Teaching the teachers to teach information literacy: A literature review

As part of the ongoing debates over the best methods for teaching information literacy, some librarians have argued for a “teach the teachers” strategy. In this approach, librarians concentrate some of their instructional energies on teaching disciplinary faculty to teach information literacy. In this paper, multiple examples of “teach the teachers” efforts are reviewed, in order to provide insight into the impact that taking this approach might have on librarians, faculty, and students. Results indicate that the “teach the teachers” approach shows promise as one method by which librarians can support the integration of information literacy into the curriculum, but that more assessment is needed to determine the long-term impact of such initiatives on faculty teaching practices and students' information literacy development.     

How high-school students find and evaluate scientific information: A basis for information literacy skills development

This study examined the relationship between curricula in secondary-level science classrooms, which support development of information literacy skills, and actual student skills. A vast body of research reflects deep concern with the level of information literacy skill development among secondary and post-secondary students. But even when educational curricula mandate skill development, many students are unable to demonstrate sophisticated information searching and critical evaluation skills. The findings of this study, which we based on analyzing information seeking tasks and conducting interviews with students in three biology classes in a large urban high school, demonstrated a similar lack of skills. Pressure on teachers to “teach to examinations”—that is, to focus on substantive content rather than on information literacy skills and information literacy skills deficits among teachers themselves—is a possible explanation for these results. The study is of particular interest to teachers of the curriculum applicable in the study context, but the broader implications of repeated indications of gaps in students' information literacy skills are a significant indicator that schools must assume a larger responsibility for information literacy instruction. Leaving skill development to the post-secondary environment will not ensure that citizens are sufficiently skilled to participate fully in 21st century life, in workplaces or in their personal life contexts.     

基于信息素质教育的高校文献检索课改革

简述了文献检索课在信息素质教育中的重要性,分析了高校文献检索课的现状和问题,对如何充分发挥文献检索课在信息素质教育中的重要作用提出了建议。     

论研究生学术信息素养的培养与提高

文章阐述了学术信息素养概念的内涵,指出培养研究生学术信息素养的必要性与重要性。分析了研究生在信息检索中存在的共性问题及其原因,在此基础上,提出了培养研究生学术信息素养的方法与途径。认为学术信息素养不是孤立的概念,需要从多种途径全面提高研究生的学术素养,并对科技信息检索与利用课程的实践环节进行悉心设计。此外,还要探索合理的考核机制,关注"泛在"环境下信息素质教育的发展。     

Online information literacy instruction in Mexican university libraries: The librarians' point of view

Online information literacy instruction is becoming increasingly popular among university libraries, although the level of its development varies from institution to institution. In this study, we seek to ascertain implementation levels for online information literacy instruction among university libraries in Mexico, as well as librarians' experiences, opinions, and attitudes with regard to this instruction modality. To this end, we analyzed data collected between November 2015 and January 2016 through a survey that was sent to 559 libraries at Mexican public universities and completed by 189 librarians. The results show a limited development of information literacy instruction in general and in online instruction in particular, despite the recognition of its importance and usefulness. The main barriers to implementation that were identified were a lack of technological resources and of personnel qualified to undertake these tasks. The main challenges that the libraries that do provide online instruction have had to face are related to a lack of institutional support, a lack of cooperation on the part of faculty members, students' motivation, and librarians' expertise.     

Using collaborative teaching and inquiry project-based learning to help primary school students develop information literacy and information skills

Information literacy and information technology (IT) skills have become increasingly important in today's knowledge society. Many studies have shown that students from primary school to postgraduate lack crucial information literacy and IT skills, hence there is a need for an effective pedagogical approach that will develop these skills. This study investigated the effect of combining a collaborative teaching approach with inquiry project-based learning (PjBL) on the development of primary students' information literacy and IT skills. Students in a Hong Kong primary school completed two inquiry-based group projects. A collaborative teaching approach involving three teachers in different subject areas (general studies, Chinese, and IT) and the school librarian was adopted in guiding students through the two projects. Results indicate that this program had a positive impact of on the development of different dimensions of the students' information literacy and IT skills.     

Strengthening the Foundation for Information Literacy in an Academic Library

The relationship between the library and the information literacy movement is acknowledged, and a further delineation of responsibility at the academic reference service level is examined. Reference librarians' perspective enables them to serve as "information advisors," fostering students' development of information storage and retrieval, this role becomes increasingly important. The need for students to emerge as independent learners is crucial at this stage in their lives. Information literacy abilities are discussed as a by-product of general reference functions. Reference librarians are urged to encourage the growth of these abilities by stimulating students' understanding of critical thinking.     

吉林大学医学生信息素养现状调查及其对信息检索教学的启示

调查了吉林大学医学生信息素养现状,分析了上过与未上过信息检索课的医学生信息素养差异性及其存在的根本原因,找出了医学信息检索课教学中存在的问题并提出了相应建议.     

Evolution of an information literacy curriculum for third-year medical students

Information literacy curriculum for third-year medical students at Northwestern University has evolved over several years under the guidance of librarians at the Galter Health Sciences Library. Starting as a series of rotation-specific information resource overviews, initial evaluation and feedback led to the curriculum being developed to include more focused and interactive clinical information sessions with a quiz-based assessment. Future enhancements will include web-based self-directed learning using online tutorials, additional search exercises that mimic the on-the-go clinical environment, and better assessment of the curriculum's impact on students' information literacy and clinical search skills.     

Millennial Undergraduate Research Strategies in Web and Library Information Retrieval Systems

This article summarizes the author's dissertation regarding search strategies of millennial undergraduate students in Web and library online information retrieval systems. Millennials bring a unique set of search characteristics and strategies to their research since they have never known a world without the Web. Through the use of search engines, they have come to expect that searches can be completed using an easy, single search box that produces complete articles on just about any topic. However, the reliability and quality of much of the information on the Web is questionable. Conversely, information that resides in library information retrieval systems is often of high scholarly content, but there is not a single, user-friendly system for millennials to use. A case study investigation was conducted at the State University of New York at Oswego, a public undergraduate university in Central New York. The goal of the study was to identify the search strategies of a sampling of millennial undergraduate students in both Web information retrieval systems and library information retrieval systems in order to expand upon existing theories about millennials and to suggest interface design enhancements, which could make online library information retrieval systems easier for millennials to use. The findings recommend improving database search functionality, such as natural-language searching, spell-checking, and uniform full-text wording and placement. Results also suggested that increasing the availability of full-text articles would contribute to millennials’ use of library information retrieval systems.     

Investigating the impact of demographic and academic variables on assessing students' perceived information literacy self-efficacy

This paper explores the demographic and academic variables influencing students' perceived information literacy self-efficacy using Kurbanoglu et al.'s Information Literacy Self-Efficacy Scale (ILSES) and its two subscales. An online survey was created to gather data from students which contained Bangla version of the 28-item ILSES together with demographic and academic questions. A printed version of the survey was also distributed to students locally. A total of 408 students participated in the study. The findings revealed that students had moderate self-efficacy, with higher confidence in basic and intermediate-level information literacy (IL) tasks compared to advanced skills. There were significant differences in IL self-efficacy based on students' demographic and academic variables. The results suggest that age and computer proficiency were significantly associated with students' self-efficacy beliefs in information literacy. Overall, the 28-item ILSES and its two smaller subscales yielded similar results, indicating that shorter versions of the ILSES can be utilized to reduce questionnaire completion time without compromising the validity of the results. This study highlights the importance of demographic and academic variables in shaping students' IL self-efficacy beliefs and emphasizes the need for providing adequate support and training to improve information skills among students.     

Visualization-based information retrieval on the Web

The application of visualization techniques to information retrieval (IR) has resulted in the development of innovative systems and interfaces that are now available for public use. Visualization tools have emerged in research environments and more recently on the Web to retrieve information. Questions arise in regard to the utility of Web-based IR visualization tools for assisting users not only in manipulating search output, but also in managing the information retrieval process. To understand how Web-based visualization tools enable visual information retrieval, this article reviews some of the human perceptual theory behind the graphical interface of information visualization systems, analyzes iconic representations and information density on visualization displays, and examines information retrieval tasks that have been used in visualization system user research. This article is timely since it addresses new technologies for Web information retrieval and discusses future information visualization user research directions.     

Secondary teachers and information literacy (IL): Teacher understanding and perceptions of IL in the classroom

Secondary teachers have the opportunity and the curriculum mandates to teach information literacy skills, yet students enter post-secondary studies with low information literacy proficiency. In many cases, teachers present the only opportunity for students to develop information literacy proficiency. With semi-structured interviews, this study explored eight secondary teachers' perceptions of information literacy and their experiences with IL as educational professionals. Confusion around the phrase information literacy was a dominant theme as participants were unfamiliar with the term and were inconsistent in defining the scope of what it might mean. Although there are references to information literacy skills in the core curriculum and support documents, participants varied in their instruction and understanding of this skill set. Participants unanimously agreed that information literacy skills, as explained using the Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000), were important for their students. However, the extent of IL skills required varied by student. Pursuing post-secondary studies warranted advanced IL, and these students were more likely to be taught higher-level skills. IL skill development was also assumed to be the responsibility of the student, and passive acquisition was anticipated. Assumptions regarding student need and ability informed instruction. These results suggest that the current curricular mandates are insufficient to ensure IL is incorporated into instruction and that teachers are ill-prepared to instruct IL effectively.     

Assessing the impact of a study skills programme on the academic development of nursing diploma students at Northumbria University, UK

Background: The Government's nursing recruitment campaign has widened access for those wishing to enter the profession, resulting in some students entering university with clinical experience but little experience of academic writing or using libraries. For these students, the library and study advice staff have an important role to play in helping them acquire appropriate information literacy and study skills. Objective: To evaluate the impact of workshops supplementing online instruction in study skills on students’ study and writing skills, and level of information literacy. Methods: A small group of pre‐registration nursing students identified as needing support with information literacy and study skills participated in focus groups to identify areas of concern, and were offered four remedial workshops. A follow‐up focus group explored whether the students’ needs had been addressed. Further evaluation of the workshops’ impact was completed by diagnostic testing within the University's information literacy programme, Skills Plus. Outcomes: The results showed that all students who attended at least one workshop improved their academic grade in their next assignment. Qualitative data indicated that the students’ confidence level and information literacy, including referencing skills, had improved. Conclusion: Evaluating the impact of this intervention has provided the evidence to demonstrate the value of this additional support.     

基于Web2.0的信息检索研究型教学模式设计

分析基于Web2.0的信息素养互动学习平台的功能及其在信息检索教学活动中的积极辅助作用,介绍将课题研究与信息检索课程教学过程紧密结合的研究型教学模式,阐明基于信息素养互动学习平台的信息检索课程研究型教学模式的实施过程。     

Distribution algorithms for document allocation in multiprocessor information retrieval systems

Distributed memory information retrieval systems have been used as a means of managing the vast volume of documents in an information retrieval system, and to improve query response time. However, proper allocation of documents plays an important role in improving the performance of such systems. Maximising the amount of parallelism can be achieved by distributing the documents, while the inter-node communication cost is minimised by avoiding documents distribution. Unfortunately, these two factors contradict each other. Finding an optimal allocation satisfying the above objectives is referred to as distributed memory document allocation problem (DDAP), and it is an NP-Complete problem. Heuristic algorithms are usually employed to find an optimal solution to this problem. Genetic algorithm is one such algorithms. In this paper, a genetic algorithm is developed to find an optimal document allocation for DDAP. Several well-known network topologies are investigated to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. The approach relies on the fact that documents of an information retrieval system are clustered by some arbitrary method. The advantages of a clustered document approach specially in a distributed memory information retrieval system are well-known.Since genetic algorithms work with a set of candidate solutions, parallelisation based on a Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) paradigm seems to be the natural way to obtain a speedup. Using this approach, the population of strings is distributed among the processing elements. Each string is processed independently. The performance gain comes from the parallel execution of the strings, and hence, it is heavily dependent on the population size. The approach is favoured for genetic algorithms' applications where the parameter set for a particular run is well-known in advance, and where such applications require a big population size to solve the problem. DDAP fits nicely into the above requirements. The aim of the parallelisation is two-fold: the first one is to speedup the allocation process in DDAP which usually consists of thousands of documents and has to use a big population size, and second, it can be seen as an attempt to port the genetic algorithm's processes into SIMD machines.     

Preparing information literate teachers: A metasynthesis

This metasynthesis of empirical and nonempirical literature analyzed 39 journal articles and book chapters that examined issues related to the preparation of information literate teachers in the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the U.K. All 39 items were published after March 1998 (when the Association of College and Research Libraries reported that teacher education programs had made no real progress in modifying course requirements and performance expectations to address information literacy concerns). The literature indicates that teacher education programs have made significant progress in addressing information literacy concerns during these last 10 years; however, much work remains to be done. Increased opportunities for collaboration between educators and librarians at the preschool–Grade 12 (P-12) and postsecondary levels are needed to prepare information literate teachers who can effectively teach information literacy skills and research strategies to their P-12 students.     

医学院校文献检索课程对医生信息素养的影响

目前国内各大医学院校均开设了医学信息检索的相关课程,这不但显著提高了医学院校学生的信息能力,也满足了循证医学对医务人员综合能力提出的更高要求.鉴于临床医生所具备的信息素养大部分来自于医学院各阶段的检索课程,因此通过调查他们的检索行为及信息利用情况,可以检验其信息素养与所接受检索教育之间的关系.利用问卷及访谈等方式,以北京市4家医院的80位临床医生为调查对象,分析并说明医生的检索教育背景对其临床综合信息能力的影响,同时为医学院校检索课程的建设与完善提供一定的参考.     

Computerized information sources in toxicology and their use in a poisons centre

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