Information literacy at higher education institutions is an important issue at the local and national levels. In 2000, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) created a set of information literacy standards and asked academic institutions to incorporate them into their college curricula (ACRL, 2000). The ACRL states that, to be considered information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and be able to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information (ACRL, 2000). Academic institutions follow these standards to teach their students information literacy skills and assist them to become lifelong learners. Library literature indicates that international students face some linguistic, cultural, and technological challenges in using the library and learning information literacy skills. The purpose of this study was to examine the information literacy of international graduate students. It assessed their current skills and investigated their challenges and needs. Understanding the challenges international students face and exploring the factors associated with these challenges can be helpful to understand the academic needs of this group of students. The study was conducted on international graduate students at the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) at University of Central Florida (UCF). The study used a mixed methods design. Quantitative data were collected through an online survey that was sent to all U.S. and international graduate students at CECS. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with a selected number of international graduate students at CECS. The findings of the study indicated clearly that international graduate students have a relatively low level of information literacy skills. The study also showed that U.S. graduate students have a better information literacy level than the information literacy level of international graduate students. The study presented some implications and provided recommendations for future planning and programming of outreach programs and library services for international students on campus.

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the state of critical information literacy (CIL) in higher education as it is enacted and understood by academic librarians. This qualitative study investigated the institutional support, nonsupport, and barriers to CIL programs and the effectiveness of experiential critical pedagogy for information literacy (IL) learning as taught and studied by 19 CIL specialists. Purposeful sampling was used to gather a sample of 17 academic librarians and two professors of library and information science who had previously worked as academic librarians. The sample included 11 females and eight males; 18 participants were Caucasian and one was African American. Data were collected through 40-60 minute semi-structured interviews and a brief demographic survey. Experiential education served as the broad theoretical framework for this study, which stems from the tradition of critical theory. This study was guided by the work of two major experiential learning theorists and theories: Paulo Freire and critical pedagogy and Jack Mezirow and transformative learning. Mezirow and Freire focused their work on adult education and grounded their approaches in critical theory and focused on power relationships, reflection, and the emancipatory potential of education. The findings were framed through a lens of Freire’s conception of critical pedagogy because it was the major theoretical framework that most of the study participants used to guide their work. Findings suggest that academic librarians who teach CIL do not learn about it in their MLS programs. They tend to use three major critical teaching methods, including student-centered approaches, discussion and dialogue, and problem-posing methods. Participants tended to struggle more with using critical methods than with incorporating critical content. Slightly more than half regularly used critical methods in their teaching, but all participants incorporated critical content, including critical source evaluation and subject headings and language used in information production and dissemination. The findings also suggest that CIL specialists are likely to believe that CIL is best taught within the broader context of academic disciplines and that strong relationships with faculty are crucial for successfully implementing information literacy programs of any kind, including CIL programs. Most participants felt supported by their library administrators and at least minimally by college or university administrators, even though they thought administrators did not have a clear idea of what they do in the classroom. The professional identity and culture of librarians and librarianship played a large role in whether and how librarians were drawn to CIL and in their ability to practice it. The results of this study will allow librarians and educators to make more informed decisions about how to design, teach, and implement programs and will benefit library science scholars and policy makers in terms of knowing how it is being taught and supported at the institutional level.

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / This study investigates the effectiveness of the information literacy education that Master of Business Administration (MBA) students receive at the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB). The literature reveals that there is a growing trend worldwide to extend information literacy education to include graduate students. The study uses the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education Competencies as the theoretical framework together with Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process. Both process and formative evaluation was used in the study. A mixed method approach was applied to gather data for the study using a pre- and post-information literacy questionnaire, interviews with the information literacy facilitator and the research methodology lecturer and a rubric assessment of students’ group assignment. The information literacy intervention focuses mainly on ACRL Standard 1, with more emphasis on ACRL Standard 2. ACRL Standards 3, 4 and 5 were briefly mentioned as it was difficult to cover all the ACRL Standards adequately within a once-off information literacy session.The results of the study show that the information literacy intervention was successful in introducing students to some of the electronic resources which is one of the major objectives of the intervention. Students’ scores in the pre- and post-information literacy questionnaire and the group assignment were high. This could be an indication that the information literacy intervention was a success. The interviews with the information literacy facilitator and the research methodology lecturer reveal that little collaboration between the library and business academics is taking place. This lack of collaboration affects the quality of the information literacy education in terms of business academics input in the information literacy intervention and in terms of reinforcing information literacy outcomes in students’ assignments. One of the recommendations is that collaborative relationships should be developed between the library and business academics in order to develop an information literacy plan that will fully integrate information literacy within Masters’ courses.

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / This study investigates the effectiveness of the information literacy education that Master of Business Administration (MBA) students receive at the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB). The literature reveals that there is a growing trend worldwide to extend information literacy education to include graduate students. The study uses the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education Competencies as the theoretical framework together with Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process. Both process and formative evaluation was used in the study. A mixed method approach was applied to gather data for the study using a pre- and post-information literacy questionnaire, interviews with the information literacy facilitator and the research methodology lecturer and a rubric assessment of students’ group assignment. The information literacy intervention focuses mainly on ACRL Standard 1, with more emphasis on ACRL Standard 2. ACRL Standards 3, 4 and 5 were briefly mentioned as it was difficult to cover all the ACRL Standards adequately within a once-off information literacy session. The results of the study show that the information literacy intervention was successful in introducing students to some of the electronic resources which is one of the major objectives of the intervention. Students’ scores in the pre- and post-information literacy questionnaire and the group assignment were high. This could be an indication that the information literacy intervention was a success. The interviews with the information literacy facilitator and the research methodology lecturer reveal that little collaboration between the library and business academics is taking place. This lack of collaboration affects the quality of the information literacy education in terms of business academics input in the information literacy intervention and in terms of reinforcing information literacy outcomes in students’ assignments. One of the recommendations is that collaborative relationships should be developed between the library and business academics in order to develop an information literacy plan that will fully integrate information literacy within Masters’ courses.

Presentation. Critical Librarianship & Pedagogy Symposium, February 25-26, 2016, The University of Arizona. / Facilitated Roundtable Discussion Are critical assessment practices possible? Is the role of assessment fundamentally at odds with critical library pedagogy? Assessing both instructor performance and student learning can rationalize academic programs or services, demonstrate student learning, measure teacher performance accountability, or provide feedback on the efficacy of instruction. In today’s neoliberal higher education landscape this is often reflected through “value” and “return on investment.” Given the fraught purposes of assessment in higher education, what would critical assessment look like in practice? This roundtable will ask participants to discuss the tension and propose assessment methods that are congruent with a critical pedagogy perspective.

This is the keynote presentation delivered at The Sixth Conference on Problem-Based Learning in Finland: Constructing knowledge in information society, Tampere, 2006 June 6-7. Abstract: Finding information, especially accurate, timely, and relevant information, is increasingly important in nearly all human endeavors. Accordingly, numerous studies have examined the processes information seekers employ, as well as the strategies information providers use to meet their needs. Most models emphasize satisfaction or closure as the criterion for successful completion of an information search; thus the emphasis is on solving a specific problem. But often, information seeking is part of some larger process, which is invisible to the information provider and often unclear even to the seeker. Successful search may lead not so much to eliminating an existing, well-defined problem, as to delineating a new problem within a complex, ill-defined space. This paper examines information seeking from an inquiry, or problem-based perspective, and argues that the fields of information seeking and problem-based learning can benefit from closer dialogue.

Föreliggande studie syftar till att undersöka hur skolbibliotekarier medverkar i och upplever undervisningen i informationssökning för elever i grundskolans tidigare år, samt samarbetet mellan skolbibliotekarie och lärare vad gäller ovannämnda område. Studiens frågeställningar belyses med hjälp av teoretiska begrepp knutna till det sociokulturella perspektivet och riktar uppmärksamheten mot hur användandet av språkliga och fysiska artefakter i förhållande till lärprocessen upplevs och förstås i olika sociala praktiker. Den metod som använts är kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer som har genomförts på fyra olika skolor med fem medverkande skolbibliotekarier samt en skolbibliotekskonsulent. Intervjuernas längd varierade mellan 30-60 minuter och samtliga har dokumenterats med hjälp av ljudinspelningar. Resultatet visar att skolbibliotekariernas upplevelser av undervisning i informationssökning är beroende av de förväntningar, eller brist på förväntningar som finns i omgivningen. Samarbetet mellan skolbibliotekarie och lärare påverkas av omgivningens attityder till skolbibliotekets roll på skolan. Inställningen till skolbibliotekets roll påverkar också de resurser som tilldelas skolbiblioteket i form av exempelvis tid och personal och på så vis även vilka förutsättningar som finns för undervisning i informationssökning. Med hjälp av det sociokulturella perspektivets teoretiska begrepp påverkar alltså olika sociala praktikers förståelse av skolbibliotek och informationssökning som artefakter vilka möjligheter som ges till användning/mediering av dessa. De skilda uppfattningarna påverkar följaktligen även möjligheten att utveckla ett samarbete mellan lärare och skolbibliotekarie. Resultatet av studien visar även att skolbibliotekarierna ser på undervisning i informationssökning som en progression. Den så kallade bibliotekskunskapen med fokus på det specifika bibliotekets uppbyggnad ses som en grund och kritiskt tänkande, värderande och så vidare som en progression.

D. Litt. et Phil. / The South African academic information services are starting to pay attention to the role played by instruction librarians. There is an acknowledgement that librarians as ‘educators’ need to learn how to teach information literacy skills. Instruction librarians are either not trained educators or do not have a pedagogical background. Many instruction librarians were placed in, or found themselves, assuming a teaching role with regard to information literacy instruction, and subsequently refined their craft while on the job. The motivation for this study was that librarians as ‘educators’ are faced with challenges that impact on their teaching role. They have to understand the teaching methodologies and the application of adult learning principles to the facilitation of information literacy skills programmes. The success of facilitation and development of information literacy skills programmes depends on the instruction librarians’ ability to work in collaboration with academic departments, curriculum designers and other librarians. The study was carried out in two parts: a literature survey and an empirical investigation. The investigation was confined to academic libraries and information services that have an instruction librarian or subject librarian who facilitates information literacy skills instruction. The GAELIC (Gauteng and Environs Library Consortium) members were surveyed in order to limit the study to the nine participating libraries within the consortium. The findings of the study were supportive of the objective that there is a desperate need to have understanding, knowledge and skills regarding the dynamics involved in the teaching of information literacy skills, in order to make the programme a success. The study proposes a competency framework for implementation as a management tool for designing key performance areas (KPA’s) of instruction librarians.

Information literacy (IL) is recognized as the overall critical literacy for the 21st Century. Although large amounts of digital information are available, there is concern within higher education that students lack the competencies to assess and analyse sources in terms of relevance to their courses. Information literacy skills are of critical importance in teaching medical students to engage with evidence-based medicine (EBM), often within a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. Information practices that underpin academic and professional life should be embedded into the learning experience of the subject, and not taught extraneously in isolated silos. Attitudes of teaching staff at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand towards embedding evidence-based information literacy skills into the Graduate Entry Medical Programme 1 and 2 curriculum were examined. Existing integration of IL skills into the curriculum was shown to be limited, and not as high as perceived by educators. Five barriers against the integration of IL skills, and six opportunities for embedding information literacy, were identified in the curriculum. Awareness of evidence-based practice was found to be high, and collaborative teaching of IL skills with librarians was accepted by a large majority of educators. Dynamic Purposeful Learning (DPL) was proposed as a constructivist framework into which collaborative teaching of IL skills could be placed. DPL draws on active and collaborative learning, as well as cognitive scaffolding and apprenticeship, and is suited to PBL in the context of medical education.

Orientadora: Helen Castro Silva Casarin / Banca: Juan Carlos Fernández-Molina / Banca: Ariadne Chloe Mary Furnival / Banca: Luciana de Souza Gracioso / Banca: Carlos Cândido de Almeida / Resumo: Contexto: Na realidade brasileira atual, tem ficado a cargo das universidades sanar ou reduzir as deficiências dos níveis de ensino fundamental e médio, o desconhecimento do uso ético da informação e a questão do plágio acadêmico. Diante desses problemas no cenário acadêmico brasileiro, é evidente a importância do desenvolvimento da Competência Informacional, em especial, sua dimensão ética. Este trabalho se propõe a verificar o engajamento do bibliotecário para enfrentar os problemas da falta de conhecimentos sobre uso ético da informação e do plágio acadêmico, por meio de ações que promovam o desenvolvimento da dimensão ética da Competência Informacional, com foco no uso ético da informação, propiciando aos usuários e aos próprios bibliotecários, um olhar mais crítico sobre a questão. Objetivos: O objetivo geral foi verificar como os bibliotecários e suas unidades de informação, em dez universidades brasileiras melhor classificadas no Ranking Universitário Folha (RUF), têm preparado as suas respectivas comunidades para o uso ético da informação e para o combate ao plágio no ambiente acadêmico, sob a ótica da Competência Informacional. Pretendia-se, assim, determinar se os bibliotecários das instituições selecionadas estão preparados para atuar em ações específicas de Competência Informacional, em particular aquelas relacionadas à sua dimensão ética; identificar quais ações têm sido desenvolvidas pelas bibliotecas selecionadas; levantar subsídios, que possam direcionar as in... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Context: In Brazil today, universities are in charge of offsetting or reducing primary and secondary school weaknesses, as well as of compensating for the lack of awareness concerning the ethical use of information and academic plagiarism. With these problems in the Brazilian, the importance of developing information literacy seems obvious, especially in its ethical dimension. The present study aims at examining librarian engagement to face problems regarding the lack of knowledge about the ethical use of information and academic plagiarism. This would be done through actions that promote the ethical dimension of the information literacy, focusing on the ethical use of information and providing users and librarians with a more critical view. Objectives: The main objective of our research was to verify, from the information literacy perspective, how librarians and their information units prepare their academic communities for the ethical use of information and the fight against plagiarism. The study was conducted in ten of the best qualified Brazilian universities on the University ranking Folha (RUF). In this way, our aims were to determine whether these librarians were prepared for action in the information literacy field, especially concerning the ethical use of information; to identify which actions were developed by the selected Brazilian university libraries; to gather evidence that could be useful to guide information literacy initiatives launched by Brazilian universit... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Resumen: Contexto: En la realidad brasileña actual, las universidades se han encargado de subsanar o reducir las deficiencias en los niveles de enseñanza primaria y secundaria, el desconocimiento del uso ético de la información y la cuestión del plagio académico. Con estos problemas en el panorama académico brasileño, surge la importancia de desarrollar la Alfabetización Informacional, en especial, su dimensión ética. El presente trabajo pretende analizar el compromiso del bibliotecario para enfrentar los problemas relacionados con la falta de conocimientos sobre el uso ético de la información y del plagio académico, mediante acciones que promuevan el desarrollo de la dimensión ética de la Alfabetización Informacional. En concreto, en lo que respecta al uso ético de la información, propiciando a los usuarios y a los propios bibliotecarios una visión más crítica sobre dicha cuestión. Objetivos: El objetivo general consistió en verificar de qué forma los bibliotecarios y sus unidades de información, en diez universidades brasileñas de las mejor clasificadas en el ranking universitario Folha (RUF), han preparado a sus respectivas comunidades académicas para hacer un uso ético de la información y combatir el plagio en el ambiente académico, bajo la perspectiva de la Alfabetización Informacional. De este modo, se pretendía: determinar si los bibliotecarios de las instituciones seleccionadas están preparados para actuar en acciones específicas de Alfabetización Informacional, en especial a... (Resumen completo clicar acceso eletrônico abajo) / Doutor