Helping students develop their information literacy

Learning & Teaching Conference, Leicester 2013

Helping students develop their
information literacy

Dr Chris Willmott
Dept of Biochemistry,
University of Leicester
cjrw2@le.ac.uk
University of
Leicester

Background
• There was a time, not SO long ago…
• The internet provides an apparently bottomless pool
of information
• There are concerns that students may not possess
the skills to appraise the merits of online sources 1,2

• Information literacy
• Digital literacy

http://tinyurl.com/indexmedicus

Activity
• Students are asked to evaluate eight online sources
• One week before group tutorial, sent instructions,
plus:
• File listing top eight hits on a “Google search”
• Link to proforma for recording evaluation of the
sources
• Student complete activity in their own time prior to
the tutorial
• Ensures they can work at own pace
• Enables me to collate cohort response

Activity
• For each source students are asked to consider:
• The “academic quality” of the source
• Veracity?
• Credibility?
• Would person marking your work think that it is
an appropriate source document for the purpose?
• 1 (low) to 10 (high)

Activity
• For each source students are asked to consider:
• The “suitability” and “relevance” for two assignments
• A first year essay on the role of mitochondria in
energy production
• A final year dissertation on the role of
mitochondria in ageing
• For each category 5-point Likert scale offered
• Open-text box to give short explanation of their
reasoning

Source 1
• Mean student rating*: 7.7
• Tutor rating: 8
• What is it?
Chapter from Molecular
Biology of the Cell
• Why is this example included?
Alerts students to fact some major texts are online
Raises point that textbooks = good, but not pinnacle

* 2010-12 (n=299)

Source 1
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Suitable
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Relevant
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Not Sure – textbooks unlikely to play major role in
final year
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Probably Irrelevant – cursory mention of topic

Source 2
• Tutor rating: 4
• What is it?
Wikipedia
First port of call for casual research
Students need to be aware of differences of opinion
Raising notion of Wikipedia as a portal not endpoint

* 2010-12 (n=299)

Source 2
Not Sure – Definitely Unsuitable? who authored?
Probably Relevant – some relevant level content, but…
Probably Unsuitable – raise notion of “portal”, “good”
Wikipedia pages are well referenced
Not Sure

Source 3
• Tutor rating: 2
• What is it?
Essay from “papermill”
Important to raise educational concerns (and quality
concerns) regarding sub-contraction services
[Worry – alerting students to their existence?]

* 2010-12 (n=299)

Source 3
Definitely Unsuitable – academic dishonesty issues
Not Sure – title almost identical, but can it be trusted?
Definitely Unsuitable
Definitely Irrelevant

Source 4
• Tutor rating: 9
• What is it?
A short review article in an
important journal
An example of a top peer-reviewed journal
An opportunity to discuss peer review and validation?

* 2010-12 (n=299)

Source 4
Probably Unsuitable or Definitely Suitable? – tougher
than expected for students at Yr1. Setting reasonable
expectations?
Probably Irrelevant – energy production mentioned,
but focus is on ageing
Definitely Suitable – perfect for job
Definitely Relevant

Source 5
• Tutor rating: 9
• What is it?
A research article from a
top journal
Raise differences between “primary literature” and
review articles
Good point to discuss citation scores?

Source 5
Definitely Suitable – perfect for job
Definitely Relevant

Source 6
• Tutor rating: 6
• What is it?
Educational website with
peer-reviewed articles

A “good” website – run by American Institute of
Biological Sciences

* 2010-12 (n=299)

Source 6
Not Sure – claims of “peer review” but likely to be
sceptically received by markers
Probably Irrelevant – not main thrust of article
Probably Relevant – topic aligns, but…

Source 7
• Tutor rating: 3
• What is it?
CBS News website
The title is alluringly close to
one of the set assignments
Written by staff writer “Jamie Holguin”, no evidence of
scientific training

* 2010-12 (n=299)

Source 7
Probably Unsuitable – an illustration for introduction?
Not authoritative on matters of scientific fact
Probably Unsuitable – as above
Not Sure – material is on same topic, but…

Source 8
• Tutor rating: 5
• What is it?
TED talk

Raising notion that not all sources are written
(though a transcript is available)

* 2010-12 (n=299)

Source 8
Probably Unsuitable – videos and podcasts can be
valuable, probably not this one!
Probably Irrelevant
Probably Unsuitable – as above
Probably Relevant – concepts under discussion are
relevant to dissertation, but concern over authority

Comments at close of tutorial
• Reminder that although internet useful tool for
accessing fantastic resources, other resources
• Library offers access to books and expertise of staff

Evaluation
• 2010-2012, 169 students completed anonymous
evaluation of activity
• 91% of students gave positive feedback:
This was a useful exercise
Agreed (56%)
Strongly Agreed (35%)

Evaluation
• “In some instances my opinion and the actual
answers differed by quite a lot. This activity gave me
greater insight into how sources are viewed in terms
of authority at a university level”
• “It really opened my eyes to some aspects I had
never given a lot of thought to”
• “It made me aware of how important the quality of
sources is and how to judge this”
• “It was really useful, as I was a bit apprehensive
about using the wrong sources in essays.”
• “I didn’t learn much new, but the practice and the
feedback session helped me to understand better.”

My reflections
• A valuable, if imperfect, exercise
• Terminology: explaining key issues hard to get across
succinctly a priori
• Works best as blended (online then F2F) activity
• Could be quicker without requesting explanation
“After about five sources the task got tedious,
however it was still useful”

Adapting for your course?
• Researching possible sources and shortlisting to about
eight takes time
• Check that sources are available off campus (and
expect some tinkering to be required as URLs change)
• Search pages prepared as PowerPoint slides and
uploaded to connect.le.ac.uk using Adobe Presenter
• Data collection form prepared in Plone

References
1. Beetham H. et al. (2009) Thriving in the 21st
Century: Learning literacies for the digital age (JISC)
2. Pan B. et al. (2010) Assessing the dynamics of
search results in Google. Information and
Communication Technologies in Tourism 11:405-416

Acknowledgements
• Stuart Johnson
• Paul Smith
• Alan Cann & Jo Badge

• Ethical approval cjrw2-7991b

Any Questions?
E-mail: cjrw2@le.ac.uk
Twitter: cjrw
Slideshare: cjrw2
Delicious: chriswillmott
Blogs: www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
www.biosciencecareers.wordpress.com
www.lefthandedbiochemist.wordpress.com

University of
Leicester

Helping students develop their information literacy

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