Amite

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Amite Sculpture On The Campus Of SUNY-Plattsburgh
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Teaching Information Literacy Transfer Through
Free-Standing, Credit Bearing Courses
Karen Volkman karen.volkman_at_plattsburgh.e
du Division of Library and Information
Services SUNY - Plattsburgh Ray Guydosh
ray.guydosh_at_plattsburgh.edu School of Business
Economics SUNY - Plattsburgh
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Challenges for College Students and Other Learners

• The past 10 years have witnessed an exponential
  growth in information
• Much of this information has little
  accountability
• Much of this information has little value
• Students lack a framework to analyze and apply
  information

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Students Have Adapted Poorly to the New
Information Environment

• Overabundance of information encourages students
  to focus on finding answers
• Students dont know how to make an information
  framework and thus will accept the first
  information found

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Strategies two student assumptions looking for
answers

• Research involves looking for answers
• Adapt question to the information available on
  Web
• Accept information uncritically if it answers
  questions do not sift judgmentally or
  consciously look for verification
• Answer mindset encourages surfing, skimming vs.
  analysis, simplicity vs. ambiguity,
  superficiality over depth
• Students find things, content, reinforcing Webs
  value in their eyes

The Web, Students, Research, and
Libraries http//faculty.plattsburgh.edu/dennis.ki
mmage/
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Behaviors

• Scan sites quickly, rarely scroll to bottom of
  page
• Judge relevance by whats on top of screen
• Let retrieved items determine relevance
• Non-linear searching promote serendipity and
  distraction, wasted time, fruitless site hopping,
  poor concentration, thought
• Unable to limit results, increase relevance
• Too much material means students fail to continue
  investigations to logical end use what comes
  first, regardless of how it shapes study.

The Web, Students, Research, and
Libraries http//faculty.plattsburgh.edu/dennis.ki
mmage/
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Information Literacy and Data Manipulation Course
Perceptions

• Seen as skills based courses
• All you need to know is which button to press
• Easy courses without much thinking involved
• You can get by if you skim the computer manual

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Information Literacy Combats Keyboarding

• Despite perceptions, information literacy helps
  develop knowledge frameworks
• Information literacy can develop legitimacy as an
  academic discipline
• Information literacy draws on communication,
  education, and management of information system
  (MIS) disciplines
• All these frameworks place emphasis on learning
  and critical thinking

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Premise (from presenters and colleagues) Informat
ion Literacy is best acquired when
integrated into other subject courses
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Current Frameworks for Understanding Information
Literacy

• Doyle Information Literate Person
• ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards
• Bruce Seven Faces of Information Literacy

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Doyle

• Recognizes the need for information
• Recognizes that accurate and complete information
  is the basis for intelligent decision-making
• Identifies potential sources of information
• Develops successful search strategies
• Accesses sources of information, including
  computer-based and other technologies
• Evaluates information
• Organizes information for practical application
• Integrates new information into an existing body
  of knowledge
• Uses information in critical thinking and problem
  solving

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ACRL

• Determines the nature and extent of the
  information needed
• Accesses needed information effectively and
  efficiently
• Evaluates information and its sources critically
  and incorporates selected information into his or
  her knowledge base and value system
• individually or as a member of a group, uses
  information effectively to accomplish a specific
  purpose
• Understands many of the economic, legal, and
  social issues surrounding the use of information
  and accesses and uses information ethically and
  legally

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Bruce

• One Information literacy is seen as using
  information technology for information retrieval
  and communication
• Two Information literacy is seen as finding
  information located in formation sources
• Three Information literacy is seen as executing
  a process
• Four Information literacy is seen as controlling
  information
• Five Information literacy is seen as building up
  a personal knowledge base in a new area of
  interest
• Six Information literacy is sees as working with
  knowledge and personal perspectives adopted in
  such a way that novel insights are gained
• Seven Information literacy is seen as using
  information wisely for benefit of others

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Integration Not Mentioned

• All frameworks point to information literacy as a
  serious course of study
• All imply that information literacy inherently
  has value as a discipline
• All frameworks link information literacy to an
  academic learning process not to be subsumed by
  another discipline
• All mention the importance of the creation of a
  knowledge base

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Disadvantages of Course Integration Infrastructure

• Implies skill check off system
• Other faculty are unlikely to give sufficient
  time to integrate another discipline into their
  course
• Information literacy is compartmentalized into
  one subject
• Doesnt lead to transfer across other subjects

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Typical Scenario for Course Integration

• Integration into English101 or Com101
• These are courses that are already marginalized
• Rarely seen as applicable to students in higher
  level courses
• Learn evaluation and analysis of material in the
  context of a basic required course

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One Shot Course-Related Integration

• Teach to one specific assignment
• Information literacy very narrowly focused
• Major critical thinking involves facile topics
  such as database selection
• Little teaching of analysis

Link to Course Related Example
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Advantages of Credit-Bearing Course in
Information Literacy and Data Manipulation

• Demonstrate that course is more than just
  keyboarding
• Transfers more broadly to other disciplines
• Information literacy and data manipulation arent
  just check off boxes on somebody elses syllabus
• Starts the creation of a knowledge base in
  learning about information

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Knowledge Base in Data Manipulation Courses
(spreadsheets)

• Students learn data structure and data formation
• Students learn types of analysis that can be
  performed
• Students learn how to organize data
• Students learn how to manipulate data for
  analysis and problem solving

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MGM 272 Tasks with Problem Solving Applications
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Sample Problem Solving Assignment to Perform
Breakeven Analysis for a Product
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Knowledge Base in Information Literacy Courses

• Start learning information framework to
  critically evaluate
• Learn what information is available
• Learn when inform needs to be created
• Learn to recognize garbage in garbage out data
• Learn what questions need to be asked when using
  information that will lead to problem solving

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Knowledge Base for Business Information Literacy
Class
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Data Literacy Knowledge Base Framework
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Be Data Literate -Know What to KnowPeter F.
DruckerWall Street Journal, 12/1/1992

• Few executives yet know how to ask What
  information do I need to do my job? When do I
  need it? In what form? And from whom should I be
  getting it? Fewer still ask What new tasks can
  I tackle now the I get all these data? Which old
  tasks should I abandon? Which tasks should I do
  differently?

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Knowledge Base for Quality and Quantity
Information Framework Garbage In Garbage Out
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Student Response to Knowledge Base
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Student Response to Knowledge Base YES! They get
it!
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Statistical Considerations Knowledge Base
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Critical Thinking to Create Information

• Drucker points out that often the most useful
  information is information that weve never
  considered gathering
• Students must be cognizant when they need to
  gather their own information for problem solving
• Students must understand that just because it
  isnt on the Web or in some other available
  format doesnt mean that the information isnt
  relevant for analysis

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Creation of a Survey and Putting Information in a
Database Retrieval Framework
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Database to Generate Consumer Data Profiles for a
Product

• See the database
• Perform consumer queries on the database

Link to MS Access worksheet p. 19 and 21
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Using the Knowledge Base and Information Analysis
Framework for Competitive Intelligence
Link to Final Project Guidelines
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Final Thoughts

• Integration of information literacy into courses
  is the latest trend
• Nothing in the most prominent information
  literacy frameworks specifies this integration
• It behooves us as a discipline to conduct more
  research in this area to determine if the loses
  outweigh the gains by giving up our own
  discipline of information literacy to other
  classes

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Teaching Information Literacy Transfer Through
Free-Standing, Credit Bearing Courses
Karen Volkman karen.volkman_at_plattsburgh.e
du Ray Guydosh ray.guydosh_at_plattsburg
h.edu