience for the publication, background of the author, etc. A short reading and writing assignment designed and used by several freshman writing instructors and a librarian focuses on just this. You can download this assignment at: http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/rfkcomparisonpaper.doc There is also a rubric for it at: http://www.scu.edu/docs/SCU/Library/Orradre/services/reference/is/infolit/rubriccomparativeanalysisbiographyexcerpts.doc

For beginning researchers, a little exercise comparing a popular magazine article or web page with a scholarly journal article on the same topic can be very enlightening. A librarian would be happy to help you find good examples to use. The right examples and a few probing questions will open windows.

Do a little web evaluation exercise with your students. It will help them be more critical of the web. There are many examples of such lessons at a nifty library website called Lessons Learned: Exemplary Practices in Teaching Web Evaluation.

A useful exercise for introducing students to the limits and values of the web as a resource is to have them search the same topic using different tools and then compare and contrast the results. Despite the fact that they spend a lot of time on the web, students are very much stuck in a rut in searching. They rarely try new tools. All web surfing tools are not alike. We have a very nice guide to some very useful searching tools. We have paper copies of the guide in the reference room, and it is also one of the Research Guides on the library homepage. It is entitled Finding Worthwhile Web Pages.

This page was created and is maintained by
Gail Gradowski
Orradre Library
Santa Clara University

Page created on December 7, 2001

Last updated on July 29, 2009.