2. Presenter Information
Jill Becker, KU Libraries
Head of the Center for Undergraduate Initiatives & Engagement
jkbecker@ku.edu
Stephanie Gamble, Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University
Librarian for History and Anthropology
sgamble@jhu.edu
Sofia Leung, MIT Libraries
Teaching & Learning Program Manager and Liaison for Comparative Media Studies/Writing
sofial@mit.edu
Michelle Reed, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
Open Education Librarian
michelle.reed@uta.edu
3. Institutional Overview
The University of Kansas
Total Enrollment - 28,401
Undergraduates - 18,734
First-Time Freshmen - 4,233
FTE Students - 22,726
First-Year Experience at KU
First-Year Seminars
University 101
Learning Communities
Common Book
4. University 101: Orientation Seminar
• 2-credit hour, elective
• 52 sections in Fall 2016
• 19 or 25 students per section
• Information Literacy Learning Outcome
5. University 101 Learning Outcome
• (2012-2015) Students will develop information literacy skills, including
identifying an information need, distinguishing between different kinds of
information sources, composing search strategies, and retrieving useful and
relevant information.
• (2016) Students will demonstrate information literacy skills by identifying the
credibility and authority of various information sources; students will
recognize libraries and librarians as valuable resources in this process.
6. Project Overview
● Shift from finding information to evaluating information
● Shift from one-shot to course integration
● Academic and non-academic contexts
● Authority is Constructed and Contextual
● Assessment
7. Information Literacy Unit
Library Anxiety Game & Library Event
Day 1 - Information Cycle
Day 2 - Authority is Constructed & Contextual Discussion
Day 3 - Authority Game
Exam
8.
9. Library Anxiety Game and Library Event
Learning Outcome:
1) Students will experience
library spaces and resources in
order to recognize KU Libraries
as a partner in their academic
success.
11. Day 1: Information Cycle
Outcomes:
1) Identify the attributes of a source
2) Identify the source type
3) Describe the value of the source
12.
13. Day 2: Authority is Constructed and Contextual
Discussion
Outcomes:
1) Consider meaning of authority by identifying examples in their own life
2) Recognize that level of authority needed is dependent on the information need
3) Select and evaluate sources based on specific information needs
4) Demonstrate awareness of information privilege
14. Day 2: Authority is Constructed and Contextual
Discussion
Source evaluation:
a) Author
b) Audience
c) Purpose
d) Relevance
e) Date published
f) What would this be authoritative for
15. Day 3: Authority Game
Outcome:
Students will apply what they’ve
learned about evaluating the authority of information sources
in an active-learning game.
This presentation is licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ It was presented at the Association of College and Research Libraries Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 24, 2017.
The manual and ancillary materials discussed in this presentation are available in the institutional repository for the University of Kansas (KU):
Becker, Jill, Michelle Reed, Stephanie Gamble, and Sofia Leung. 2016. “University 101 Information Literacy Unit Instructor Manual.” University of Kansas Libraries. http://hdl.handle.net/1808/23403
Presenters: Jill Becker, Stephanie Gamble, Sofia Leung, and Michelle Reed
Project files for the Digital Storytelling Project on Library Anxiety are openly available in KU’s institutional repository, KU ScholarWorks: http://hdl.handle.net/1808/21508
Handouts were created by Leighann Dicks. The files are openly available in KU’s institutional repository, KU ScholarWorks: http://hdl.handle.net/1808/21508
Event attendance
Incentive for attending
Event outcome
Video tutorials used in Day 1 of this unit are located at http://guides.lib.ku.edu/evaluatingsources
Additional information about PQRC: http://www.proquest.com/products-services/rescomp.html
Instructor kits for Day 1
Outline Day 2: Lecture and Discussion
-students come to class with one information source selected on an assigned topic
-Discussion begins with conversation about authority. Students are asked to think about and share who has authority in their lives. The instructor then progresses through several definitions of authority (Webster, OED) and asks students to discuss elements of those definitions (“true”/”real”, “extensive or specialized knowledge”/”expert”, “reliable”/”credible”.
-Instructor then asks series of questions designed to get students thinking about the meaning of an information need in order to guide the discussion to the notion of context. (Where do you go when you have a question about a medical issue? About your new phone? About academic research?)
-Instructor introduces a topic (diabetes) and two different information needs; one academic, one non-academic. Leds discussion of information need for either context. STudents are then given a source on the topic and asked evaluate the source for how it would meet the information need in either context. They are reminded to draw on knowledge from Day 1 (author, publication type, etc.) to fill out their worksheet.
-To connect this back to information they have learned (peer-review) and their new academic environment instructors point out that different scholarly communities construct authority (i.e. peer reviewed articles) but also the types of information that is authoritative (STEM fields vs. humanities).
-class concludes with students working with partner to evaluate the source they brought to class to determine its authority, then as a group, to identify what types of authority their sources represent and what types of sources might be missing if they were to use these sources in the context of conducting academic research.
Outline Day 2: Lecture and Discussion
-students come to class with one information source selected on an assigned topic
-Discussion begins with conversation about authority. Students are asked to think about and share who has authority in their lives. The instructor then progresses through several definitions of authority (Webster, OED) and asks students to discuss elements of those definitions (“true”/”real”, “extensive or specialized knowledge”/”expert”, “reliable”/”credible”.
-Instructor then asks series of questions designed to get students thinking about the meaning of an information need in order to guide the discussion to the notion of context. (Where do you go when you have a question about a medical issue? About your new phone? About academic research?)
-Instructor introduces a topic (diabetes) and two different information needs; one academic, one non-academic. Leds discussion of information need for either context. STudents are then given a source on the topic and asked evaluate the source for how it would meet the information need in either context. They are reminded to draw on knowledge from Day 1 (author, publication type, etc.) to fill out their worksheet.
-To connect this back to information they have learned (peer-review) and their new academic environment instructors point out that different scholarly communities construct authority (i.e. peer reviewed articles) but also the types of information that is authoritative (STEM fields vs. humanities).
-class concludes with students working with partner to evaluate the source they brought to class to determine its authority, then as a group, to identify what types of authority their sources represent and what types of sources might be missing if they were to use these sources in the context of conducting academic research.
The Authority Game is an active learning activity that asks students to apply the information from Day 2 to consider the authority of a range of source types in multiple contexts.
Students are each given a Source Card, like the blue-edged card in the slide, to place in a headband without looking at the content of card. They are supposed to guess what their source is by using the questions provided in the Evaluation Card.
The instructor reads out the first scenario (purposely academic) in which students are told they will be writing a research paper about how young people decide who to vote for in the 2016 elections. They then have to organize themselves along an “authority spectrum” from most authoritative to least authoritative. As they go through the process, they’re meant to discuss where to place each source along the spectrum.
Then gameplay repeats with a non-academic scenario, such as how do they decide who to vote for. After placement of the sources is complete, the class has a discussion about how and why the sources changed places along the spectrum.
Recognizing that there is room for discussion is an important part of the activity. Therefore, the scoring guide provided for instructors organizes the sources into four categories--worse and worst, better and best for each scenario.
A recipe for the game was recently published in ACRL’s The First-Year Experience Cookbook edited by Raymond Pun and Meggan Houlihan.
Given our available time, we will play an abbreviated version of the authority game. Each participant will be given a source card from the set and use their knowledge of authority and context and work together with their group to arrange the sources along the authority spectrum.