Information Literacy Commons^™

Reframing Wikipedia As An Information Source: Concepts And Strategies For Critical Inquiry And Digital Literacy., Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to become the largest and most popular reference source in the world. Contrary to the idea that it lives in the Internet’s Wild West, this resource has robust infrastructure, with editorial guidelines, processes, and dedicated volunteers who help to make Wikipedia an invaluable information source for learning about almost any topic. Of course, it’s also true that not every Wikipedia article is reliable, and that the quality and depth of articles ranges. The crowdsourced nature of Wikipedia, along with its extensive editorial processes, make it not only a powerful (albeit imperfect) reference …

Online Source Evaluation Through “Lateral Reading”: A Workshop For Educators, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

Learning Outcomes:

• Become familiar with and apply lateral reading strategies to evaluating online sources.
• Explore ways to teach lateral reading to students in your educational context.

Audience: All educators, including K-12 teachers, public librarians, academic librarians, educational administrators and community organizers)

Both everyday life experience and a growing body of research show just how hard it is to determine the credibility of online sources. Traditional checklist approaches to evaluating websites (e.g., the CRAAP test) are ineffective, despite their continued prevalence. A more effective approach to quickly assessing the credibility of an online source is lateral reading. “Lateral reading” essentially involves …

Meaningful Work When Work Won't Love You Back: Sociological Imagination And Reflective Teaching Practice (Reports From The Field), Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

This essay explores the tension between pursuing meaningful work in instruction librarianship and the realities of working in a society in which many jobs provide little fulfillment or pleasure, or, as the journalist Sarah Jaffe puts it, “Work won’t love you back.” Drawing on a recent conference keynote by Anne Helen Petersen, C. Wright Mills’s conception of sociological imagination, and an ecological model of teacher agency, I propose that one way librarians can sustain their teaching practices and preserve their well-being is by actively investigating how social structures and relationships influence their teaching roles.

Teaching Inclusive Citation Through A Library Workshop, Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

In response to calls for greater equity and inclusion in scholarly publishing and in academia in general, many academic instruction librarians are looking to ways to promote inclusive citation practices. Inclusive citation essentially involves citing sources that reflect a greater diversity of voices and perspectives, while being aware of how power and social structures have traditionally influenced what voices are amplified and which are often overlooked. Inclusive citation requires thinking creatively about how and where we search for information, since traditional scholarly practices and common structures and features of many search tools (e.g., citation metrics, relevance rankings) are part of …

Never Judge A Website By Its Cover: A Mixed-Methods Investigation Into The Effectiveness Of A Tutorial On Lateral Reading, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

This poster will provide results of an IRB-approved study that assessed the effectiveness of an online tutorial on evaluating sources through lateral reading. Students who used lateral reading strategies were much more likely to accurately identify questionable sources as such. As students gained practice with lateral reading, the accuracy of their evaluations overall improved. Final reflection activities suggest that students' learning deepened as they considered ways that they might revise their evaluation strategies and how they might apply lateral reading strategies in their everyday life. In line with other research on lateral reading, this brief instructional intervention appears to have …

Diving Below The Surface: A Layered Approach To Teaching Online Source Evaluation Through Lateral And Critical Reading, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

As online environments have in many ways changed how information (including misinformation) is created and distributed, many educators have recognized a need for teaching new strategies for evaluating online sources for credibility and potential bias. Educators like Mike Caulfield and research groups like the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) have stressed the need for “lateral reading,” a habit of fact-checking when initially evaluating a source. When reading laterally, a person doesn’t spend extensive time initially examining what a source says about itself; instead, they quickly move off of the site in question to look at what others have said about …

Flexible Pedagogies For Inclusive Learning: Balancing Pliancy And Structure And Cultivating Cultures Of Care, Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

In this essay, I reflect on flexibility as a concept and as a practice that has informed my teaching, in particular since adapting to online library instruction in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how flexible pedagogy principles and practices can be catalysts for reflective and inclusive teaching and a culture of care in all teaching contexts.

Dominant Covid Narratives And Implications For Information And Media Literacy Education In The “Post-Pandemic” United States, Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

Over the past three+ years that COVID-19 has changed everyday life across the globe, the entire world has been tasked with making sense of new, evolving, and often conflicting information, including public message that is often confusing and shaped by political agendas and interests. Dominant narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate of the complexities and importance of information literacy, and more specifically of critical information literacy, which asks us to interrogate the ways that power and social structure influence what information is created and circulated and how we interact with and respond to it as individuals and collectives. In this …

An Interactive Tutorial: Evaluating Online Sources Through Lateral Reading, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

Critical evaluation of online sources has become a necessary skill in everyday life. With the prevalence of fake news, pseudoscience, and deep fake videos, how can a person determine if a source is legitimate? While in some cases it’s fairly obvious when a source is suspect, at other times determining a source’s credibility isn’t so straightforward.

Recent research indicates that both university professors and college students have difficulty recognizing misleading online sources that at first glance look reputable. The close reading skills that are key to much of academic work differ from the online evaluation strategies needed when quickly determining …

Exploring Wikipedia As A Tool For Community Building And Teaching And Learning, Timothy R. Dewysockie, Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

Wikipedia has become a widely accepted information source. Wikipedia is also by its very nature centered on community and on building and growing knowledge collectively. However, many are still understandably skeptical of how credible Wikipedia content is, and a gap remains between how frequently we use Wikipedia and how well we understand it. Wikipedia creates an opening for exploring how information is created and circulated, how the information creation process is often negotiated collectively, and how to critically evaluate online information. This session will explore how Wikipedia can be a rich tool for both teaching information literacy and building community …

Small Actions, Grassroots Efforts, And Community Building: Inspiring Fresh Perspectives On Teaching Information Literacy In Uncertain Times, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

In this workshop two academic librarians will share about their grassroots approach to fostering civic and digital literacies through their work in teaching “lateral reading” and online source evaluation. We will reflect on how a small action, creating an online research guide, was a seed for growing roots - connections and relationships - and for expanding our own teaching and our educational outreach. While we’ll touch on work with lateral reading, our primary focus will be reflecting with fellow librarians on small actions as regenerative responses to burnout and as starting points for more collective engagement in civic literacy education. …

Click Restraint For Critical Online Source Evaluation, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

We turn to the Internet everyday for information about little things like when a local store opens, as well as about much bigger issues like how to manage critical health conditions or who to vote for. The search results we see first aren’t necessarily the most relevant; they may appear at the top of a list because that site has been visited often or because a company or organization has figured out how to “game the system” through “search engine optimization” (SEO). So how, in an effort to better understand an issue and to find trustworthy information, do we and …

Information Literacy In The Age Of Covid-19: Two Research Guides Implemented At Rowan University Libraries, Benjamin H. Saracco, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

This lightning talk will provide an overview of two projects faculty librarians undertook in response to the emerging information literacy needs of various stakeholders at Rowan University. The two projects include: a Covid-19 and misinformation online guide and a Covid-19 online research-focused guide for healthcare practitioners.

While these projects were created for different University populations with distinct informational needs (teachers, students, the general public, medical practitioners/researchers), a common theme across these projects was librarians quickly filling information gaps in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Presented at Virtual Academic Library Environment of New Jersey (VALE) virtual conference January 7, 2022.

Unpacking Lateral Reading Through Practice And Reflection: Metacognitive Strategies Of Critical Source Evaluation, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

Increasingly librarians are moving away from checklist approaches like CRAAP and advocating for “lateral reading” as a way to quickly evaluate the credibility of online sources. Essentially “lateral reading” is spending little time on a website and more time reading what other sources say about the website in order to quickly evaluate its credibility. While seemingly simple, lateral reading strategies are not always as straightforward as they first appear. Participants will practice lateral reading and consider ways to encourage students to bring metacognitive and critical thinking skills to using lateral reading for source evaluation.

Learning objectives:

1. To become familiar with …

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Trust, Criticality, & The Open Web: Three Approaches To Teaching Lateral Reading, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis, Rachel Flynn, Yan He

Libraries Scholarship

Presentation presented at 2021 ACRL conference.

Learning objectives:

• Become familiar with the practice and importance of lateral reading (LR) and the skills and mindsets it involves.
• Become familiar with different approaches to teaching LR and challenges of learning and teaching about it.
• Reflect on the potential relevance and applications of LR in your own teaching context.

Description:

Lateral reading - the process of moving off of a webpage to see what others say about it - has become critical for effectively evaluating online sources. While lateral reading appears simple, teaching it reveals layers of complexity, which include deciding where …

Teaching Lateral Reading With An Online Tutorial: Preliminary Study Findings., Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

Challenges to Digital Literacy Education Stanford Cyber Center Policy

The internet is now the most common source of political news for almost half of Americans, and social media is now the primary source of news for those under 30. Yet today’s youth have little capacity to evaluate the credibility of digital sources, with colleges across the country often relying on severely outdated guidelines supporting digital literacy education. Join Stanford’s Sam Wineburg, Washington State University’s Mike Caulfield, and Rowan University’s Andrea Baer and Dan Kipnis, in conversation with the Cyber Center’s Kelly Born, about the many challenges and opportunities facing media …

Teaching Online Source Evaluation: Going Beyond Craap Using Lateral Reading, Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

Lateral reading is the process of initially evaluating a web source by quickly moving off of the web source to see what others say about it. Research on “lateral reading” from the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) and from Mike Caulfield has informed how many librarians think about teaching source evaluation. In this talk, we will share our experiences in developing a pilot online interactive module about lateral reading strategies.

Presentation for 2020 New Jersey Library Association College and University Section (CUS) Summer Workshop.

Uncharted Waters: Navigating with a compass for Adaptability

Sifting And Four-Moving Online: Opportunities And Challenges With Teaching Lateral Reading Through An Online Module (Conference Presentation), Andrea Baer, Daniel G. Kipnis

Libraries Scholarship

As the ways in which information gets produced and distributed online have substantially changed, librarians’ approaches to teaching source evaluation are also evolving. Many librarians are pointing out the limitations of formulaic approaches to source evaluation (e.g., checklists like CRAAP and RADCAB), given how source evaluation has become increasingly challenging in online environments. Research on “lateral reading” from the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) and from Mike Caulfield has informed much of this work. In a 2016 study SHEG found that professional fact-checkers who practice “lateral reading” - spending little time on a website and more time reading what other …

Graduate Occupational Therapy Students: Communication And Research Preferences From Three University Libraries, Lisa A. Adriani, Daniel G. Kipnis, Ronda I. Kolbin, Daniel Verbit

Libraries Scholarship

Library liaisons from three universities distributed an anonymous survey to graduate occupational therapy students to gauge preferred methods of communication when conducting research. This article discusses three findings: whom the students prefer to turn to when seeking research assistance, which methods of communication students prefer, and how long students spend searching before asking for assistance. From 193 responses, the liaisons reasoned that students prefer consulting with their peers before seeking help from librarians or faculty or instructors and they prefer assistance face-to-face. Additionally, the majority are willing to research from 30 minutes to 1 hour before seeking research help.

Exploring Librarians’ Teaching Roles Through Metaphor, Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

As librarians’ instructional roles continue to evolve, metaphor can be a powerful tool through which to reflect on and at times to reframe librarians’ evolving educational roles and pedagogical approaches, as they consider beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning and about their unfolding work and identities. This article explores this potential by examining professional documents on librarians’ teaching, discussing empirical research on metaphor as a tool for teacher development, examining metaphors that librarians have sometimes used to describe their pedagogical work, and sharing the author’s experiences facilitating a librarian workshop on metaphor and librarians’ teaching roles.

What Intellectual Empathy Can Offer Information Literacy Education, Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

This chapter explores the roles that affect, social identity and beliefs play in how people engage with information about politically- and emotionally-charged issues and the implications for information literacy education, particularly in politically polarized times. Considering research from cognitive psychology and education, I also suggest ways to move beyond traditional approaches to information literacy that tend to focus on logic and “objectivity” while neglecting the significance of personal beliefs and social identity to information behaviors. I give particular focus to philosopher Maureen Linker’s concept of "intellectual empathy" – “the cognitive-affective elements of thinking about identity and social difference” (Linker, 2014, …

Chapter 4. Bottlenecks Of Information Literacy, Joan Middendorf, Andrea Baer

Libraries Scholarship

No abstract provided.

You Can Curriculum Map: Using Acrl’S Il Framework To Create Student Learning Outcomes And Start Assessment, Samantha D. Kennedy

Libraries Scholarship

This is a visual demonstration of their current curriculum mapping project. The step-by-step process will be outlined to show the different approaches to breaking down ACRL’s Information Literacy Framework to fit the curriculum of a campus. By categorizing classes into pre-disciplinary and major-based, needs emerge at distinct levels which helps make the building of the framework more manageable. These categorizations allow for better understanding and ownership across both core classes and within disciplines on a campus, giving the flexibility to meet the varying needs while reinforcing skills and concepts gained in other courses. This poster will also highlight how student …