Mission
To ensure that Colgate graduates are information literate and that information literacy is an integral part of the Colgate curriculum. In partnership with the academic faculty, to develop students' capabilities, skills, and experience with regard to finding, using, and evaluating information to build personal knowledge, create new knowledge, and to use information wisely to benefit society.
Purpose
Advocacy: work with academic faculty and administrators to raise awareness of information literacy as an essential component of a liberal arts education.
Planning: coordinate the curricular developmental and implementation of information literacy within First-Year Seminar Program, the CORE Program, and other departments and programs.
Teaching: develop and teach classes, workshops, and seminars in social science, humanities, science, and University Studies courses.
Assessment: using appropriate measures and techniques to reflect on our teaching and student learning in order to continuously improve it.
Consulting: develop information technology literacy among faculty wishing to improve pedagogy through the wise use of technology.
Partnership: through the Collaboration for Enhanced Learning, coordinate faculty development programs and resources to information technology literacy.
Goals and Objectives
Information literacy is broadly defined as the ability to recognize an information need, to access and evaluate appropriate resources, to synthesize the information into a coherent whole, and to use the information effectively. While information literacy includes a set of skills and abilities, it also requires students to think critically about the information environment, to make informed judgments on the quality of information, to manage and use information, and to add to the body of knowledge through creation of new information. Shapiro and Hughes state, “[I]information literacy should in fact be conceived more broadly as a new liberal art that extends from knowing how to use computers and access information to critical reflection on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure, and its social, cultural and even philosophical context and impact. . . .”
[1]
Using as a guideline the Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education: Standards, Performance Indicators, and Outcomes, Colgate information literacy librarians developed the following goals and objectives for first-year students:
The information literate student :
GOALS |
OBJECTIVES |
| 1. Recognizes the variety of services and resources that the library provides |
- Identifies service points in the library Identifies the variety of locations, formats, types, and classifications of library materials
- Knows library policies, including hours of operation, borrowing privileges, etc.
- Selects information resources through the library homepage and catalog
- Accesses and retrieves reserve readings
|
| 2. Recognizes the diversity and complexity of the information environment |
- Distinguishes among sources of information, including books, journals, dissertations, print and electronic media, personal communication, etc.
- Knows that information is formally and informally produced, organized, and disseminated
- Recognizes that information has different forms, such as narrative, opinion, observation, factual data, numeric data, etc.
|
| 3. Comprehends the functions and forms of citations |
- Understands the purpose (to provide an historical record of scholarship, to give proper attribution of ownership, to provide information for retrieval, etc.) of citations
- Identifies elements (author, article title, date, source, publisher, volume, issue, page number, path, retrieval date) common to citation styles
- Uses the citation to develop or refine a search strategy
- Knows that citation style is dependent on discipline
- Understands the relationship between an in-text citation and a reference list
- Constructs an appropriate reference list or bibliography
|
| 4. Defines and articulates a need for information |
- Explores general information sources to become familiar with topic
- Identifies key concepts or terms
- Determines the nature and extent of information needed
- Recognizes when quantitative or observational data is needed
- Differentiates between a topic and a thesis
- Develops a thesis statement or research question
|
| 5. Understands how information is identified and organized |
- Associates research topic with specific discipline or disciplines
- Identifies resources specific to disciplines
- Understands the difference between scholarly and popular publications and associates the topic to appropriate scholarly and popular publications
- Understands the difference between primary and secondary sources and associates the topic to appropriate primary and secondary sources
- Selects appropriate finding tools, which may include library catalogs, indexes, bibliographies, etc.
|
| 6. Implements successful search strategies |
- Formulates an effective search strategy
- Recognizes access points in a citation, such as author, title, subject, etc. and uses the citation to develop a search strategy
- Determines keywords based on content of information resources
- Differentiates between keyword and subject searching
- Uses subject searching to refine search
- Uses advanced searching techniques, such as Boolean searching, phrase searching, field searching, etc.
- Evaluates citations for relevance to research topics
- Revises search syntax to improve results
|
| 7. Locates and retrieves information |
- Differentiates among bibliographic databases, including library catalogs, full-text, and indexing and abstracting databases
- Identifies appropriate resources using the library catalog
- Identifies and retrieves appropriate resources using full-text databases
- Identifies appropriate resources using indexing and abstracting databases
- Identifies appropriate resources in the bibliographies of articles, books, and other previously retrieved resources
- Identifies journal titles from abbreviations and vice versa
- Relates elements of a citation to library catalog access points
- Retrieves locally owned resources using holdings and location information derived from the library catalog
- Recognizes various methods of requesting resources from other libraries, including ConnectNY, the library Web site, Firstsearch, and paper request forms
- Retrieves resources from other libraries as appropriate
|
| 8. Critically evaluates information |
- Evaluates retrieved information for relevance to research topic
- Articulates criteria for evaluation of resources
|
| 9. Analyzes and synthesizes information |
- Articulates how the content of information resources relates to research topic
- Can verbalize one or more research questions addressed in articles or other information sources
- Recognizes and can summarize arguments in an article or other sources of information
- Uses bibliographies and footnotes to expand search strategy
- Realizes that research is a process of narrowing, defining, and re-defining a question or thesis
- Organizes and manages retrieved information using various technologies
- Views research as participation in intellectual discourse
- Presents information in thoughtful and logical manner in a variety of formats, including written, web-based, and oral presentations
|
| 10. Uses information ethically and legally |
- Understands that attribution of sources lends authority to research and provides a path for others to find sources
- Respects and understands Colgate’s definition of plagiarism as outlined in the Colgate honor code
- Demonstrates an understanding of intellectual property, copyright, and fair use of copyrighted material
|
In addition to the basic competencies taught to First-Year Students, the graduating senior should have mastered the following competencies:
GOALS |
OBJECTIVES |
| 1. Recognizes that intellectual thought is communicated through bodies of literature |
- Recognizes that bodies of literature are defined by disciplines, world view, philosophy, and theory
- Understands the process of scholarly communication
- Understands the role of publishers and information distributors
|
| 2. Recognizes that different bodies of literature are uniquely organized for specific purposes |
- Learns and uses vocabulary that is specific to an inquiry
- Identifies primary and secondary source documents in a body of literature
- Understands when currency is important and realizes the need for current vs. historical or archival information
|
| 3. Plans the research process |
- Develops a coherent plan that includes a timeline to identify and retrieve resources with an understanding that the success of the final product will be the culmination of primary and secondary research
- Knows that all research begins with a question or hypothesis
- Clearly states the research question or hypothesis
- Understands both conceptual and operational definitions of key terms and concepts
- Recognizes the common pitfalls to doing research in his/her field
- Searches effectively for published information in various literature and formats as well as for unpublished information as appropriate
- Identifies the resources that can best address the research question or hypothesis
- Recognizes the limitations of online resources
- Conducts research through literature, media, interpersonal communication, etc.
- Documents the research plan or process
- Understands how to fine and use subject bibliographies
|
| 4. Develops a research strategy |
- Conducts a literature review and environmental scan
- Systematically organizes information in a manner that can be managed by the individual
- Creates retrievable records of information found that connect information both to its sources and to the research question
- Knows that effective research may require an interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary approach
- Focuses and refines searches across other disciplines, as necessary
|
| 5. Evaluates and reflects |
- Critically reads literature and defines the questions answered and those left unanswered
- Recognizes that research has moral and ethical implications
- Self-assesses the success of the project and identifies factors that contribute to its success
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