EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Information Literacy and Fluency

Handbook for Information Literacy Teaching

ckeller — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:51:03 -0600

This Handbook was written by a group of subject librarians at Cardiff University to support their colleagues in Information Services as they developed their information literacy teaching.

Faculty Integration of Technology into Instruction and Students' Perceptions of Computer Technology to Improve Student Learning

ckeller — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:32:06 -0500

There has been a remarkable improvement in access and rate of adoption of technology in higher
education. Even so, reports indicate that faculty members are not integrating technology into instruction
in ways that make a difference in student learning (Cuban, 2001; McCannon & Crews,
2000). To help faculty make informed decisions on student learning, there is need for current
knowledge of faculty integration practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine
the nature of the relationship between faculty integration of technology into classroom instruction
and students' perceptions of the effect of computer technology to improve their learning.
A sample of at least 800 undergraduate students at a participating medium-sized midwest public
university was selected using a stratified random sampling technique. The researcher delivered
and administered the surveys to the participating students and collected them after completion.
98% of the questionnaires were complete and retained for analysis. Two major statistical techniques
were used to analyze data obtained in the study: a multiple regression and a Two-Way
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).
A statistically significant relationship was found between the three predictor variables and the
criterion. The Two-Way ANOVA results indicated no interaction effect between gender and
course levels, and students' perceptions of the effect of computer technology use to improve their
learning. The main effects of gender and course levels were not statistically significant.
The results indicated that students lack computer skills in various computer applications that are
necessary to support and enhance their learning experiences. Therefore, it can be suggested that
students need to have direct instruction to efficiently use computer technology applications such
as authoring and sophisticated hypermedia. These programs provide computer skills in advanced
computer technology applications that will enable faculty members to expect more disciplinespecific
computer-based projects such as developing a webquest in a web editor.

Student Expectations Study

ckeller — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:47:43 -0500

These are key findings from online research and discussion evenings held in June 2007 for the Joint Information Systems Committee. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) commissioned Ipsos MORI to undertake research among prospective university students to understand a number of issues:

current levels of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) provision at school/college
expectations of ICT provision at university
any difference between expectation of ICT provision and that which is provided by HE institutions

These objectives helped to explore the hypothesis that there is a mismatch between student expectations of what they will be able to do and what Higher Education (HE) institutions can and do offer in terms of ICT. This study will form part of an overarching piece of research being undertaken by JISC to examine this hypothesis and inform HE institutions of student expectations of ICT provision.

Using Blogs for Formative Assessment and Interactive Teaching

ckeller — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:05:10 -0500

This case study shows how students were taught the skills they need to find information relevant to their subject area. As groups of students are generally seen once only, measures to assess the effectiveness of teaching are needed, i.e. to determine the skills the students have acquired. Blogs were used as a tool for formative assessment and were used to measure student expectations before teaching, and their level of satisfaction with the session afterwards. The blog [1] helps the tutor to understand if learning outcomes have been achieved and whether the session has met student expectations. It also requires students to reflect on the skills that they have acquired.

Beyond Google: How do students conduct academic research?

ckeller — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:59:47 -0500

This paper reports findings from an exploratory study about how students majoring in humanities and social sciences use the Internet and library resources for research. Using student discussion groups, content analysis, and a student survey, our results suggest students may not be as reliant on public Internet sites as previous research has reported. Instead, students in our study used a hybrid approach for conducting course–related research. A majority of students leveraged both online and offline sources to overcome challenges with finding, selecting, and evaluating resources and gauging professors’ expectations for quality research.

Why Johnny Can't Search (Intelligently)

drupal — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:06:22 -0600

Diana G. Oblinger, Vice President of EDUCAUSE, discusses the importance of critical thinking skills and the current ways information literacy is being taught in higher education.

Testing for Technology Literacy

drupal — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:39:42 -0600

"Professors, librarians, and other college officials are increasingly coming to grips with the somewhat confounding reality that despite students' affinity for IPods and their complete comfort with Google, many of them lack the technological literacy they need to navigate today's information landscape. But recognizing the problem is not the same as knowing how to measure or fix it — tasks that many colleges are puzzling over."

Are College Students Techno Idiots?

drupal — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:17:35 -0600

A new study by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) suggests that although college students appear fluent with technology, many are unable to effectively use computers to solve information problems.Students are comfortable using technology for leisure and social activities, but the study indicates that they have much more trouble evaluating online material and using technology effectively to find needed information. In the study, which surveyed more than 6,300 college students and high school seniors, fewer than half correctly identified from several choices the Web site that was objective, authoritative, and timely. Irvin Katz, a researcher at ETS, said, "It's not only in academics but also in the workplace that people don't have the necessary critical skills to access information."

Students Don't Know Much Beyond Google

drupal — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 11:31:47 -0500

"Of 10,000 high school and college students asked to evaluate a set of Web sites last fall, nearly half could not correctly judge which was the most objective, reliable and timely, according to preliminary results of a digital-literacy assessment. The Information and Communication Technology Assessment was administered by Educational Testing Service, a New Jersey nonprofit organization."

KWIC and Dirty? Human Cognition and the Claims of Full-Text Searching

drupal — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 12:08:40 -0600

Over the last several years, full-text searching of large text corpora has placed an extraordinarily powerful tool in the hands of humanities students and scholars. Use of these corpora is now entering mainstream research and, not surprisingly, is affecting research methods and the nature and quality of research outcomes. Using evidence from the literary record and from current research in human cognition, the author points to certain disjunctions between the machine processes that enable full-text searching and the subtle cognitive processes that underlie human learning and reasoning.