Information Literacy and the Undergraduate Curriculum

II. Information literacy objectives further defined:

• Central to the concept of information literacy is the importance of the development of critical thinking skills.
  
• Using the example of a research paper assignment, the following needs to happen for the student to turn in a successful final product:
  • student needs to identify the information need and cogently define the research topic in a couple of sentences
  • student needs to develop effective search strategies to locate information on the topic
    • choices are made as to what type of  information would be relevant to the topic, and where and  how to locate that information
      • understanding of array of choices available for accessing information
      • understanding of different formats of information
      • understanding how to construct effective computer searches in order to locate relevant information
  • student must understand how to retrieve the actual information
  • student must critically evaluate retrieved information and make judgements about its quality, usefulness and relevance
  • student must organize, synthesize, and communicate the information in a meaningful, coherent way
    • all information resources consulted must be correctly cited
      

Presented by: Laurie Kutner
June 2, 1999