Graduate students require the same base knowledge of information literacy as undergraduates, but are less likely to receive in-class instruction. Rather than considering them as external, theoretical signposts or goals, this presentation will discuss the value of situating the ACRL Information Literacy Standards and Framework into the real-life graduate student experience. Explaining what it means to have membership in the academic community leads directly to a deeper understanding of scholarly dialogue, authority and peer review. This grounding leads to an understanding of ownership, copyright, and plagiarism. This high-level overview of the scholarly research process allows students to comprehend their own place in the process, and the function of various types of academic papers. The parts and styles of research papers are situated within the larger realm of scholarly publishing expectations and opportunities. Students are then able to apply these concepts to view themselves as academic creators, with all the rights, responsibilities, and expectations of working members of the academic community. After the presentation and discussion, attendees should be able to recognize the immediate increase in student engagement when the ACRL concepts are presented in real-life context and terms assess the benefits of demonstrating to students where they belong in the academic cycle draft a similar message to support the particular circumstances of their own students This presentation addresses personalizing information literacy for increased real-life relevance and retention; practical advice for teaching information literacy skills of immediate use to students; and providing students with clear context concerning issues such as copyright and plagiarism.

In recent years the Web has evolved from a collection of hyperlinked documents to a vast ecosystem of interconnected documents, devices, services, and agents. However, the open nature of the Web enables anyone or any thing to publish any content they choose. Therefore poor quality data can quickly propagate and an appropriate mechanism to assess the quality of such data is essential if agents are to identify reliable information for use in decision-making. Existing assessment frameworks investigate the context around data (additional information that describes the situation in which a datum was created). Such metadata can be made available by publishing information to the Web of Linked Data. However, there are situations in which examining context alone is not sufficient - such as when one must identify the agent responsible for data creation, or transformational processes applied to data. In these situations, examining data provenance is critical to identifying quality issues. Moreover, there will be situations in which an agent is unable to perform a quality assessment of their own. For example, if the original contextual metadata is no longer available. Here, it may be possible for agents to explore provenance of previous quality assessments and make decisions about quality result re-use. This thesis explores issues around quality assessment and provenance in the Web of Linked Data. It contributes a formal model of quality assessment designed to align with emerging standards for provenance on the Web. This model is then realised as an OWL ontology, which can be used as part of a software framework to perform data quality assessment. Through a number of real-world examples, spanning environmental sensing, invasive species monitoring, and passenger information domains, the thesis establishes the importance of examining provenance as part of quality assessment. Moreover, it demonstrates that by examining quality assessment provenance agents can make re-use decisions about existing quality assessment results. Included in these implementations are sets of example quality metrics that demonstrate how these can be encoded using the SPARQL Inferencing Notation (SPIN).

This report examines how academic librarians and theorists have discussed the issue of discipline-based information literacy instructional approaches since the publication of the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education in 2000. As Kate Manuel has recently noted, the Standards balance outcomes and indicators of universal or general information-literacy skills with more discipline-specific skills. Prior to the publication of the ACRL Standards, Stephen Plum argued that disciplinary standards can provide valuable frameworks for library instruction; more recent theorists have focused attention on general skills, some arguing that discipline-based skills are the province of subject faculty, others suggesting that discipline-based skills are modeled on more general skills, still others suggesting that liaison librarians work collaboratively with faculty to address discipline-specific information needs. Based on a literature survey, my report is a thought piece addressing the following interlocking questions: how do discipline-based skills relate to more general skills? Who should teach discipline-based information literacy? Is information literacy a discipline in its own right? What role might the subject specialist play in discipline-based information literacy initiatives? / text

The Department of Library and Information Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, in association with UNESCO, completed a research study to measure information literacy competency and reading habits amongst the urban and semi-urban habitants in a metropolitan city in India. UNESCO releases a report on this research entitled Information Literacy Competency and Readership Study of Five Specific Localities in Urban, Industrial and Semi-Urban Areas of Kolkata Metropolitan City. The study sought to identify and critically examine the information literary competency and reading habits of mixed habitants, having contrasting professions or vocations. More particularly, the study had the following objectives: * to assess the readership of people from different social strata of five specific localities of Kolkata metropolitan city; * to measure the encroachment of different media on people's reading habit; * to find out the probable causes behind the difference in pattern of the reading habits of people in different localities of Kolkata; * to assess the role played by public libraries in promoting reading habits; and * to map the information literacy level of people living in urban, industrial and semi-urban areas of Kolkata. This study illustrates information seeking behaviour of diverse groups of habitants, including youths, women, industrial workers and elderly persons. The report concludes that the number of men who do not read regularly far exceeds the number of women in the same category, and that women are more prone to use libraries for satisfaction of their reading needs. Among the non-print media, television attracted most respondents. The study also demonstrated that, despite the electronic media boom, reading still survives. The public libraries in the city play wider role to inculcate reading habits amongst youths and neo-literates. This study suggests that information literacy competency and lifelong education can also be imparted to marginalised groups through public library networks in the country.

The M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) started the South-South Exhange Travelling Workshop for ICT-enabled (Information and Communication Technologies) development practitioners. This report introduces the second workshop held in October-November 2003, including 17 participants from 14 countries. The basic objectives of the workshop include knowledge sharing and interactive learning among the workshop participants, the villagers, and the staff and volunteers of MSSRF. It was designed as a travelling workshop so that the participants have an opportunity to visit various project sites in Pondicherry and Dindugul district to gain a first hand understanding of the impacts of ICT led endeavors and interact with the villagers through focus group discussions and multi-media presentations from various volunteers managing the knowledge centres.

An overview of resources and techniques for literature searching in mental health

The M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) invited about 20 development workers - both from NGOs and from other agencies - to spend eight days, travelling from village to village, visiting knowledge centers and other development projects of MSSRF, meeting the volunteers and the local communities and learning from one another and sharing experiences. This report introduces the third workshop held in October 2004. It concentrates on MSSRF’s work and philosophy and emphasizes rightly that at MSSRF ICTs are not seen as a technical solution on their own but as enablers in a process of local prioritization and problem solving. It relates the success of the program to embedding ICTs in a holistic approach encompassing a diverse range of development initiatives.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, May, 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.