Information Literacy Learning Guide for College Students

 Information Literacy Learning Guide for College Students

This learning guide is based on the 5 Information Literacy Standards set by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).  These are the Information Literacy Standards used at ASA College.  The 5 standards serve as performance indicators for proficiency in information literacy, but they are also steps to writing a college level research paper.  This guide will discuss each of the 5 standards and their use for writing research papers at the college level.  The 5 standards are:

1. Determine the extent of information needed
2. Access the needed information effectively and efficiently
3. Evaluate information and its sources critically and incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base and
4. Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
5. Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally

Determine the extent of information needed

This is the first ACRL Information literacy standard and it also the first step in writing a research paper.  The first step in writing a research paper is having a topic and thesis statement.  The goals of your research have to be very clear in order for the information inquiries to be effective and efficient.  If we are student writing a research paper, we also look closely into the instructions given by the instructor to help direct our information needs.  When determining the extent of information needed, we are looking at the expectations of the reader (professor) and choosing a topic and thesis to begin our research.

Access the needed information effectively and efficiently

There are many ways to access information nowadays.  We can still use print methods.  We can go to the library.  Library information literacy skills include understanding how to use the online public access catalog and locate a book on the shelf.  Other print skills include knowing different types of print reference books and their uses.  These include: dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases and directories. 

Online searching can be easy or complex.  There are many online search engines to choose from, for example: Google and Bing.  These search engines have tools to refine your search such as: images, video or news.  We can also use subscription databases that are provided by libraries and universities to get to information that may not be free of charge – like eBooks.  Databases also provide advanced searching options to refine your query.  Most databases allow you to search by author, date, publication, scholarly or peer reviewed.

There are other ways to refine your searches.  Most search engines and databases allow for Boolean searching.  Boolean searching is using “AND”, “OR” or “NOT” to expand or decrease search results.  Some databases like Lexus Nexus use certain codes to refine searches.

Evaluate information and its sources critically and incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base

This is the longest explanation for a standard on this guide, yet it will still not do this topic justice.  This will be a general guide to evaluation information.  Inside the word evaluate is value.  When evaluating the information you are thinking critically and looking into the quality of the information.  We live in an information age when anybody with internet access can publish.  Is all the information on the internet credible and trustworthy?  Of course not.  How about print publications?  One way to check the quality of the resource is to give it the CRAP test.  CRAP stands for: Currency, Reliability, Authority and Purpose/Point of View.

Currency:

When checking the currency we are looking at the publishing date of the information.  If we are looking at a website we are also looking at the last update.  In certain situations the latest material is very important.  If the resource is reporting on volatile information that is fluctuating rapidly, the most current information would be the most valid.  If the subject is stable and the information is not changing, then currency is not as important.

Reliability:

We can check for reliability by asking yourself certain questions concerning your information resource: What kind of data is included in the resource? Is content of the document balanced or is it one-sided? We can also check to see if there are credible references used by the author to back up his/her assertions. 

Authority:

Authority has the word author inside of it.  We are looking into the credibility of the author or organization that is providing this information.  We can check the author’s academic background.  Is this a medical doctor writing an article about a rare disease? Is it a Juris Doctor writing about a medical issue?  We can look at the expertise or experience of the author.  We now live in an age when you can use Google or an online background check.  We can also look into the organization.  For example, is a journalist writing in a known republican or democrat publication?

Purpose/Point of View:

When we look at the purpose or point of view of an information resource, we are reading the language very critically.  Is the author trying to make me vote for a particular presidential candidate?  Maybe the author wants me to buy a product.  Sometimes the language could be misleading.  The author may be using objective information like statistics to lead the reader into agreeing with his/her agenda.

 

Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose

Performance indicators for this standard set by the ACRL include: “The information literate student applies new and prior information to the planning and creation of a particular product or performance. The information literate student revises the development process for the product or performance.”  The easiest way to understand this standard is in the context of the other previous standards.  In the first standard, the student is choosing a research topic and thesis statement.  In the second standard, the student is actually doing the research and accessing information.  In the third standard or step, the student is evaluating their research and only choosing the most credible resources.  Here in step four, the student is organizing the research into a presentable package.  This may be an oral project or a research paper.  There are many methods of organizing information.  The most common is a structured outline. This may be written or may be digital.  There are many outlining and mapping tools available on the internet to assist in organizing information.  We should not skip this step.  Just like a builder needs a blueprint before erecting a sound structure.  A researcher should organize their information before writing a final draft. 

Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally.

The economic, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information include plagiarism and copyright.  In the academic world plagiarism is using somebody else’s information and not giving them proper credit.  In the economic and legal world it is making unlawful copies of somebody else’s intellectual property.  Violating copyright laws can have legal and economic consequences.  This is an issue in the digital age because it is so easy to download and share information without regard to intellectual property.  A common example of intellectual property infringement would be sharing of copyrighted music files for free.

In the academic arena, you do not have to pay or ask permission to use somebody else’s information.  You must properly cite the information resource to avoid plagiarism.  The citation is a stylized method of acknowledging the owner of the information.  Citations follow strict rules of sequence, capitalization and punctuation.  This is an academic, professional and ethical requirement.