Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Does This Look Relevant To You? Using Insights From Information Retrieval Studies To Facilitate Student Source Selection, Reading, And Use, Anne Jumonville Graf

Library Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Reflective Assessment: Opportunities And Challenges, Anne Jumonville Graf, Benjamin R. Harris

Library Faculty Research

Purpose: Librarians engage in assessment for several purposes, such as to improve teaching and learning, or to report institutional value. In turn, these assessments shape our perspectives and priorities. How can we participate critically in the assessment of information literacy instruction and library programming while broadening our view and making room for questions about what we do? This paper explores self-reflection as a method for building on existing assessment practices with a critical consciousness.

Design/Methodology/Approach: In tracing the trajectory of assessment and reflective practice in library literature, the authors conducted a selective literature review and analyzed the potential …

Learning From Teaching: A Dialogue Of Risk And Reflection, Anne Jumonville Graf

Library Faculty Research

Librarians have not always included discussions of reflective practice as part of our formal, published literature. In fact, in 2005 John Doherty claimed that librarians are not particularly reflective practitioners in general. However, since then there have been reviews of the status of reflection practice across librarianship, calls for more critical reflective practice, examples of that practice, and a variety of models, examples, and frameworks for reflective strategies in library instruction. In this chapter, my focus is on ways that critical reflection can enhance our ability to learn through teaching, especially when our teaching practice involves valuing the voices and …

The Art Of Discovery: Helping Students Find Inspiration In Unlikely Places, Kelly Grey Carlisle, Anne Jumonville Graf

Library Faculty Research

How can an "old space" like Special Collections be repurposed to meet evolving information literacy learning goals? This presentation will address ways in which a traditional library space can be reimagined as a place to engage students in affective learning at the beginning of the research process. By crafting activities for students that emphasize exploration and open-ended discovery, librarians and faculty can help students slow down and approach research more creatively. In the session, we (two librarians and a teaching faculty member) will share specific outcomes, activities, and the results of our assessments.

Participants will:

• Understand the importance of affective …

The Humanities In Process, Not Crisis: Information Literacy As A Means Of Low-Stakes Course Innovation, Anne Jumonville Graf

Library Faculty Research

Librarians and humanists these days share several concerns: the nature and value of expertise, our relationship to texts/textual production, and traditional and emerging approaches to the study, collection, and preservation of canonical and alternative cultural content. At the moment, debates about these matters are often construed as a crisis of relevance and cause for much hand-wringing. While digital humanities projects offer creative approaches to these issues on a large scale, they have not always articulated pedagogical approaches relevant to undergraduate learners, especially at smaller institutions.

The Role Of Faculty Autonomy In A Course-Integrated Information Literacy Program, Anne Jumonville

Library Faculty Research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of faculty autonomy in sustaining a successful information literacy program.

Design/methodology/approach – Faculty members were given the opportunity to create courses that integrated and assessed information literacy as part of a course grant program associated with an institutional assessment mandate. This case study analyzes course grant proposals, course assessment methods and results. It also presents results of a follow-up survey of faculty participants to see if they continued to integrate information literacy in other courses. Results are situated in the context of self-determination theory to better understand the …

Subversive Infusions: Integrating Information Literacy Across The Curriculum, Benjamin R. Harris

Library Faculty Research

Beginning in 2004, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) requires institutions seeking accreditation to develop a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) to improve student learning. QEP topics may be focused on a single educational initiative or may combine several efforts in order to enhance and assess student learning. While some plans have focused on information literacy specifically, a fair number of the QEP proposals submitted to SACS between 2007-2011 have integrated information literacy learning outcomes as part of another topic. An analysis of the topics and outcomes proposed at 58 institutions offers librarians and information professionals an alternative perspective …

The New Acrl Information Literacy Competency Standards: Revising Reception, Benjamin R. Harris

Library Faculty Research

The publication of educational standards inspires a variety of responses, from wholesale acceptance and deployment to criticism and blame. The author of this paper contends that the revision of the ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education must be accompanied by a critical, conscious, and conscientious reception by librarians and information literacy advocates.

An Information Literacy Summer Assignment: Digital Learning Materials For The First Year Experience, Jeremy W. Donald

Library Faculty Research

Trinity University enrolls approximately 2400 undergraduate students, with an entering first-year class of ~600. As part of a campus-wide summer reading assignment, librarians and technologists were tasked with creating an online information literacy assignment, in which students were to complete an annotated bibliography related to the summer reading selection. The end result—an interactive website--combined instructional design, assessment, and usability design, and student work on the assignment was (optionally) incorporated into First Year Seminars.

Summary Of May 2, 2011 Information Literacy Reading And Scoring Of First Year Papers, Information Literacy Committee (Trinity University)

Information Literacy Documents

No abstract provided.

Encountering Values: A Revision Of Information Literacy?, Benjamin R. Harris

Library Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Buy Low, Sell High, Get In Now: Low‐Stakes/Low‐Investment Information Literacy Initiatives Pay Off Big, Steven Hoover, Jeremy W. Donald, David Wilson

Library Faculty Research

Become familiar with the concept of low stakes/low investment information literacy initiatives in order to communicate their potential value to faculty members, other librarians, and administrators. Recognize how collaboration between your library and other entities on campus can reinforce information literacy initiatives in order to draw upon the strengths and shared values of existing programs. Learn about successful initiatives in order to generate ideas that would be useful for your institution.

Communities As Necessity In Information Literacy Development: Challenging The Standards, Benjamin R. Harris

Library Faculty Research

Contemporary standards suggest that information literate activity is a solitary process. As a corrective, research and pedagogical theory related to “learning communities” and “communities of practice” have become valuable sites of inquiry for librarians. The author provides strategies for making community a topic of instruction.

Expanding Horizons: Using Information In The 21st Century, Information Literacy Committee (Trinity University)

Information Literacy Documents

A Quality Enhancement Plan for Trinity University, 2008-2013

The development of information literacy—the ability to locate, gather, evaluate, and use information analytically and effectively—is the focus of Trinity University’s “Expanding Horizons” Quality Enhancement Plan. Trinity has always valued critical reading, analytical writing, and reasoned judgment as key components of a liberal arts education, and it supports a variety of opportunities for student research. However, the sheer volume of information and its rapidly changing forms challenge us to move beyond what we have traditionally done in and out of the classroom.

Expanding Horizons asks faculty to design a creative and systematic …

Values: The Invisible ‘Ante’ In Information Literacy Learning?, Benjamin R. Harris

Library Faculty Research

Purpose: The ACRL Competency Standards related to learners’ values and value systems has not been interrogated in relation to information literacy theory or practice. This paper analyzes the inclusion of values in these and other guidelines and seeks evidence of the development of this topic in the literature.

Design/Methodology/Approach: A comparative review of information literacy standards related to values/value systems was conducted. An analysis of the literature engaging issues related to personal or community values related to information was completed. Suggestions for continued work were based on these findings.

Findings: Competency standards related to values/value systems are out of place …

Takin’ It To The Streets: Quantitative Literacy, Public Policy, And Gis In A Service Context, Jeremy W. Donald

Library Faculty Research

Improved information literacy and quantitative literacy can help individuals overcome the information costs that discourage political participation and policy debate. Using place and public data as a touchstone, the students of a college political science course partnered with a group of middle school students to apply technology to a shared project. Together they learned techniques for representing demographic and geographic data with a variety of media, including Web 2.0 tools and GIS software. They created an online site designed to address the information needs of the local community, with a focus on promoting users’ information and quantitative literacy and encouraging …

Visual Information Literacy Via Visual Means: Three Heuristics, Benjamin R. Harris

Library Faculty Research

To offer definitions and application scenarios for three interdisciplinary heuristics designed to encourage a more holistic view of texts with the objective of raising awareness and enhancing the information literacy of student researchers.