Teaching Information Literacy Across Time and Space 

Empire State College Library's Online Information Skills Tutorial

http://commons.esc.edu/informationskillsSara Hull 

Sarah Morehouse

Across time & space

METAMORPHOSES

The stage is set…

http://www.sunyulster.edu/library/information_literacy/ppt/index.htm

Enter the ESC librarians…

http://www.esc.edu/ESCONLINE/ACROSS_ESC/LNS0ESCOPY04.NSF/web?openview

http://commons.esc.edu/informationskills/

Cue WordPress…

The “final” act?

ETHOS

Our wish list

• Jargon• Verbose• Computer literacy• Focus on specific

tools

• Plain English• Succinct• Visual• Evaluation• Active learning• Easily navigable

CONTENT

We were online, but still in the habit ofchalkboard thinkingThis slide shows a cartoon depicting a classroom. A child is holding a piece of chalk and looking at the chalk board in confusion. The teacher standing next to the child is saying, “There aren’t any icons to click. It’s a chalk board.”

We consulted with the faculty and looked at other tutorials

This slide shows a cartoon depicting two men, one standing with his arms full of papers, and the other on the phone at a desk with a computer and piled high with papers. The first man says to the second,“Get all the information you can, we’ll think of a use for it later.”

We broke it down and organized it under a new structure, in a wikiThis slide shows a flow-chart like diagram that illustrates the rough-draft organizational schema that we applied to our content. It proceeds from left to right: Choose Topic, Get Background Information, Refine Topic, Create Search, Gather Results, and then simultaneously Cite Sources and Write Paper. Above this diagram is a photograph of Dana Longley looking happy and wearing a hat. Dana is one of our fellow librarians and she was the one who developed the diagram.

Dana Longley

1. make the content extremely modular

This slide displays two photographs. One is of a honeycomb composed of hundreds of hexagonal pockets interlocked with each other. The other is of a nautilus shell, which is a spiral of segments of increasing size.

2. remove computer literacy material

This slide displays a close-up photograph of an illuminated computer power button, crossed out in red.

3. reduce jargon

This slide displays a cartoon drawing of an belligerant woman’s face, with a speech bubble saying “Look it up.” The speech bubble is crossed out.

4. avoid talking about specific library tools

This slide displays the logos of a number of common databases, all crossed out in red.

5. break up big blocks of text

This slide displays a photograph of a messy pile of cards that all say “blah.”The image is crossed out in red.

6. more audiovisual and interactive elements

This slide displays two photographs. One is of a stylized eye made of circuit boards and computer parts. The other is of a pair of hands moving around glyphs on a big touch

7. More emphasis on critical thinking and evaluation

PLATFORM

Old Info Lit Study was a web site built on a Lotus Notes databaseScreenshot of the index of Learning Modules in the old Information Literacy Study. You can see a live version of this page at http://www.esc.edu/ESCONLINE/ACROSS_ESC/LNS0ESCOPY04.NSF/web?openview . Underneath several headers and navigation elements, the content of the page is divided into the rather small main box of Learning Module links on the right, and two other menus of links on the left. The main box is outlined in red and there is a caption saying, “This is how much room we had for content!”

This is the main content!

We had no control of the layout and designThis page shows a screenshot of one of the pages of the Information Literacy Study, inside the “back end” Lotus Notes database. The edit interface is a rudimentary and awkward WYSIWYG. At the lower right is a photograph of a wet, very angry cat.

Unacceptable

 

We decided on the ESC Commons

This slide shows a screenshot of the Empire State College Commons site creation page. It is captioned, “E.S.C.’s instance of WordPress, intended for faculty and staff blogs and personal web sites.” Overlaid on that screenshot is a black and white photograph of a happy man in a suit, which is captioned, “Josh Gaul, Academic Technologies.” Josh is the person who helped us set up our site in the Commons and continues to provide support.

(ESC's instance of WordPress, intended for faculty and staff blogs and personal web sites.)

WordPress has a web-based back-endThis slide shows a screenshot of the Pages section of our site’s WordPress Dashboard. There are menus on the top and left column, while the pages to be edited are displayed in the larger middle section. The screenshot is captioned, “We can edit while on the road or working from home.”

We can edit while on the road or working from home.

WordPress

Josh built us a custom WordPress templateThis page shows a screenshot of one of the pages of the Information Skills Tutorial, which is meant to show off our custom template. There is a set of tabs going across the top, and the mouse is hovering over one of them, displaying the menu of pages that are hierarchically under that tab. The content displays in the main section beneath that. To the right of that section is a column with a survey form. The screenshot is captioned, “Josh built it for us.”

tabbed menu!

Josh Gaul,Academic Technologies

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

More work to be done   

This slide displays a photograph of an astronaut repairing the International Space Station. It’s captioned, “Get this thing launched, then make improvements on the fly. And here we are.”

Get this thing launched, and

then make improvements on

the fly.

… and here we are.

Accessibility for disabled users

This slide shows a set of four glyphs arranged in a square. Going clockwise from the top left: 1. person using a wheel chair, which is captioned, “Work closely with Office for Students with Disabilities.” 2. pair of hands speaking in sign language, which is captioned, “Closed captions.” 3. person using a white cane to navigate, which is captioned “screen reader-friendly; alternative formats.” 4. outline of a head with a brain in it, which is captioned “Multimodal, ‘chunked’ learning. multimodal,

"chunked" learning

screenreader-friendly;

alternative formats

closed-captions

work closely with office for students with

disabilities

Interactivity, learning in parallel channels/modesThis slide shows a close-up photograph of a circuit board with its various nodes and circuitous, parallel lines.

PROMOTION AND USE

• Reference interactions• Webinars• Facebook• Twitter • Library blog• Quarterly e-mails to faculty from subject-

liaisons• Information Literacy (EDU-232012)

Currently getting the word out via:

Future promotion via:

• Directors of Academic Support• Coordinators of Student Services• Student Services newsletter• Coordinator of Instructional Development• Integration into:

o ANGELo Educational Planning courses

Planning & Finalizing the Degree (EDU- 232092)o Writing Resource Center

• This conference!

DISCUSSION

Questions

• How can we get faculty to USE it with their students? • How can we convince students that this is useful to them?• How can we convince the higher-ups that information literacy

needs to be addressed outside the library, across the curriculum? 

___________________________________________________ Davis, A. (2010, May 17). Open education [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.timesunion.com/alandavis/open-education/45/

SUNY Council of Library Directors Information Literacy Initiative, Final ReportSeptember 30, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.sunyconnect.suny.edu/ili/final.htm

SUNYConnect Information Literacy Course Chosen. (1999, October). SUNYergy. Retrieved from http://olis.sysadm.suny.edu/sunyergy/4ILC.htm

SUNYLA 2000: Ulster County Community College information literacy initiative [Presentation slides]. Retrieved from http://www.sunyulster.edu/library/information_literacy/ppt/index.htm