News & Blog

October is National Information Literacy Awareness month. Information literacy has been defined as a set of abilities requiring individuals to articulate their information needs, identify various types of information and formats, understand how to effectively access and critically evaluate information, effectively use information to accomplish a specific purpose, and understand economic, legal and social issues related to accessing and using information ethically and legally.

The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) recently established a new Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education that includes six core concepts. The core concepts, also known as “threshold concepts”, serve as gateways for students to apply information literacy as consumers and creators of information. The concepts are reflected in the six core areas listed below. To learn more about the Framework for Information Literacy and the threshold concepts, please see the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education at http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf

Information literacy has also been recognized by several professional associations including the American Library Association and Association of College & Research Libraries  (ALA/ACRL), American Association of School Librarians (AASL), Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE), and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).

It’s that time again!  We hope you had a good summer break, and as we start the fall 2014 semester we want to ‘thank you’ for your continued support of the Information Literacy Modules.

As you may know, the ‘Infolit Modules’ have been identified as one of the activities that meet the “Recording Academic Activity for Fall 2014 Courses” related to new financial aid requirements. For the details about this process, please see the Center for Distributed Learning site at http://teach.ucf.edu/resources/financialaid/

To help those who are new to the Infolit Modules and as a refresher to those who have used the modules previously, we wanted to provide a few tips for assigning modules for the fall semester:

There are two ways you can assign an Information Literacy Module:

• Through Canvas where you will use ‘Add an Assignment.’ This process will SYNC SCORES to your Canvas grade book. Instructions for adding a module assignment are located at http://onlinesupport.cdl.ucf.edu/obojobo/using-obojobo-in-webcoursesucf/

• Through the repository (http://obojobo.ucf.edu/repository), where you will create an instance and copy and paste the unique URL into a document/page to send to your students. Creating an instance in the repository will NOT SYNC SCORES to your Canvas grade book. Scores will be in the repository where you can download them. Instructions for creating an instance are located at http://infolit.ucf.edu/faculty/quickstart/view-all/If you are using the repository, we recommend making a new instance for each course since scores are permanently associated with a specific instance (or Assignment, if using Canvas). Having multiple courses use the same instance will result in all student data appearing together. Each instance will create a unique URL and instance ID number that you can send to students for each course. When sending an instance URL to students, you may also want to provide the link to log-in information. Information about logging in to the modules is available for students at http://infolit.ucf.edu/students/help/#article457

Whether you use Canvas or the repository option, you may also want to provide tech support information to students. Tech support for students and faculty is available through the Ask A Librarian service at http://library.ucf.edu/Ask/  Please encourage students to contact the Ask A Librarian service via phone, email, text, or chat if they encounter problems with module content, technology, or access. You might also want to provide students with the link to our Frequently Asked Questions located on the Infolit website at http://infolit.ucf.edu/students/help/

If you have questions or comments, please email Corinne.Bishop@ucf.edu or via the Infolit email at infolit@ucf.edu

Have a great start to the fall semester!

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Information literacy concepts integrate 21st Century skills associated with access, evaluation and use of information sources and support successful educational and workplace practices that can empower individuals to become informed lifelong learners.

“To know is to have a choice….” National Forum on Information Literacy

As we begin the fall semester, we have news and reminders to share about the Information Literacy Modules. First, we want to thank you for using the modules in your courses. We appreciate your support!

Second, we have great news. Module scores will now sync with Canvas! This means that you now have two ways to assign an Information Literacy Module:

(1) Through Canvas where you will ‘Add an Assignment.’ This process will SYNC SCORES to your Canvas grade book.
Instructions are located here http://onlinesupport.cdl.ucf.edu/obojobo/using-obojobo-in-webcoursesucf/

—OR—

(2) Through the repository (http://obojobo.ucf.edu/repository), where you will create an instance and copy and paste the unique URL into a document/page to share with your students. Creating an instance in the repository will NOT SYNC SCORES to your Canvas grade book. Scores will be available in the repository where you can download them. Instructions for creating an instance are located here http://infolit.ucf.edu/faculty/quickstart/view-all/

Reminders:

• Each semester, you will need to create new instances of modules OR new assignments of modules within Canvas.
• Upon completion of a module, students will receive an email confirmation of their score. Email confirmations are sent using Knights email.

If you have questions about assigning modules, you may consult the Information Literacy FAQ http://infolit.ucf.edu/faculty/faq/ or email us infolit@ucf.edu

Digital Badges (Retired Fall 2020):

Starting August 19, as part of a UCF pilot project, students will earn a digital badge when they score 80% or higher on a module assessment. An email will automatically be sent to the student acknowledging their accomplishment and providing a link to claim their badge. This is a completely automated process and is not intended to interfere with your course-level implementation of the Information Literacy Modules. Please see our Badges page for more information or email us if you have questions about the badges pilot Infolit@ucf.edu

Now Available:

Amy Foster, UCF History department faculty member, is creating a new version of the Avoiding Plagiarism module. The new module, Avoiding Plagiarism Using Chicago Manual of Style, 16^th Edition will be available in the fall semester.

Have a great semester!

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As you prepare for the summer sessions, we wanted to relate some news about how the library’s Information Literacy Modules will work in webcourses (Canvas) starting with the Summer A session.

Currently, the scores from assigned information literacy modules will not sync with your webcourses grade book. If you have module scores from the spring semester, you have two choices to put grades into webcourses: 1) manually or 2) by downloading from the Obojobo repository and then uploading scores into your grade book.

[The instructions to download/upload scores are here: http://onlinesupport.cdl.ucf.edu/obojobo/export-grades/]

Starting on May 13, a new feature will allow the module scores to move automatically into the webcourses grade book. If you want to take advantage of automatic score syncing, you will need to create your module instances as an Assignment in webcourses. If you do not need scores to sync to your grade book, you can create instances and set up your modules as you always have from the repository here: http://obojobo.ucf.edu/repository

Instructions on how to set up your information literacy modules as an Assignment in webcourses — will be posted soon.

As always, thank you for using the UCF Libraries’ Information Literacy Modules. We appreciate your continued use and support of these resources.  Please email us infolit@ucf.edu if you have questions, we are happy to help!

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To raise awareness of Information Literacy goals that support 21^st Century learning, the National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL) is working to gain gubernatorial support for public policy proclamations. Governors in ten states have issued Information Literacy Awareness Proclamations (MA, MO, MT, NY, IL, TX, OR, RI, AK and IN) that support educational and workplace communities. An additional twenty-four states and one U.S. territory have committed to draft and seek gubernatorial information literacy proclamations (AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MD, NE, NH, NJ, NM, OH, OK, PA, SC, UT, VA, WY and the Virgin Islands).

NFIL began this initiative with a recommendation to President Barack Obama, who proclaimed the first National Information Literacy Awareness month in October, 2009. Dr. Caroline Stern of Ferris State University, a former Michigan Association of Governing Boards’ Teacher of the Year recipient and a UNESCO information literacy expert and trainer notes that  “In becoming masters of information, learners and workers must incorporate information literacy practice within their individual skill sets.” In both educational and workplace settings information literacy competencies related to effectively selecting, evaluating and making use of information sources are needed to provide informed solutions. As such, information literacy concepts are in demand nationally by employers to sustain business and competitive advantage.

During Information Literacy Awareness Month — 2012, we encourage you to contact us about the ways you can incorporate information literacy concepts and skills into your courses. For additional information about services, you can consult the Information Literacy (Infolit) web site at http://infolit.ucf.edu or contact us at infolit@ucf.edu

The UCF libraries provide several ways to integrate information literacy concepts and skills into your courses, including:

• Assigning one or more of the fourteen online information literacy modules (http://infolit.ucf.edu/faculty) in your face-to-face or webcourse
• Scheduling a library instruction session (http://library.ucf.edu/Reference/Instruction/)
• Including an embedded librarian in your webcourses (contact Elizabeth Killingsworth)
• Informing students about the availability of library research consultations
  (1-hour consultation) (http://library.ucf.edu/Reference/ResearchConsultations/Default.asp)

Sources:
Purdue Libraries (2012, May). Picking up momentum – information literacy state proclamation initiative. Retrieved from http://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/2012/05/01/picking-up-momentum-information-literacy-state-proclamation-initiative

Weiner, S. A. (2012, September). 2012 Information literacy campaign. Retrieved from http://infolit.org/2012-il-campaign

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Our recently released module, Moving Into Discipline Specific Research, covers subject resources and strategies for using citations to locate topic-related sources. The module is a key resource for students advancing into their major area of study and is designed to provide guidelines on how to efficiently identify and locate academic sources for a specific discipline.

To preview the module, login to the Obojobo repository (https://obojobo.ucf.edu/repository) with your NID and NID password. Click on the Public Library, select the title, and then click on Preview. The module begins with a video introduction that you can also view on YouTube at (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2e_vxvyJ7o&feature=plcp).

Moving Into Discipline Specific Research discusses how to differentiate between subject-specific databases, multidisciplinary databases and OneSearch, the library’s new research tool that offers a single-search option to locate books, articles, etc.

As always we solicit your comments and feedback. Please contact us at (infolit@ucf.edu) with questions or if you would like to discuss ideas about using the modules in your courses.

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The Information Fluency Conference will be held at UCF on March 14-16, 2012.   This national conference is sponsored by the Office of Information Fluency at UCF.  Anyone affiliated with UCF (faculty, staff, students, and affiliated groups) is welcome to attend at no charge.

Dr. S. Craig Watkins will deliver the keynote address. Dr. Watkins teaches at the University of Texas, Austin, in the departments of Radio-Television Film, Sociology, and the Center for African and African American Studies and is the author of  ” The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future.”   Program information and registration is available on the conference website   www.ce.ucf.edu/if

To help students gain a better understanding of the online information environment — and develop solid skills to operate in it — the library provides face-to-face instruction sessions and online information literacy modules.

Some instructors and librarians assign modules before a scheduled library session. By blending library instruction and the online modules, librarians can identify areas where students may need additional help and then provide extra focus on those areas during the library session.

A complete list of information literacy modules can be accessed on the Modules page. For more information or questions, please leave a comment or contact us at Infolit@infolit@ucf.edu

We’ve updated some modules recently along with the Obojobo system update, which adds a new look with a great new color scheme and page layout.

Please make new instances of modules ON or AFTER January 3, 2012 for the best results!

We’ve also added a new version of the Avoiding Plagiarism module.
There are now two versions of Avoiding Plagiarism:

• Avoiding Plagiarism Using MLA Style — the original version (with minor updates) that depicts examples using MLA style based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Seventh Edition

• and Avoiding Plagiarism Using APA Style (based on the original module) that depicts examples in APA style based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition.

As always, if you have questions, please email Infolit or contact Elizabeth Killingsworth or 407-823-4250.