Tips for including information literacy in your instruction at St. Clair County Community College.

1. SC4 LIBRARY
Y O U R PA R T N E R I N I N F O R M AT I O N L I T E R A C Y

2. “Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the
reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information
is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new
knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.”
Association of College & Research Libraries, American Library Association
WHAT DOES INFORMATION LITERACY
MEAN TODAY?

3. An information literate individual is able to:
• Determine the extent of the information needed. (ACRL Standard One)
• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently. (ACRL Standard Two)
• Evaluate information and its sources critically. (ACRL Standard Three)
• Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base. (ACRL Standard Three)
• Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose. (ACRL Standard Four)
• Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information
and access and use information ethically and legally. (ACRL Standard Five)

4. SC4 GENERAL EDUCATION
COMPETENCY
Information Literacy (IL) is the ability to find and use information and evaluate its
reliability.
Outcomes:
• 1. Demonstrate technological competence to obtain information from data.
• 2. Demonstrate how and where to search for reliable information.
• 3. Demonstrate how to form conclusions based on reliable information.
https://portal.sc4.edu/academicsvcs/Document%20Library/SC4%20Gen%20Ed%20Competencies--
2018.pdf

5. HOW DOES SC4 LIBRARY FIT IN?
• Information literacy resources
• Custom resource description &
instruction sessions
• One on one reference assistance
• Curated resource lists
• Interactive self assessment
tutorials
• Canvas modules
• Plagiarism and academic
honesty information

6. HOW DOES SC4 LIBRARY FIT IN?
ENG 101 Program
• Access the library’s e-resources 24/7 from any
device with Internet access.
• Differentiate between magazine and scholarly
journal articles.
• Use the library databases to find peer
articles.
• Evaluate websites.
• Create advanced database and Internet
searching strategies..
• Identify elements of an MLA citation.
• Cite sources responsibly.
• Create a works cited page using RefWorks.

7. EXAMPLES
Outcome 1: Demonstrate technological competence to obtain information from
data.
Have students investigate an open data source to draw conclusions or support a pre-
determined argument. Be sure to examine all sites for data limitations and bias.
Consider the uses of Data.gov as a source for open data. Consider a creative use for one of
the data sets found and describe.
Use Data Driven Detroit as a jumping off point for exploring types of data and how it is
used in the Metro Detroit region.
https://datadrivendetroit.org/
On a more local level, consider using the St. Clair County EDA data center for info
regarding entrepreneurship and local business markets.
http://www.edascc.com/data-center
Discuss the limitations of collected data
http://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/limitations

8. EXAMPLES
Outcome 2: Demonstrate how and where to search for reliable information.
• Use some of the strategies on the SC4 Library’s Search Strategies guide and instruct
students to locate, read, evaluate, and share a scholarly article from one of the library’s
databases. http://esearch.sc4.edu/search_strategies
• “Go upstream to find the source”. Using an example from Web Literacy for Student Fact-
checkers have students investigate the original source of an image, quote, or post.
https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/chapter/go-upstream-to-find-the-source/
• Send students to a published article on a popular news website. Have students identify
and investigate all parts of the site, including sponsored and ad content, the publisher
and owner of the site, author of content, etc.

9. EXAMPLES
Outcome 3: Demonstrate how to form conclusions based on reliable
information.
• Read the CQ Researcher report on College Debt and evaluate one source used in this report.
http://esearch.sc4.edu/cqresearcher
http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqr_ht_college_debt_2018
Note the following:
What is the primary purpose or intent of this source? Why was it published?
Who was the creator of this source? Who published it?
Is the author qualified to write this source?
Was this a good source for the CQ Researcher report author to include in a report on student debt?
Why or why not? What other information would you have included? Where would you have looked
for this information?
• Have students find and evaluate research to determine if it is bad science
http://esearch.sc4.edu/fakescience

10. RESOURCES
Anatomy of a scholarly article
https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/scholarly-articles/
Web Literacy for student fact checkers:
https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/web-strategies-for-student-fact-
checkers/
Project CORA
https://www.projectcora.org/
SC4 Library Information Literacy
http://esearch.sc4.edu/infolit