Library and Information Science Commons^™

Hitch Your Wagon To Institutional Goals, Anne E. Zald, Michelle Millet

Library Faculty Publications

The landscape of accreditation and accountability in higher education is in a period of rapid change, coalescing around issues identified in the 2006 report of the Spellings Commission, “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education.” Information literacy librarians need to connect their instructional efforts to the institutional strategies and initiatives that address continuous improvement whatever their source, e.g. accreditation agencies, funding bodies such as state legislatures, institutional participation in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), University & College Accountability Network (U-CAN), or internal initiatives of the institution’s administration. The challenge for instruction librarians is great, requiring …

Whipping Up The “Why Paper”: Inquiry Into Diverse Perspectives, Jennifer L. Fabbi, P. S. Mcmillen, Abigail Hawkins

Library Faculty Publications

Students are introduced to various databases that provide access to alternative perspectives and to an advanced organizer designed to foster critical evaluation of sources.

In a Valuing Cultural Diversity course, required for all undergraduate education majors, students are asked to write a "Why" paper to investigate and understand alternative perspectives, looking particularly at the perspectives of a cultural group different from their own.

Cooking Up Concept Maps, Abigail Hawkins, Jennifer L. Fabbi, P. S. Mcmillen

Library Faculty Publications

Concept maps allow students to visually work through an idea for potentially useful search terms.

A common roadblock students experience in the research process is identifying central concepts in their research questions and devising useful ways to reframe search terms. Concept mapping is one instructional strategy that can be used to help students better identify the central concepts in their research questions and expand on other ways these concepts are articulated in the literature.

New Avenues For Integrating Information Literacy Into The Curriculum, Abigail Hawkins Gonzales, P. S. Mcmillen, Jennifer L. Fabbi

Library Faculty Publications

A generally understood mission of library instruction programs is to promote information literacy (IL) and critical thinking across the curriculum. The majority of programmatic IL collaborations with higher education core curricula are found in introductory composition or communication courses. Other more unconventional avenues offer potentially more effective ways to teach students the basic IL concepts and skills. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), conversations with College of Education faculty helped librarians identify a strategic and unique point of entry for IL instruction. Using the ADDIE model as a conceptual framework, librarians and an instructional designer met with the …

Instruction And Program Design Through Assessment, Anne E. Zald, Debra Gilchrist

Library Faculty Publications

True to the intention of this chapter, we begin with learning outcomes and use them as the chapter's organizational structure. Learning outcomes represent what we want you to be able to do as a result of active engagement with this material. Within each outcome we include a short discussion of each topic along with many examples and practical applications of the concept under discussion. We hope that this format illustrates the concepts in a holistic manner and facilitates your understanding and learning.

A Collaborative Voyage To Improve Students' Career Information Literacy, Angela Farrar, Lateka Grays, Diane Vanderpol, Amanda Cox

Library Faculty Publications

Librarians, a member of the Hotel College faculty, and a member of the Career Services staff at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas collaborated in the design, implementation and evaluation of a non-traditional research assignment asking students to demonstrate real world information literacy skills.

Session attendees will explore the process by which the traditional librarian-teaching faculty member collaboration grew into a richer project involving a non-traditional partnering. Attendees will be guided through a discussion on levels of collaboration and an audit of potential non-traditional partner opportunities at their own institutions.

Attendees will examine the product of this partnership: an assignment …

Using The Acrl Information Literacy Competency Standards For Higher Education To Assess A University Library Instruction Program, Jeanne R. Davidson, P. S. Mcmillen, Laurel S. Maughan

Library Faculty Publications

The Reference and Instruction Department at Oregon State University (OSU) was charged with creating a vision and goals for its instruction program. This article describes how we used the recently published ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education as a framework for an initial self-study of our instructional practice and for promoting the concept of information literacy at our institution. The process of assessing our current practice led to discussions with library and campus faculty about the value of information literacy and to a clearer articulation of our instructional mission.