Information Literacy Commons^™

A Neo-Documentalist Lens For Exploring The Premises Of Disciplinary Knowledge Making, Lisa Börjesson, Nicolo Dell'unto, Isto Huvila, Carolina Larsson, Daniel Löwenborg, Bodil Petersson, Per Stenborg

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This article applies a neo-documentalist approach to explore disciplinary documentation and document practices, assumed to condition disciplinary knowledge-making. The aim is to show how conceptions and materialities of what counts as documentation and documents are intertwined with changing and persisting disciplinary and sub-disciplinary practices of producing information and knowledge, of knowing, and informing. A collective, multivocal autoethnographic method is used to obtain vignettes from five areas of activity in or related to archaeology. The ongoing digitization of archaeological investigation and documentation methods, and of archaeological materials, is used as a shared departure point in the vignettes, explaining how digitization influences …

Interpreting The Las Vegas Strip, Lateka Grays

Library Faculty Presentations

This poster will explore the idea of adapting the framework used by the National Park Service to train park rangers to develop interpretive talks to create a research project that integrates communication and business information literacy skills. The goal is for students to conduct an interpretive talk of a hospitality-related business or casino/hotel property in the same manner that a national park is the focus of traditional interpretive talks. Ideally, the assignment could be embedded into any tourism or management course and has potential implications for general business courses as well. The William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration at …

Non-Algorithmic Inquiry In The Digital Age, Christopher Gilman, Jacob Alden Sargent

Oberlin Digital Scholarship Conference

We notice, from our vantage point as alt-ac faculty who work in a digital scholarship center that students often confuse digital research with a rote process of “search and collect.” We propose that a successful deployment of undergraduate research at the course level requires a greater involvement from librarians in the design of the course structure and its assignments as well as greater intention from faculty in the curation of research materials. In this workshop we discuss case studies, present course design scenarios and suggest a collectively-developed protocol for working with faculty on courses involving class-wide research projects.

Scalar, Tensor, And Ethics In Digital Asset Management, Allegra Swift, Craig Dietrich

Library Staff Publications and Research

This working group will foreground Scalar, a Semantic Web-based scholarly publishing system, and its developing “spin-off” application, Tensor, the latter created specifically for the collection and management of media from a variety of digital archives. The group will explore issues in access and use of digital archives, particularly around ethics and global citizenship when scholars work with media assets to create online digital scholarship. There is a lack of awareness of risk and ethics to guide the creation of such software, especially amplifying issues related to marginalized groups, sensitive data, and the confusion around the use of content that is …

At The Intersection Of Technology And Special Collections: A Program Approach To Collaborative Teaching And Student Engagement, Benjamin Panciera, Rebecca Parmer

Oberlin Digital Scholarship Conference

Staff from the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections and Archives discussed their participation in a program to facilitate the introduction of new technologies into the classroom. In 2014-2015 they engaged two East Asian history courses in a project to digitize, transcribe, and annotate a 19th century journal detailing the voyage of a young man from Connecticut to Hong Kong. The project was selected as an ideal means to connect students with tools and techniques critical to primary source research and to use emerging technologies to bring archival resources to new audiences.

The Next Thousand Days: Planning For Digital Scholarship Engagement Into The Future, Kris Macpherson

Oberlin Digital Scholarship Conference

A discussion that focused on the incorporation of digital scholarship into reference/research and instruction departments, including if/how our new undertakings broaden our mission and learning outcomes, our roles and job descriptions, and the ways we collaborate with other groups in our libraries, IT and across campus. How does the inclusion of DS in campus courses complement, incorporate or compete with information literacy? How do we see ourselves moving forward -- what are we adding and what are we dropping, and how are we retraining ourselves to incorporate digital scholarship into our programs?

Enriching Student Learning With Data Visualization, Adam Konczewski, Louis Johnston, Diana Symons, Bennett Frensko

Oberlin Digital Scholarship Conference

In this workshop, participants were led through our collaborative process: how we divided up tasks; identified appropriate learning objectives; crafted assignments; selected data sets; and decided on software (Tableau). We discussed what’s worked, what still needs tweaking, and how we plan to expand data visualization support to faculty members in other departments. Participants left this session with a better understanding of how they can support data visualization in the classroom, and we’ll provide lists of resources and training opportunities that will help them get started.

Undergraduates Crossing The Threshold: Assessing Library Interns Using The Framework, Carly Marino, Sarah Fay Phillips

Library Instruction West 2016

As librarians and educators we are committed to student learning as our highest goal. To be prepared for a competitive job market, undergraduate students benefit from the opportunity to produce work that is available and impactful to a global audience. Internships in libraries provide students an opportunity to work collaboratively with their peers and learn from multiple points of view. Using an internship program in Humboldt State University Library's Special Collections as a case study, we will explain how students construct meaning and knowledge as they create digital exhibits using the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. By engaging …

Teaching Or Tyranny: Class And Course Guides, Nancy W. Noe

Library Instruction West 2016

The adoption of LibGuides by numerous Libraries has given rise to the creation of a multitude of class or course guides within the system. Librarians have become enamored of such pages and spend hours developing pages for a number of classes. Many of these guides are then used in actual library instruction, or embedded into learning and course management systems as substitutes for face-to-face sessions. Upon examination, however, the vast majority of these class and course guides simply replicate a version of subject guides. Do these pre-determined lists of databases and ready-made widgets really offer students the opportunity to develop …

Finding New Paths: Leveraging The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning For Enhanced Librarianship, Margy Macmillan, Lauren Hays

Library Instruction West 2016

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can offer new ways for librarians to consider and study our practice, suggest new partners in classroom-based research, provide new opportunities for dissemination, and lead to better integration of our work and expertise within academia. There are strong parallels between SoTL and information literacy (IL) research and the fields have much to offer each other. The SoTL literature offers a broad range of discipline-based methods that may spark ideas for investigating student learning and research that can inform our teaching. The presenters will review SoTL basics, and ask participants to scan recent SoTL …

Fear Of Fa(I)(L)Ling: Abandoning Old Assessment Footholds For New Ground, Sarah Crissinger, Cara Evanson, Jayme Sponsel

Library Instruction West 2016

In order to reach an authentic approach to assessment, we sometimes need to retreat from an entrenched position in our teaching and programming. At Davidson College, we recently faced this reality when re-evaluating our library orientation. The idea of sacrificing established methods of assessment threatened our continuity, but also inspired us to think about the measures that are truly impactful to student learning. This session will explore the costs and benefits of surrendering old assessment plans for new techniques and present strategies for developing authentic assessments, specifically assessment of students' conceptions about research via case studies in surveys and discussion …

A Study Of Flipped Information Literacy Sessions For Business Management And Education, Madeline Cohen, Alison Lehner-Quam, Jennifer Poggiali, Robin Wright

Publications and Research

This presentation reports the results of a quantitative study of flipped classroom approaches to information literacy instruction in business and education classes. The presenters used pre- and post-tests to assess learning objectives for students in traditional class sessions and flipped sessions. The findings of our study show a statistically significant improvement in student achievement on pre-tests for those students in the flipped group, but no statistically significant difference in learning outcomes on the post-tests. We discuss the implications of these and other results, as well as the design and execution of the classes.

Desert Or Oasis: Reflecting On Teaching And Tweaking A Discovery Layer, Vera J. Lux, Amy Fyn, Robert J. Snyder

University Libraries Faculty Publications

Implementing and customizing a discovery layer affects not only users but also instruction librarians. To address the teaching implications, librarians from our mid-sized state university engaged in reflective practice to adjust our instruction methods in one-shot sessions. This self-assessment led us to questions about which potential discovery layer customizations would best meet users’ needs. For this reason, we surveyed users regarding their preferences in managing discovery layer results. Presenters will share the benefits received from the reflective practice, provide the results of our librarian and user assessments, and discuss how these informed our teaching and tweaking of the discovery layer.

Getting To Know Altmetrics, Julie Carmen

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

Question: How will citation metrics help advance your career and understand the scholars in your field?

Rationale: In this presentation, learn about the statistics that are tracked electronically, which scholarship resources are included, and who is doing the tracking; how citation statistics can help you land your dream job or assist in helping you land your dream employee. The numbers are in, and you'll be surprised how your research publications are being measured. Find out how your scholarship can affect your lifetime career.

In the past, the evaluation of academic publications by librarians and information professionals used re-shelving statistics in …

Toward Informed Leadership: Teaching Students To Make Better Decisions Using Information, Ilana Stonebraker

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Studies have shown that introducing additional information without context leads to worse decision making. Informed leadership is the purposeful integration of information into decision management. This article reframes information literacy as decision management using elements of evidence-based management. It highlights strategies such as decision awareness, process creation, and decision practice and approaches for purposeful application in the information literacy classroom.

Library And Experiential Learning: Taking Collaboration To The Next Level, Yuyun W. Ishak, Vincent Ong

Research Collection Library

To demonstrate the value of academic library, it is imperative to align library’s role and outcomes with the parent institution’s vision and mission (Cottrell, 2011). This paper discusses Singapore Management University Libraries’ initiatives, to tie up library’s instructional services with the university’s vision, especially through collaboration with schools and other departments within the university.

Singapore Management University has a ten-year vision to be an iconic university that provides transformative education for a new generation of graduates. The transformative education translates into an active learning which consists of 3 components: mindset for collaboration, curriculum based on experiential learning, and spaces for …

Information Outlook, May/June 2016, Special Libraries Association

Information Outlook, 2016

Volume 20, Issue 3

Converging On Nutrition Education Competencies: Aligning Library Instruction With Undergraduate Pre-Professional Program Requirements, Lee Ann Fullington, Margrethe Horlyck-Romanovsky, Susan Jakuboski

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Using The I-Learn Model For Information Literacy Instruction, Stacey Greenwell

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

With the increasing availability of information and the importance of lifelong information literacy (IL) skills, instructional designers, school media specialists, and librarians need to determine how to best design IL teaching in order to help students locate, evaluate, and use information more effectively. This paper describes the first experimental research study conducted to determine how teaching designed using the I-LEARN model could increase student understanding and application of IL concepts and offer recommendations for future implementations of the model. The experimental study described in this article examined whether IL skills teaching designed using the I-LEARN model increased student understanding and …

Digging Deeper: Can Patrons Use Our Resources, And Are Basic Digital Literacy Classes Enough?, Cindy Gibbon, Jill Castek

Presentations and Publications

We know our resources are easy to use and our patron training is relevant...don’t we? International assessment data show the US population scores below the international average in problem solving in technology-rich environments. At risk of disrupting the status quo, a public library collaborates with an urban university on a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to assess patrons’ skills. Results will help inform how library services and digital content are presented and will help ensure patron training content includes meaningful skills. Come learn how our research might reflect the needs of your patrons.