The Seven Faces of Information Literacy

Full text

Seven Faces of
Information Literacy
Towards inviting students into new
experiences
Christine Bruce
Associate Professor and Director of Teaching
Faculty of Information Technology, QUT, 2003

Today’s themes
What are people saying about information
literacy?
What is our experience of information
literacy?
How might this influence curriculum
design?
How can we engage students with the
experience of information literacy?

What are people saying about
information literacy?
The spectrum of literacy:
• Alphabetic literacy – writing name
• Functional literacy – reading and
writing
• Social literacy – communication in a
cultural context
• Information literacy –critical location,
evaluation and use of information
• Digital information literacy –
application of information literacy in
the digital environment
Caroline Stern (2002) Information literacy unplugged: teaching
information literacy without technology. White paper prepared
for UNESCO, the US NCLIS and National Forum for
Information Literacy. <http://www.nclis.gov/libinter/>

What is information literacy?
• The ability to access, evaluate, organise
and use information in order to learn,
problem-solve, make decisions - in formal
and informal learning contexts, at work, at
home and in educational settings.
•A key characteristic of the lifelong
learner - strongly connected with critical
and reflective thinking

Around the World
South Africa – interest
in IL spurred by
transformation of
education and
increasing adoption of
ICTs
China – since early
1980s govt has
encouraged the
teaching of info skills
• Singapore –govt
mandate that people
be prepared for work
in the info
environment; be IL
• New Zealand –
National curriculum
framework for
information skills
since 1993 (Rader 2002)

Around the World
Australia – CAUL has
adopted US Higher
Education
Competence
Standards; ANZIIL
Europe – EDUCATE
(end user courses in
information access
via IT) commenced in
1994
• Canada – Govt
information policy
promotes an
information literate
population
• Sweden – plans for
Nordic Institute for IL
• Hannelore Rader (2002)Information
literacy – an emerging global priority.
White paper prepared for UNESCO,
the US NCLIS and National Forum for
Information Literacy.
<http://www.nclis.gov/libinter/>

One student comments...
• I now understand that
education is about being
empowered to learn rather
than about being
dependent on the teacher
for acquiring knowledge
and skills...

Key to Lifelong Learning:
Information
Literacy
Learning
to Learn
Computer
Literacy
IT
Literacy
Information
Skills Library
Skills
Lifelong
Learning
Denis Ralph (1999) Information Literacy and Foundations for Lifelong
Learning, Proceedings of the 4th National Information Literacy Conference,
Adelaide, UNISA Library. Adapted from Bruce model, ‘97.

Higher ED Competency
Standards
• 5 standards and 22 performance
indicators
• help us to identify specific capabilities we
may want to students to develop
• provides general and specific learning
outcomes
• specifies capabilities related to broad
learning needs rather than IT skills
(http://www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html).

Higher Ed Competency
Standards
The information literate student:
• determines the nature and extent of the
information needed.
• accesses needed information effectively and
efficiently.
• evaluates information and its sources critically
and incorporates selected information into his or
her knowledge base and value system.

Higher Ed Competency
Standards
• The information literate student, individually or
as a member of a group, uses information
effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
• The information literate student understands
many of the economic, legal, and social issues
surrounding the use of information and accesses
and uses information ethically and legally.

Eisenberg &Berkowitz’ Big Six
• Popular in schools
• A process model
• Identifies key elements of information
access and use
• Students are taught to use the model as a
framework

Eisenberg &Berkowitz’ Big Six
1. Define the task at hand
2. Create info seeking
strategies
3. Locate and access info
4. Use, interact with
information
5. Synthesise – organise,
present
6. Evaluate – critique
product and process
Eisenberg and Berkowitz (1990) Information problem
solving, the Big Six approach to Library and
Information Skills instruction. Norwood,
Ablex

Information Literacy
• It is people (staff and students) who bring particular
values to the idea of information literacy and its
programs, investing the idea with personal, social,
organisational or economic significance
• As individuals and groups decide on ways of
thinking about the phenomenon, and which value
systems it is important to identify with, their
interpretations …give their programs distinctive
characteristics.
• Christine Bruce and Phil Candy (2000) People, Politics and Potential, in Information
Literacy Around the World, Charles Sturt Uni Press, Riverina.

What is our experience of
information literacy?
• Our experience/
conceptions of teaching
and learning influences
our practice. Our design
of learning experiences
influences learning
outcomes…
(Bowden and Marton, 1998;
Biggs and Watkins, 2002;
Prosser and Trigwell, 1999)

What is our experience of IL?
• As with teaching and learning generally,
information literacy may be experienced in
a variety of ways.
• This has implications for how different
people experience the information literacy
agenda and how they approach
information literacy in curriculum.

FOR REFLECTION
• How do you use information in your everyday life
and work?
• Remember the details of a time when you used
information effectively
• Think about your picture of an effective
information user ( or information literate person)
• Think about your experience of being ( or trying
to be) an information literate person – what do
you do? Easily? What do you struggle with?

For reflection
– I see information literacy as….
– Our organisation sees information literacy
as….
– My colleagues see information literacy as…
– My students see information literacy as…

FOR REFLECTION
• Different people and stakeholder groups see or
experience information literacy differently
• How might this influence information literacy
politics, curriculum design, relationships
between teachers, librarians and students, and
the outworkings of curriculum in classrooms

Information professionals’ and
scholars’ views of IL
• Acquiring mental models of info systems
• A set of skills
• A combination of info and IT skills
• Learning skills
• A process
• A way of learning
• Ways of experiencing info use
• Information behaviour [Adapted from Bruce 1997]

The relational model of L
What is the relational model of IL?
• A picture or map of the
different ways in which
information literacy is
experienced
• Reflects the experience of
higher educators, including
academics from a range of
disciplines
Why a relational model of IL?
• Consistent with theories of
teaching and learning in higher
education
• Gives insight into interaction
with the world of information as
people experience it
• Helps us to understand critical
differences in experience
• Suggests learning outcomes
based on whole experiences
and real life practice.

The Seven Faces of Information
Literacy
Information Literacy = the sum of the different
ways it is experienced
Information Literacy Education = helping learners
change/ broaden their repertoire of experiences
Each “face” comprises information use
information technology
unique element
Focal element = central circle
marginal element = outer circle

First Face : The IT Experience
Information Use
Information Scanning
Information
Technology
• IT used for information
awareness
• IT helps users stay
informed/communicate
• a social experience –
not individual
• dependent on
expertise within a
group

Second Face : The Info
Sources Experience
Information
Technology
Information Use
Information
Sources
• bibliographic
• human
• organisational
• assistance of
intermediaries
emphasised
• Personal skills also
valued

Third Face : The Info
Process Experience
• linked to problem-
solving, decision-
making
• requires personal
heuristics
• a ‘creative art’
Information
Technology
Information Use
Information
Process

Fourth Face : The Info-Control
Experience
• recognising relevant
information
• managing that
information
• making connections
between information,
projects, people
• interconnectedness
between information
and parts of projects
Information
Technology
Information Use
Information Control

Fifth Face : The Knowledge
Construction Experience
• emphasis on learning
• Developing a
personal perspective
with knowledge
gained
• dependent on critical
thinking
Information
Technology
Information Use
(critical analysis)
Knowledge Base

Sixth Face : The Knowledge
Extension Experience
• personal knowledge +
experience + creative
insight/intuition
• mysterious experience
• develops new
knowledge/approaches
to tasks/novel solutions
Information
Technology
Information Use
(intuition)
Knowledge Base

Seventh Face : The
Wisdom Experience
• personal quality
• values and
ethics combined
with knowledge
• information
used for the
benefit of others
Information
Technology
Information Use
(values)
Knowledge Base

Wisdom
Insight
Understanding
Knowledge
Information
Data
adapted from Denis Ralph (1999)
Learning
Information
Literacy

Students’ experience of
information seeking..
.
• Students have different ways of
approaching information seeking and use
• These different ways of approaching information
seeking and use correlate with different levels of
learning outcome
Louise Limberg (2000) Information Literacy Around the World

Reflection/Comment
• Which experiences of information literacy are
adaptable to your context?
• What aspects of those experiences might need
to be adapted to suit this culture ?
• If we were to investigate the experience of IL
here, what other ‘faces’ of information literacy
might emerge?
• How do different views of IL influence interest in
IL in different parts of the university?

How might our experience influence
curriculum design?
• We can use the relational model (different ways
of experiencing information literacy) to build
curriculum
• Design learning experiences that relate to
relevant ‘faces’
• Support the development of skills necessary for
the different faces.

Premises
• Powerful ways of acting come from powerful
ways of seeing…………………… (Marton and
Booth 1997, Bowden and Marton 1999)
• …….for information literacy education this
means building relevant experiences and
reflection on those experiences into curriculum

Premises
• Improving learning is about understanding
the learner’s perspective –
• helping students become better
information users is about understanding
their ways of conceiving effective
information use.

Outcome statements- learning
IL as a whole
Students will
• Conceive of IL in different
ways
• Use info effectively in a
range of contexts
• Discern ways of thinking
about info use which
apply to new problems
that they encounter
• Conceive of
information as
subjective and
transformational in
character
• Appreciate the
socially distributed
character of
information literacy

Outcome statements- the seven
faces
• Build a personal
knowledge base
in a new area of
interest
• Work with
knowledge and
personal
perspectives to
gain new insights
• Use information
wisely
Students will:
• Use IT for IR and
communication
• Find information
independently or via
an intermediary
• Use information
processes
• Control information

Teaching approaches
As professional educators we have opportunities to:
• diagnose the existing range of learners’
information literacy experiences,
• deepen those experiences with which they
are familiar, and
• usher them into previously unfamiliar
experiences
• draw on workplace, study and everyday life
contexts

Curriculum Evaluation
• Does curricula embrace the full range of
conceptions?
• Curricula tends to favour subsets of the
conceptions..
• A complete IL program needs to operate across
the full range of conceptions
• …..across an entire program of study such as an
undergraduate degree

How can we engage
students with the
experience of IL?
Library curriculum….
Academic curricula….

Curriculum design principles
• Information literacy (is not)... teaching a set
of skills but rather a process that should
transform both learning and the culture of
communities for the better
• (Patricia Breivik. 2000, Foreword, Information Literacy Around the World,
edited by Bruce, C and Candy P. Charles Sturt University )

Curriculum design principles
• ..through the process of constructive
alignment (Biggs 1999) learning activities should
require students to engage in a process that
leads to achieving desired learning
objectives.
• …we need to see information literacy as
forms of information practice that can be
encouraged or discouraged by particular
learning activities
• Bruce, C and Candy, P (2000) Information Literacy Around the World.

Examples
• prepare a current
awareness strategy
and discuss what has
been learned through
implementation of that
strategy over time.
• Develop a package of
materials for a client; and
prepare a covering
statement about how
information has been
gathered, the assessed
quality of the information,
and how that information
might be put to use.

How can academic curriculum be
designed to encourage students to:
• use information technology for information
awareness and communication?
• come to know a range of bibliographic, human
and organisational information sources?
• develop personal heuristic for the application of
information processes?
• control information through establishing and
mapping or formalising relevant connections?

• adopt a critical approach to knowledge
construction?
• exercise their intuitive capacities to gain
new insights or understandings?
• drawn upon personal values/ethics when
using information?
How can academic curriculum be
designed to provide opportunities for
students to:

How can we help our students to:
• be aware of their information literacy
opportunities?
• reflect on their work in this area?
• recognise the importance of
information literacy for their
professional development and
growth?

Towards Action: a suggested thought
process
• What general learning needs will students have in
future? (eg to keep up to date with new
developments)
• What real world activities will they need to engage
in? (eg monitoring their learning needs, scanning
developments in field of interest)
• What could students do in our courses to prepare
them? (eg develop & implement a current
awareness strategy…)
• Bruce, C and Candy P, (2000) Information Literacy Around the
World,Charles Sturt Uni Press.

Four elements of an IL Program
• Resources to facilitate the learning of specific skills, eg
web based information skills enhancement packages,
other point of need, or self paced instruction.
• Curriculum that provides the opportunity to learn
specific skills, either early in a course or at point of
need, (from self-paced packages, peers, lecturers,
librarians)
• Curriculum requiring engagement in learning activities
that require ongoing interaction with the information
environment.
• Curriculum that provides opportunities for reflection
and documentation of learning about effective
information practices
• Christine Bruce (2002)Information literacy as a catalyst for educational change: a background
paper. White paper prepared for UNESCO, the US NCLIS and National Forum for Information
Literacy. <http://www.nclis.gov/libinter/>

Successful IL initiatives
Curriculum