----- Forwarded Message ---- *From:* Stephen B. Alayon <[email protected]> *To:* [email protected]; Filipino Librarians googlegroup < [email protected]>; ASLP <[email protected]> *Sent:* Fri, November 26, 2010 10:21:22 AM *Subject:* Truth be told: How college students evaluate and use information in the digital age.
You might find this info. interesting. Also, below is a related article from library journal http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2010_Survey_FullReport1.pdf%20 Truth be told: How college students evaluate and use information in the digital age. A report about college students and their information-seeking strategies and research difficulties, including findings from 8,353 survey respondents from college students on 25 campuses distributed across the U.S. in spring of 2010, as part of Project Information Literacy. Respondents reported taking little at face value and were frequent evaluators of Web and library sources used for course work, and to a lesser extent, of Web content for personal use. Most respondents turned to friends and family when asking for help with evaluating information for personal use and instructors when evaluating information for course research. Respondents reported using a repertoire of research techniques—mostly for writing papers—for completing one research assignment to the next, though few respondents reported using Web 2.0 applications for collaborating on assignments. Even though most respondents considered themselves adept at finding and evaluating information, especially when it was retrieved from the Web, students reported difficulties getting started with research assignments and determining the nature and scope of what was required of them. Overall, the findings suggest students use an information-seeking and research strategy driven by efficiency and predictability for managing and controlling all of the information available to them on college campuses, though conducting comprehensive research and learning something new is important to most, along with passing the course and the grade received. Recommendations are included for how campus-wide stakeholders—faculty, librarians, and higher education administrators—can work together to help inform pedagogies for a new century. ------------------------------ http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/communityacademiclibraries/887643-419/truth_or_dare__peer.html.csp Truth or Dare | Peer to Peer Review *A look at what we can take from Project Information Literacy* *Barbara Fister, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN* *Nov 4, 2010 * When I was an undergraduate, I heard rumors there was a trend at universities to build special libraries just for the young 'uns. I was relieved that my university was not so progressive. The concept was insulting. Why give students a toy library, a pared-down library, and tell them to use that instead of the one full of millions of books? We were adults, after all. Learning my way around the byzantine floor plan of the Margaret King Library at the University of Kentucky was one of my proudest accomplishments. The floors of the additions that had been made over the decades didn't match up, the elevators led to strange halfway realms and mezzanines, where stacks built for Tolkien's dwarves were linked by twisting metal staircases the echoed with a metallic clang as you climbed them. And I figured it out without asking a librarian for help. I had nothing against the librarians; I simply assumed their expertise was mysterious library stuff, not my major, and they were sitting there to... well, I wasn't sure why they sat there. It said "information" on their desk, but wasn't the whole idea of going to college that I would find things out by myself? These memories are sparked by reading Project Information Literacy's<http://projectinfolit.org/>latest report, one that presents and analyzes the findings of a vast study of undergraduate experiences doing research for their courses. "Truth Be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age<http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2010_Survey_FullReport1.pdf>" is the largest study of its kind and is a must-read for academic librarians. * * *Can you handle the truth?* Researchers Alison Head and Michael Eisenberg have collected responses from over 8000 students at 25 institutions across the country, giving us a uniquely detailed look at student attitudes and self-reported practices doing research for courses and for their everyday life. There is good news and bad news—and insights that should make us sit back and think hard about both our instructional efforts and our collection building strategies. The good news is that students are very conscious of the need to evaluate the sources they encounter. They don't take them at face value, but are choosy about finding sources that are current and authoritative. They may not be terribly sophisticated about judging authority, but they try, and they understand the expectations of their primary audience: their teachers. They also don't rely entirely on the web, as is commonly assumed, but rather use course readings, Internet searches, and library databases in most of their course-related research. This confirms previous project findings<http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2009_finalv_YR1_12_2009v2.pdf>and is cheering for those of us who try to emphasize scholarly resources and evaluation. A final happy note is that they value the research they do beyond its utilitarian purpose in getting a good grade. Grades are important, but they take pride in learning more about a subject and conducting a search that they feel is "comprehensive." The bad news... well, maybe it's not fair to call it bad news. Students are responding in practical ways to the cues they are given. The results that should make us question our assumptions are that students, when faced with the nearly limitless banquet of choices offered by even small libraries like mine, bypass librarians' advice and go for what is familiar. They tend to turn to the same databases and take the same set of steps, regardless of the topic or need. Their problem isn't finding information, it's reducing the options so that the task is manageable. Librarians take pride in offering more databases with more content, but undergraduates aren't impressed. We think we're conducting a symphony of interdisciplinary knowledge, while students actively strategize how to reduce the noise. * * *Asking the big questions* I've written elsewhere<http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library_babel_fish/undergraduates_in_the_library_trying_not_to_drown>about the curricular implications of this report for faculty and librarians. We need to think hard about what role inquiry plays in the undergraduate curriculum and how the library supports meaningful undergraduate research. Will values embedded in the process of discovering meaning while doing assignments transfer to life after college? Do our instructional efforts help? There are collection development implications, too. Though as an undergraduate, I didn't want to be patronized by being sent to a smaller-scale library, I've been wondering whether librarians are indulging<http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/887146-264/feed_me_seymour_dealing_with.html.csp>in a kind of unhealthy info-gluttony. Is there more that we should do to help our users find their way through the digital maze that is the 21st century library—particularly when asking librarians for help is no more popular than it was in my day? What does it mean that 88 percent of students in this study report using library databases for assignments, but less than half as many use them for personal research needs? Will the 40 percent who reported using databases for questions encountered in everyday life seek out public library offerings in future for personal needs? Will they even know they are available, or will they assume that these tools are only found in academic libraries—ones that cut off access as soon as they graduate? Will students look to research to inform their decisions and opinions after college, or will the well-established patterns of research that they have developed to succeed academically become irrelevant when they've turned in their last college assignment? When they need to make decisions about their lives and their values, when they need to make choices about the issues that will shape the communities we live in and the future of our badly-damaged planet, will they seek authoritative evidence to inform their views? Will they even have access to that information? What can we, as librarians, do to make sure that the learning we work so hard to support will ultimately make a difference? "Truth Be Told" tells us some fascinating information that leaves us with good and pressing questions. ------------------------------ *Barbara Fister* <http://homepages.gac.edu/%7Efister/>* is a librarian at **Gustavus Adolphus College* <http://gustavus.edu/>*, St. Peter, MN, a contributor to * *ACRLog* <http://acrlog.org/>*, and an author of **crime fiction*<http://barbarafister.com/> *. Her latest mystery, *Through the Cracks *(see **review*<http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6723975.html> *), was published in May by Minotaur Books.* STEPHEN B. ALAYON Data Bank Senior Information Assistant Library and Data Banking Services Section Training and Information Division Aquaculture Department (AQD) Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) Tigbauan, Iloilo 5021 Philippines URL: http://www.seafdec.org.ph Telephone No.: 63 33 5119170 to 71 local 344 Fax No.: 63 33 5119174 Mobile Phone No.: 63 919 4506688 Email Add: [email protected], [email protected]<%[email protected]> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Filipino Librarians" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/filipinolibrarians?hl=en.
