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Information Literacy: What Do Faculty Think?

By: Jessame Ferguson

It’s worth knowing the top Information Literacy concepts that MC faculty said were important from December 2020 through December 2021 during the MC Library’s CAR study interviews and during the GenEd Information Literacy Competency Rubric revision process. We use this information in planning classes, conducting research appointments, and creating online learning tools. Perhaps it’s something you’d like to discuss with a librarian the next time you plan assignments and outcomes for student learning? 

The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education provides six frames, and the top related concepts faculty mentioned are organized under each below. 

Research as Inquirynew window and Searching as Strategic Explorationnew window:
  • Determining the nature and extent of the information you need speaks to critical thinking and making sure that students know what to look up and how.
  • Developing an appropriate topic; research questions that focus on topics that are open and unresolved. What's an appropriate informative topic? What's an appropriate persuasive topic?
  • Locating materials using a variety of research methods and tools.
  • Introducing students to a variety of sources, what they are, how they are different (scholarly books, peer reviewed journal, magazine articles, government resources, academic databases, common newspapers, common public media sources).
  • Becoming more sophisticated with selecting quality sources; are they varied, from different areas, different media?
Authority is Constructed and Contextualnew window:
  • Becoming more critical evaluators of information: how do you determine whether you will accept or reject something? Is this really true? Does it make sense?
  • Critically evaluating articles: identify strengths and weaknesses. What's the hypothesis? What are the independent variables?
  • Identifying reliable sources of information: What makes something credible? What makes something not credible? Define and describe the origin of the source. Does it come from experts in the subject?
Information Creation as a Process: new window
  • Reading and understanding the sources students are using and integrating.
  • Using sources correctly: Are you filtering them throughout the paper to help compliment and establish the points that you're making?
  • Recognizing potential uses of a variety of sources, and using them for different purposes (e.g., you don't always need to find a journal article, sometimes a magazine or news article is more appropriate for the task). Recognizing that there are differences is an important foundational skill.
Scholarship as Conversation: new window
  • Bring their own voice to their project, but also distinguish it from the voices of others.
  • Representing diverse perspectives.
  • Seeing themselves as contributors/creators of information.
Information Has Value: new window
  • Understanding the economic, legal, and social issues around the use of information. 
    Understanding information as power for information as commerce.  
    Understanding of Copyright or at least the fact that if I take something off the internet, it probably came from somebody, and I need to cite this. 
    Understanding the value of good information.