Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Ase Research Model: A Lightning Talk, Kimberly Willson-St. Clair

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This PowerPoint describes the Analyze, Search, Evaluate (ASE) model for building a research strategy. This pedagogical model was field tested by Dr. Melissa Gross and Dr. Don Latham in a large, IMLS funded study of Florida college students who were targeted for remedial instruction regarding research skills and information literacy. Using this method at the Portland State University Library in research classes for freshman and international students, I have found the ASE research model to be an engaging way to organize an hour library class so that students learn an efficient and easy way to construct their research strategies.

Academic Libraries And The Credit-Bearing Class: A Practical Approach, Margaret G. Burke

Communications in Information Literacy

Academic librarians are expanding their teaching roles and increasing numbers are involved in teaching information literacy by means of the credit-bearing class. Librarians at the Axinn Library at Hofstra University have been teaching credit-bearing classes since 2001. While doing research on the subject, the author found that the literature contained very little practical information concerning this important responsibility for academic librarians. In order to answer some questions that arose from Axinn librarians' experiences with credit-bearing classes, a survey was conducted using the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Instruction's Discussion List as the study group. Among the topics …

Merging Critical Thinking And Information Literacy Outcomes - Making Meaning Or Making Strategic Partnership?, Robert Schroeder

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

The following book chapter will look at critical thinking, how librarians perceive its relationship to information literacy, and what useful strategies can result when these two concepts are combined. To set the stage a few of the major psychological and philosophical theories of critical thinking will be briefly noted. In order to gauge our profession's understanding of critical thinking and its relationship to information literacy, a survey of library literature will be performed. The more rigorous articles from this survey will then be discussed in order to discern the range of positions librarians have taken on the relationship of these …

Research Guide Technologies, Meredith G. Farkas

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Research guides (also known as subject guides, course guides, or pathfinders) provide targeted information on a particular topic to support student or faculty research in that area. Similar instructional tools have been around since before the birth of the web, but are now almost exclusively provided by libraries online as part of the library’s web presence. Research guide software enables librarians without web design skills to quickly and easily create and update web content. The technologies for creating research guides run the gamut from proprietary and open source software specifically designed for creating guides to open source and third-party-hosted applications …

Participatory Technologies, Pedagogy 2.0 And Information Literacy, Meredith G. Farkas

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: This paper seeks to explore the impact participatory technologies have had on education and the information environment in which students operate. It seeks to define a pedagogical approach that will capitalize on the benefits of participatory technologies in the classroom and applies this "pedagogy 2.0" to information literacy instruction.

Design/methodology/approach: A thorough literature review was conducted on the use of participatory technologies in education as well as theories related to collaborative learning. This review formed the basis of the proposed pedagogy 2.0 model.

Findings: Web 2.0 and the growth in use of participatory technologies has had a tremendous impact …

Threshold Concepts And Information Literacy, Lori Townsend, Korey Brunetti, Amy R. Hofer

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

What do we teach when we teach information literacy in higher education? This paper describes a pedagogical approach to information literacy that helps instructors focus content around transformative learning thresholds. The threshold concept framework holds promise for librarians because it grounds the instructor in the big ideas and underlying concepts that make information literacy exciting and worth learning about. This paper looks at how this new idea relates to existing standards and posits several threshold concepts for information literacy. This article won the 2013 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Instruction Section (IS) Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the …

User Education And Information Literacy In Agricultural Universities Of India, Neena Singh

Communications in Information Literacy

Twenty-six of the agricultural universities in India teach user education and information literacy (IL). This article evaluates these courses and investigates if and how the course curriculum blends research and technical writing skills effectively. Unfortunately, the courses lack uniformity in teaching IL and technical writing skills. Since the universities are under state government control, they are unable to provide uniform curricula throughout India. There is also a need for a credited course on IL, integrating ICT and computer skills, and another course for research and technical writing.

Valuing Information Literacy: Affective Learning And The Acrl Standards, Robert Schroeder, Ellysa Stern Cahoy

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Higher education information literacy standards have readily addressed cognitive skills, although affective competencies--the emotional abilities that students must acquire in order to successfully navigate the research process--have not yet been incorporated into standards. This paper presents examples of current information literacy standards, integrating affective competencies or dispositions, including the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) "21st Century Learning Standards," and proposes a model for affective-focused higher education information literacy standards. The role of affect in library learning, the importance of affective competencies, and the centrality of affective learning to student mastery of research skills are discussed. Viewing information literacy as …

Upstairs-Downstairs: Working With A Campus Assessment Coordinator And Other Allies For Effective Information Literacy Assessment, Amy R. Hofer, Margot Hanson

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

At a 2008 assessment conference, Megan Oakleaf and Lisa Hinchliffe noted that one barrier librarians face when trying to conduct assessment is lack of coordination. This barrier was removed for Golden Gate University's (GGU) librarians when Lisa Kramer was hired as Director of Assessment and Evaluation and made her expertise and support available to us. She helped us understand the difference between program evaluation and learning assessment, and acted as a sounding board in the design of a new assessment study. We describe our environment at GGU, our assessment goals, and our study design, then discuss preliminary results and possible …

Save A Horse, Ride A New Train Of Thought: Using Threshold Concepts To Teach Information Literacy, Lori Townsend, Korey Brunetti, Amy R. Hofer

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This presentation explores the idea that threshold concepts may hold potential for information literacy instruction. It says that threshold concepts can offer an exciting way to re-envision and re-energize IL instruction by providing a simple and useful framework for questioning what we focus on in our teaching and why.

Providing Information Literacy Instruction To Graduate Students Through Literature Review Workshops, Hannah Gascho Rempel, Jeanne R. Davidson

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

As future professionals, graduate students must be information literate; however, information literacy instruction of graduate students is often neglected. To address this need, we created literature review workshops to serve graduate students from a wide range of subject disciplines at a point of shared need. Not only did this strategy prove to be successful in reaching a large number of students from a wide range of subject disciplines, the data gathered from the students identified some of the gaps graduate students have in their knowledge about library services.

Library Mashups For The Virtual Campus: Using Web 2.0 Tools To Create A New Current Awareness Service, Linda Absher, Adriene Lim, Kerry Wu

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article explores the ways academic libraries can exploit Web 2.0 technologies and techniques to create Current Awareness Service (CAS) mashups for campus virtual environments. Described are Portland State University Library's efforts to create a CAS site called "Topic Watch;" the criteria used to select humanities and business content for the project; and an overview of the technology employed to combine data from disparate sources into the service. Also summarized are the challenges and issues the library faced during development and future steps to be taken to incorporate the new resource into the campus virtual environment.

Faculty And Student Attitudes Toward Credit Courses For Library Skills, Jeanne R. Davidson

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Faculty, student, and library staff attitudes toward credit courses, as well as various other instructional methods, for teaching library and research skills were assessed. A surprising number of faculty and students did not know about the courses offered. Although other methods, such as Web tutorials and written guides, are preferred, credit courses may still be considered a viable option. To be successful, the courses must be well marketed to both faculty and students, and their importance and content must be clearly understood by faculty advisors.