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Faculty Teaching Tools

What is Information Literacy?

"Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning."

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. American Library Association, 2015.

Threshold Concept Books

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy focuses on threshold concepts, "which are those ideas in any discipline that are passageways or portals to enlarged understanding or ways of thinking and practicing within that discipline." (ARCL 2016).

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

The Framework was developed by the Association of College and Research Libraries.

What is it?

"The Framework is organized into six frames, each consisting of a concept central to information literacy, a set of knowledge practices, and a set of dispositions." (ACRL, 2016)

  • Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
  • Information Creation as a Process
  • Information Has Value
  • Research as Inquiry
  • Scholarship as Conversation
  • Searching as Strategic Exploration

Why Use it?

"The Framework opens the way for librarians, faculty, and other institutional partners to redesign instruction sessions, assignments, courses, and even curricula; to connect information literacy with student success initiatives; to collaborate on pedagogical research and involve students themselves in that research; and to create wider conversations about student learning, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the assessment of learning on local campuses and beyond." (ACRL, 2016)

 

Information Literacy Assessments at FGCU

Librarian-led Assessment of Information Literacy in Student Work 

FGCU Librarians carried out an assessment of information literacy skills in student work from many courses in the summer of 2017. Librarians focused this assessment on information literacy alone and only scored papers from classes where we had provided some instructional support. 

Results from the assessment show that students are able to find and identify information sources, but are clearly struggling with the higher order skills of using the information sources effectively in their writing and using them ethically by using consistent citations styles and giving credit to others when needed. This data tells us that librarians and instructors need address this problem with further interventions.

Additionally, we found that when we compared the results in our library-led assessment to the results in a university-wide assessment for the skill of identifying and access information, we saw that our library led-assessment scores were slightly higher, especially for the upper-level students. This seems to indicate that library instruction and/or support helps students find and access high quality information sources appropriate for their needs

For more detailed results from the 2017 rubric-based assessment of information literacy skills, see paper below. The results of the assessment appear in the second half.