Information Literacy for College Students

welcome in this video i will address information literacy for college students i had previously defined information literacy from my narrow focus on digital information processing the collecting managing processing and dissemination of information using computer systems however information literacy has a broader definition within the academic environment and i'd like to show you in this video how becoming competent at information literacy or said a different way developing your literacy in regard to information can improve both the grades you earn in your classes and make your academic life much more rewarding i'm displaying some notes that i took

while reading alewife and canada's textbook introduction to information literacy for students it was published in 2017 and i was able to acquire a copy of it through my university library as you might be able to also life in canada recommend us a procedure a framework is the term they use for information literacy that begins with taking on the attitude of being a detective think like a detective when you're conducting research now if you think about some of the movies and television shows you've watched in which a detective played a major role one of the common

characteristics of all detectives is that they're very skeptical they don't take in data prima facie they look at the data that they've acquired and with a bit of um a very skeptical eye and don't trust it without careful evaluation all research begins by asking questions now assuming a professor has assigned the particular topic for um a research project then the questions that you will ask will be related specifically to that question in an assignment where the professor has not selected the topic or the activity your first questions should lead you to choosing a topic for

the research project you might want to explore what your interests are frequently professors encourage students particularly in the first couple of years of school to pursue research into topics that are of interest to them honestly we've learned over the years that assigning a topic that's of interest to students keeps students happier and life is easier when students and faculty are happy don't assume that you can come up with a topic of interest right off the bat you might have to brainstorm some possibilities make a list prioritize the list of potential topics that you could address

in your activity giving 10 or 15 minutes to this initial brainstorming activity can make a multi-day research project a whole lot more interesting and beneficial to your academic development with the selection of the topic then create particular or specific questions that you could seek to answer during the course of your research project how does xyz work why did abc occur which came first the chicken or the egg well spoiler alert the egg came first because the chicken came from the egg of a different species of bird when seeking answers to your questions always be aware

of your biases and your current judgments in regard to the topic seek to be disinterested in the outcome of your research don't seek to present any given perspective on or position until you've had a look at what the expert data contains and then from that data form your judgments when doing your research there are three types of data sources that alewife and canada have identified primary secondary and tertiary sources first second and third level sources primary sources are those sources that initially acquired the raw data from which a report could be made so these are

the uh people who conducted the experiment these are the people that were the archaeologists and actually reported on what they saw out in the field they saw the dinosaur bones and they measured them and they weighed them and they although i guess weighing is a form of measurement but they they were the ones who touched the bones and then reported on what they found in the field secondary sources are generally other scholars that are reporting on or integrating the information that has been presented by primary sources a news report other than a reporter in the

field actually at the scene of the news activity are also secondary sources of data the talking head anchor in the newsroom that's being presented on tv is a secondary source of information the reporter in the field at the scene of the activity is the primary source which by the way is why in typical news reports the anchor the camera view switches from the anchor to the reporter in the field and then back to the anchor at the desk in the newsroom there's a move between the secondary to the primary and back to the secondary information

sources a tertiary source is generally a non-scholarly source of information such as an encyclopedia entries in an encyclopedia are often written by editors not by experts in that in the particular field of the topic of the encyclopedia entry databases and indices that collect information without sizing synthesizing knowledge from the information are also tertiary sources as are most college textbooks the purpose of the college textbook is to offer an introduction to the information contained within the textbook not to be a significant source of new knowledge textbooks are designed to help students learn about topics rather than

to be scholarly books in and of themselves when evaluating the data that you've acquired during your research consider the sources of the data do you judge that the sources are reliable expert and fair are they or have they presented information in a very passionate manner or are they not well regarded by others in their field of study i would recommend giving less trust to sources that are not well regarded and give more trust to those sources that are well regarded by their peers now there are always examples of the galileos in life where everyone thought

that galileo's perception of the movements within the solar system were contrary to current best thought and it turned out galileo scientifically was correct but those types of forward thinkers are few and far between and they often don't get published in the expert literature look to see whether the data that have been presented are current now current currency varies with discipline i would expect that information regarding the sars cov2 coronavirus pandemic be not more than a few weeks old maybe a few months old at the most if i were studying the topic of religion i am

okay if sources that are more than a thousand years old are integrated into the arguments that are presented in the data so currency varies what is appropriate currency varies with discipline ask your professor for guidance because i generally teach in business programs i tell my students look for data that are no more than a five years old there's my discipline has a very busy publishing environment there's lots of in current uh recent information available and so i caution my students to avoid using data sources that are more than five years old unless they have a

really good reason for using those older data sources so ask your professor for guidance as to what your professor judges is current information within the topic that you're researching during your research make sure you are taking good notes i've addressed note taking in multiple other videos i've also addressed creating an annotated bibliography in prior videos now's the time to review those videos and annotate while you're conducting your research don't read the source material and think to yourself i'm going to remember this until i get back to my room and then i'll write up my research

notes you write your research notes while the researched data are right in front of you make sure you also create a complete citation sometimes called a reference entry to your work if you notice in this document just here in my notes in the document i've created an entry so i can remember from where i got this information once you've made your annotations of the information you acquired during your research review those notes and look to see what patterns emerge is there a particular theme are there contradictions and then present that new knowledge in your paper

this is called synthesizing knowledge from data and that's the primary goal of academic writing in college in high school you were asked to simply report the data that you found during your research in college we're asking you to put those disparate pieces of data together into some form of some cohesive form that shows where there is agreement and where there is disagreement and maybe even seek to understand and report why the agreement or the disagreement exists i'd now like to move from the notes that i took when reading the alewife and canon text and show

you a website from the ohio state university in which the faculty of the university have created a page that describes in quite a bit of detail what information literacy is at that institution i'm displaying a web page from the ohio state university website and i'll include a link to this page in the description below what i liked about this page was that it described the process as well as the value of information literacy it begins with a definition of information literacy information literacy is the test 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 it sounds high and mighty but it's actually pretty important let me summarize this statement information literacy is integrated abilities that lead to reflective discovery of information understanding of how the information is produced the use of the information to create new knowledge and the participation in an ethical manner as part of a community of learning this definition pretty much aligns with the advice and the framework that was presented by alewife and canon what

i liked about this page is the additional detail that it includes here under the first topic of authority experts recognize context for information this is why it's important when conducting research to begin with a very clear topic to then determine specific questions that can be answered so you'll frequently hear your professor say make sure you know what your research questions are before you start digging around in the library or something to that effect a scholar needs to know what questions are desired to be answered before data can start to be collected and evaluated this statement

here is particularly interesting students who grasp the concept of authority as constructed and relevant within a particular context and examine information sources ask relevant questions about the origin of data the context of the data and the suitability of the data to answer any particular research question creating information is a process during research you will acquire data your goal is to use that data to create information that allows you to compose the arguments in the paper that you're preparing information can have real value many of the assignments that to which you respond in your classes will

seem like make work you're just doing something to earn a grade but in reality your professors have a bigger plan in mind they are creating their assignments in a way that leads you through a particular learning process they're not teaching you just the facts that arise during each each assignment they're teaching you how to think like a scholar so that you're able to take those inculcate those skills to practice them and then we hope to carry those skills forward into your adult life research is a process of inquiry it's the acquisition of data that leads

to information within the context of a particular research question or set of questions it's seeking to know about a given topic and then to use the data that is acquired during the research process to form new knowledge i like the ohio state university's inclusion of scholarship as a conversation my judgment is many students don't yet recognize that we faculty think of our scholarship as a communication with our colleagues we don't write for ourselves we write to share what we're thinking and what we've discerned with others so that we move forward the state of knowledge we're

asking students to do exactly the same thing show us not just what you know but how you're thinking why you're reaching the conclusions that you are why are you making the claims that you do in your papers alewife and canon addressed biases both in the sources that we read and in ourselves the ohio state university here is addressing the same topic to recognize that we have preconceived opinions about the topics that we will need to research and can we fairly and honestly evaluate the data that we acquire during our research without allowing our biases to

unduly color the judgments that we make of the data it's really important that you understand that any time you're given a research activity by your professor that you're entering into an open-ended inquiry-based activity you're not seeking to find the truth you're seeking to find data from which you can then form arguments in which you take a position regarding the topic of the activity it's necessary to understand that data comes from many sources it's possible the data that you review that allows you to best to form the best quality judgments will come from a scholarly journal

maybe specifically a literature review a lit review is a document written by a scholar that assesses the content and quality of multiple data sources so lit reviews are very useful to a student during research because it can lead you to many other appropriate data sources and it can also identify sources that you might wish to avoid reading because at least in the judgment of the lit review author they are of those sources are of lower quality it's critical that you form your research questions clearly and specifically and that you have you develop the skill of

becoming knowledgeable about the discipline that you study it's not enough to just know that a discipline exists if you're taking a course in a particular discipline you need to understand why that discipline is important to humanity what value does it have for the world population i'm not going to address the remaining items on this ohio state university webpage because i've addressed those topics in prior videos so i'm going to leave you with a thought about information literacy while i initially many years ago thought of information literacy in the narrow uh domain of digital information processing

in other words information literacy to me used to be the ability to process information using a computer now i think of information literacy in the broader context the ability to collect information to think about it and to process it with the goal of synthesizing knowledge that moves forward the state of knowing i hope you found this video interesting information literacy is a vital skill for all college students to learn my colleagues who work in the library develop information literacy skills and then i invite them to come to my classes to make presentations or i send

my students to the library to attend workshops that the librarians present however at your university your professors may not have as close a working relationship with the librarians so it may be incumbent upon you to get to know the librarians well enough that they can teach you about information literacy from a librarian's perspective you'll learn about information literacy from your professors also seek to learn from those other members of the faculty the librarians whose particular expertise literally is information literacy i wish you the best as you develop your information literacy skills and i hope you

have much success applying those skills to your academic work bye for now