A Different Ball Game: Physical Education Students' Experiences in Librarian-led Wikipedia Assignments

Wikipedia editing assignments in the classroom provide unique transformative learning experiences to students and educators alike. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In lieu of a traditional essay or research paper, professors are increasingly asking their students to edit Wikipedia articles. This active and collaborative pedagogical approach encourages the development of a host of student skills: information literacy, critical thinking, media literacy, collaboration, online communication, writing, and critical digital literacy skills.This study examines Kinesiology and Physical Education students' perceptions, attitudes, and experiences before and after completing a librarian-led Wikipedia assignment. Using modified pre- and post-surveys the authors surveyed 63 Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE) students completing a librarian-led Wikipedia assignment in an Educational and Counselling Psychology course. While overall the experience was positive and met most student expectations, they are not committed to editing Wikipedia in the future, nor are they necessarily in favour of replacing the traditional research essay with Wikipedia editing assignments.     

Using Wikipedia to Teach Information Literacy

ABSTRACT

Today's college student often starts his research by using a search engine. Because of this, Wikipedia is increasingly becoming the go-to reference resource for the newest generation of students. However, many students do not know about the problems (e.g., vandalism) associated with this tool other than ambiguous warnings from librarians and faculty who say that it should not be used for research. Librarians and faculty should help remove the stigma associated with Wikipedia by embracing this Website and its imperfections as a way to make information literacy instruction valuable for the twenty-first-century student.     

Gender differences in information behavior concerning Wikipedia,an unorthodox information source?

This study examined gender differences in information behavior concerning Wikipedia. Data were collected using a Web survey in spring 2008. The study used a convenient sample that consisted of students who had taken an introductory undergraduate course at a large public university in the Midwestern United States. A total of 134 out of 409 students participated in the study. As information consumers, male students used Wikipedia more frequently than their female counterparts did. With respect to the purposes of Wikipedia use, male students used Wikipedia for entertainment or idle reading more than their female counterparts, while there were no gender differences regarding Wikipedia use for other purposes. Male students were more likely to discount the risks involved when using Wikipedia information compared to their female counterparts. Furthermore, male students had higher ratings than female students regarding most aspects of Wikipedia, including outcome expectations, perceptions about its information quality, belief in the Wikipedia project itself, emotional states while using Wikipedia, confidence in evaluating information quality, and further exploration. Finally, there was no gender difference regarding the number of years of Wikipedia use. However, male students reported having more positive experiences with the information quality of Wikipedia than their female counterparts. Overall, the findings of this study were consistent with those of previous studies concerning gender. Given the acknowledgment of the knowledge value of Wikipedia in recent literature, it seems that there are more advantages to using Wikipedia than there are disadvantages. The current study shows that male students seem to enjoy such benefits more than female students and may have more opportunities to develop their information literacy skills than female students by actively using Wikipedia. This suggests that educators need to encourage female students in particular to explore Wikipedia strategically as an initial information source so that they can develop their information literacy skills for unconventional sources.     

The Anatomy of a Plagiarism Initiative: One Library's Campus Collaboration

ABSTRACT

Plagiarism in media and print continues to be a major issue for professors, librarians, and students. Through initiatives and outreach from the B. Davis Memorial Library at the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University, plagiarism Web sites have been created and workshops and programs continually provided for faculty and students to detect, discourage, and prevent plagiarism. Faculty members are presented with techniques and tips that range from designing assignments to detecting and ultimately stemming the tide of plagiarism, and students are apprised of plagiarism and the myriad ways of avoiding it. However, collaborations between librarians and the academic community are vital in arresting and curtailing this pervasive problem.     

Identifying knowledge practices in an infodemic era: Rediscovering the professional identities of LIS professionals in an infodiverse environment

The professional identity of librarians is established with regard to the current understanding of their knowledge practices. The global phenomenon of false and untrustworthy information circulating on social media platforms paints a new issue that librarians must conquer. Messages, content, news, and information on the web make it challenging for librarians to educate users as to where the sources come from and the need to evaluate for credibility and trustworthiness. During the pandemic, and with a surge of information disorders on social media, the World Health Organization recommended building resilience to misinform-ation and engaging and empowering communities to take positive action. This research seeks to explore the relationship between professional identities and the participation of librarians in an infodiverse environment, specifically by exploring how Filipino librarians applied aspects of their knowledge practices to the evaluation of social media health information during the pandemic.     

Using a Targeted Rubric to Deepen Direct Assessment of College Students’ Abilities to Evaluate the Credibility of Sources

At the Sonoma State University Library, a rubric was designed specifically for deepening the assessment of freshmen students’ ability to evaluate the credibility of sources. The course-level rubric was developed after program-level assessments proved too broad to uncover specific challenges in this particular skill. As a direct assessment tool, the rubric allows teaching faculty and librarians to more clearly identify and address the smaller steps required for a student to successfully learn to evaluate a source. The rubric and the results of using it as an assessment tool with a freshmen-level, general education oral communication/critical thinking course are discussed.     

Building bridges between New York city public high schools and a college: The cooperative library project

This article describes a successful cooperative project involving the Brooklyn College Library and two New York City high schools. In spring and fall of 1995, college librarians provided selected honors students, their teachers, and their librarians with basic BI and access to the college library for a semester. The teachers assigned projects requiring college-level research. The preparation and instruction are outlined, and responses of the students and college     

Placing the Internet in information source horizons. A study of information seeking by Internet users in the context of self-development

The ways in which people perceive the relative value of the Internet when seeking information for self-development purposes were investigated. The concept of information source horizon was introduced, and it is a construct that enables one to put various information sources and channels in an order of preference to meet the requirements of information seeking. The horizon is based on one's conceptions of the characteristics of information sources, particularly their accessibility and quality. The study draws on interviews with eighteen Internet users who positioned various information sources in three zones of relevance. In their information source horizons, human sources such as friends and colleagues were preferred, followed by print media such as newspapers and books: networked sources were ranked third among six source types. Networked sources were favored for easy accessibility and opportunities to save time. The issue of “facilitating everyday life” was emphasized in this context. Also currency, broad repertoire of networked information, and the potential of the Internet to complement other services were valued highly. Critical stands on the Internet were mainly affected by the negative experiences of encountering low quality material.     

Integrating information literacy into the curriculum

This article describes a two-week graduate course on information literacy, developed and taught by a librarian and a professor of industry and technology, and intended for teachers and librarians in elementary and secondary schools. Information literacy is not only the content of the course but also the basis of its structure: active, student-centered learning with several group assignments helps students develop skills in finding information, analyzing and interpreting it, and putting it to practical use. Both pedagogical and evaluation methods reflect recent educational reforms, and the team teaching provides a model of collaboration between teachers and librarians.     

Bridging the gap: Information literacy workshops for high school teachers

Funded in part by a Chancellor's Faculty Outreach Grant, a project team of University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) instruction librarians developed information literacy workshops for local high school teachers and librarians. They introduced teachers to information literacy standards, provided technology training, and presented strategies and activities for incorporating critical thinking into the research process. The project team also worked with teachers to create lesson plans that incorporated these methods into their own curriculum. By “training the trainers,” the ultimate goal was to enhance the research skills of students to help them perform better in high school and thereby preparing them for a successful transition to college.     

Librarians' assistance to students in the information seeking process: Perspectives of higher education teachers and librarians

Seeking information is an integral part of the tasks that students are assigned by their teachers. They turn to librarians, or librarians offer them assistance in relation to this pursuit. This qualitative study sought to obtain in-depth insights on the perceptions and expectations of university teachers and librarians with respect to the importance of and students' participation and librarians' assistance in the information seeking process. Teachers and librarians understand the importance of the information-seeking process for students in the development of their skills. Whereas most of their perceptions of the students' roles in the process do align, there are certain differences in their perceptions and expectations of students. The results enhance the understanding of the information-seeking process and teachers and librarians' perceptions on it. They contribute toward planning to facilitate cooperation between academic librarians and teachers in situations of information behavior resulting from the educational process and context.     

Pressing the F1 Key- And Retrieving Each Other

Summary

At 3:30 any afternoon of the week, public librarians may feel confident of serving students. Indeed, students comprise a significant portion of public library users, and they require a good deal of attention. Unless librarians work with the schools, though, we do not truly complement the curriculum. The Newark (NJ) Public Schools and the Newark Public Library have therefore embarked on a program of library orientation for teachers. Synergy with instructors has taught public librarians new means of reinforcing learning.     

Young adults and everyday-life information: The role of news media

There is a paucity of research examining the everyday-life information seeking of young people, especially investigating the role that the news media has in providing information to young people for use in their everyday lives. A qualitative, interpretivist approach is adopted, involving 34 students, ages 18 to 25, from an Australian university. First, 20 students were interviewed about their news seeking (including topics and sources). Then 14 students participated in verbal protocol analysis, which involved a series of tasks concerning online and print newspapers. Lastly, students were interviewed about how they sought everyday-life information and whether they thought that they had incidentally acquired or encountered information on everyday-life topics in online or print newspapers in the recent past. Findings indicated that, contrary to expectations, traditional print media still played a role for young people, and social media were perceived as important for communication with friends, rather than for news gathering. Purposeful information seeking was more likely to occur online, but both print and online newspapers retained an incidental role in providing information to students for their everyday lives. Participants used a range of media to suit their particular needs and purposes. Thus, access to a wide variety of sources is important for everyday-life information seeking (ELIS) by young people.     

“First years' information literacy backpacks: What's already packed or not packed?”

This survey-based research explores whether first-year college students who have had previous interactions with library instruction, services, and resources at the high school level are better prepared to undertake information literacy challenges and are better equipped to adapt to the rigors of academic research. In this collaborative project, academic librarians across six colleges in New Jersey surveyed first-year students regarding their research preparation and their experiences in high school and in their first year of college. Additionally, the team surveyed a group of vetted, certified high school librarians in New Jersey regarding their resources and instructional practices and followed members of their senior class to college Based on student survey responses relating to their high school experiences, the team was able to identify, study, and compare three groups of first-year students: novice researchers, non-novice researchers, and a subset of non-novices from the high schools with vetted librarians. These were labeled alumni non-novices. The team found that students with prior high school research experiences (non-novices), especially those followed from schools identified as having certified librarians (alumni non-novices), felt more prepared for academic research and performed at a higher level relating to their understanding and use of research tools and strategies. The results point to equity concerns and suggest that students require differentiated attention at the college level.     

Determinants of social media information credibility among university students

This research explored the perceptions of university students about the credibility of information being shared on Facebook. The data were collected using an online questionnaire from university students who were Facebook users. A total of 325 usable responses were received which were analyzed using SPSS. The results revealed that these students perceive information shared on Facebook as credible and of good quality. The source credibility, medium credibility, and information quality had positive and significant relationships with each other. The age, social background, and educational level of students appeared to predict the credibility of information shared on Facebook. These results are useful for information professionals and social media managers in extent to understand and cater to the demands of information consumers. These findings would also be helpful for teachers, information providers, and researchers to understand the perspectives of developing countries' students on the credibility of social media information. Furthermore, this study is supposed to be a valuable addition in existing literature which could provide guidelines for novice researchers, interested in exploring the area, especially in the context of Facebook users in a developing country's context.     

Teachers and librarians collaborating on inquiry-based science instruction: A longitudinal study

The qualitative, longitudinal study suggests how teachers and librarians learn to collaborate on inquiry-based science lessons that link science, information literacy, and structured English immersion standards for Latino elementary students. Teachers and librarians in the study received extensive professional development training about teacher and librarian collaboration (TLC), information literacy, inquiry-based science, as well as language and culture. In addition, expert peer mentors provided background information to teachers and librarians, as well as modeled high end TLC recommended by school librarian professional guidelines. Although increased interest and high motivation are generated by TLC, findings indicate that considerable time and experience are needed to prepare teachers and librarians to collaborate on instruction. Study results also indicate that there is an apparent lack of experience with inquiry-based science, particularly in schools with a culture of direct instruction. The study highlights teachers' lack of awareness of librarians' role as instructional partners. Greater communication between the professions is urged if TLC is to be successfully implemented as a way to bolster student achievement and stay updated in important fields, such as science, where instruction appears to be lagging behind.     

Optical technology: Considerations for collection development

Collection development librarians are confronting yet another new technology, the optical media. The industry is fast-paced and vacillating. New prototypes and products are introduced in rapid succession. Prices are fluctuating with the demand in the marketplace. This presents unique considerations for collection managers. How will optical technology, particularly CD-ROM, affect the collecting of print and use of online sources? The potential impact of optical technology on library users, user education, collection management, and library budgets is explored in this paper.     

Interdisciplinary Synergy: A Partnership Between Business and Library Faculty and Its Effects on Students’ Information Literacy

In today's information-rich environment, business faculty are challenged to teach students how to conduct effective business research and evaluate information critically. We describe collaboration between business professors and reference librarians in an introductory business course. Students were surveyed before and after completion of a Business Discovery Project requiring use of print and electronic sources in writing a research paper on a publicly traded company. Student perceptions indicated increased abilities in communication skills, research skills, use of business information sources, and composition skills; paired t tests showed these increases to be significant.     

大学生网络信息可信度感知影响因素的实证研究

借助于＂媒介可信度理论＂与＂媒介系统依赖理论＂,采用问卷调查方法,我们探讨了大学生群体对于网络信息的可信度评价。研究发现,大学生群体在网络上不同类型的信息之间,其可信度评价存在显著差异;大学生群体对网络的信任程度与其对于网络的使用或者依赖程度呈显著正相关;大学生群体对网络的知觉易用性与网络的知觉有用性呈显著正相关。     

Answering Copyright Questions at the Reference Desk: A Guide for Academic Librarians

Copyright compliance is a major issue in higher education, and academic librarians are being approached more frequently by students and instructors with questions as to how copyrighted works can be legally used for teaching and research. This article provides a brief orientation to U.S. Copyright Law and introduces print and online resources librarians can refer patrons to in order to make informed decisions regarding the use of copyrighted works.