Pathways into information literacy and communities of practice

12.Owusu-In consonance with the universality of the IL phenomenon and itsadaptation to the sociotechnological progress made in recent years, theAssociation of College and Research Librar

PATHWAYS INTO INFORMATION

LITERACY AND COMMUNITIES

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Dora Sales

Dora Sales has her PhD in Translation Studies and is a senior lecturer inDocumentation at the Universitat Jaume I of Castello´, Spain Herresearch in the field deals with Documentation applied to TranslationStudies and Information Literacy She is a practicing literary translator andhas experience in literary publishing and the management of culturalactivities Her teaching is focused on the subject of DocumentationApplied to Translation, from the paradigm of Information Literacy, a field

in which she has published books, such as Documentacio´n aplicada a latraduccio´n: presente y futuro de una disciplina (Trea, 2006) and a number ofpapers in international peer-reviewed journals with JCR impact factor.She has directed several research and development (R&D) projects onDocumentary Resources and Informational Literacy for InterculturalMediation and Interpreting in the Healthcare Setting

in the practice of INFOLIT

xi

United States

Ann Grafstein

Ann Grafstein is a professor of Library Services at Hofstra University (LongIsland, New York) She holds a PhD in linguistics from McGill Universityand an MLIS from The University of Western Ontario She has publishedboth in linguistics and in library science Most recently, she coauthored twobooks with Alan Bailin: Readability: Text and Context (Palgrave Macmillan,2015), and The Critical Assessment of Research (Chandos-Elsevier, 2010) Herarticle “A Discipline-Based Approach to Information Literacy” (Journal ofAcademic Librarianship, 2002) received the Association of College andResearch Libraries Instruction Section Publication award in 2004

Australia

Mandy Lupton

Mandy Lupton, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education,Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia She teaches inthe Master of Education (teacher-librarianship) program She has writtenand presented, both nationally and internationally, on inquiry learningand information literacy in K 12 and higher education She also has ablog dedicated to the topic: https://inquirylearningblog.wordpress.com/.Her other research interests include the use of social media and Web 2.0tools in teaching and learning, as well as the development of students’professional digital identity

Turkey

Serap Kurbano ˘glu

Dr Kurbanoglu received her PhD in Information Studies from SheffieldUniversity, in Sheffield, the United Kingdom She is a professor inthe Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University(Ankara, Turkey), publishing and lecturing on systems analysis and greenlibraries, as well as information literacy and lifelong learning She hasnumerous publications, mainly on information literacy She was thenational coordinator and organizer of the UNESCO “Training theTrainers in Information Literacy” workshop held in Ankara in 2008.She is the project manager and content developer of the web-based

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information literacy instruction package (HUBO) developed forHacettepe University She is involved in numerous national and interna-tional projects and initiatives regarding information literacy, including theMoscow Declaration on Media and Information Literacy, and UNESCO’sexpert meeting on MIL Indicators She is the cofounder and coorganizer

of ECIL (European Conference on Information Literacy) and the chair ofthe editorial board of ECIL Proceedings Books

Buket Akkoyunlu

Dr Akkoyunlu holds a BA in Sociology from Hacettepe University, an

MA in Curriculum and Instruction in Education from HacettepeUniversity, and a PhD in Educational Technology from the University ofLeicester, in Leicester, the United Kingdom She is currently working as

a professor at the Department of Computer Education and InstructionalTechnologies at Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey), where she isteaching and supervising in the areas of e-learning, instructional design,development, and evaluation of instructional materials and adulteducation related courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.Her main research areas include web-based learning, multimedia learning,instructional design, development and evaluation of instructional materi-als, curricula, and instruction She has conducted research and publishedarticles and books in the field of educational technology, web-basedlearning, multimedia learning, information literacy, and curriculumstudies She is also involved in EU projects She was Dean of the Faculty

of Education at Hacettepe University between 2006 and 2012

Mexico

Javier Tarango

Javier Tarango has a PhD in Education (Autonomous University ofChihuahua, Mexico) and also a Master’s Degree in Information Science(University of Guanajuato, Mexico) and Organisational Development(University of Monterrey, Mexico) Since 1996, he has been working atthe Autonomous University of Chihuahua in the Master’s and Doctor’sDegrees in Education and the Bachelor’s Degree in Information Science

He is a member of the National System of Researchers in Mexico, and

a leader of the Academic Body of Information Studies His research areasare Information Literacy and evaluation of scientific production Hisacademic production is as follows: 6 books published, more than 20 bookchapters, 38 peer-reviewed and indexed scientific articles, 24 proceedings

at length, and 72 papers; he has supervised 27 master’s and doctoraltheses, has over 100 courses delivered as an instructor, 15 specializedconsultancies, and 9 research projects In addition, he is a peer reviewer

of six national and international scientific journals

Jose´-Luis Evangelista

Jose´-Luis Evangelista is a PhD candidate in Education at the AutonomousUniversity of Chihuahua (Mexico) He has a Master’s degree in HigherEducation and a Bachelor of Philosophy, both at the AutonomousUniversity of Chihuahua He has taught humanities classes at the highschool level since 1975 Since 1994, he has taught undergraduate and gradu-ate courses at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua itself He is amember of the Faculty of History and Historiography of Education As acoauthor, he has published various publications His latest work is the bookCritical Pedagogy and Information Literacy: Towards an Inclusive and ParticipatoryHigher Education (Mexico, 2015), coauthored with Javier Tarango

Juan-Daniel Machin-Mastromatteo

Juan-Daniel Machin-Mastromatteo holds a PhD in Information andCommunication Science (Tallinn University, Estonia), and a Master inDigital Library Learning (Oslo and Akershus University College ofApplied Sciences, Norway; Tallinn University; and Parma University,Italy) He has a Bachelor’s degree in Library Science (Universidad Central

de Venezuela) with more than 9 years’ work experience in archives,libraries, higher education, and professional development He has excelled

in different roles, such as cataloguer, developing databases, library tion materials, and multimedia resources, as a reference librarian, supervi-sor, instructor, collection development, consultant, and scientific journalreviewer He has coordinated information literacy programs, writtendiverse scientific articles published in open access repositories, in peer-reviewed journals, and in international conferences such as InternationalSociety for Knowledge Organization (ISKO), Qualitative andQuantitative Methods and Libraries (QQML), and European Conference

promo-on Informatipromo-on Literacy (ECIL) He is the author of the book ExploringUsers’ Information Behavior in Social Networks He is a permanent editorialboard member of the scientific journal Information Development (Sage), and

a peer reviewer for the Journal of Academic Librarianship (Elsevier) andScientometrics (Springer)

Jesu´s Corte´s-Vera

Jesu´s Corte´s-Vera has a PhD in Library and Information Studies at theNational Autonomous University of Mexico, as well as a Master inInformation Sciences from the University of Guanajuato In addition, he

is a member of the National System of Researchers in Mexico Since

1995, he has worked at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Jua´rez(UACJ), where he has been an associate university librarian and director

of information and accreditation He is currently a full-time professor andteaches subjects mostly aimed at the development of skills for researchand information management, both in face-to-face and in online classesand for undergraduate and graduate students He is a member of theacademic body 54 UACJ, devoted to studies on education and socialsciences His areas of academic interest are related to InformationLiteracy, academic literacy, the dissemination of scientific knowledge, andother factors that determine the advance toward the knowledge society.The Netherlands

Jos van Helvoort

Jos van Helvoort is a senior lecturer at The Hague University of AppliedSciences, The Netherlands (Faculty of IT and Design, DepartmentInformation and Media Studies) He was chairman of the Board ofExaminers of his faculty for 8 years At present, he combines lecturingwith his research for the Research Group of Sustainable TalentDevelopment at his university His PhD thesis (September 2016) dealswith the use of a scoring rubric for performance assessment of informa-tion literacy skills in higher education His publications have appeared inthe Journal of Information Literacy, Journal of Academic Librarianship, andCommunications in Computer and Information Science He is a member of thestanding committee and program committee of the European Conference

on Information Literacy

Henrie¨tta Joosten

Henrie¨tta Joosten combines lecturing at the Faculty of IT and Designand conducting research at the Research Group of Philosophy andProfessional Practice at The Hague University of Applied Sciences(the Netherlands) In 2015 she obtained a doctorate in Philosophy In herthesis, entitled Nietzsche’s New Dawn Educating Students to Strive for Better

in a Dynamic Professional World, she uses the experimental, liberating, but

also dangerous ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to rethink contemporaryhigher professional education Following Nietzsche, she explores five keyelements of striving for better: uncertainty, excellence, critical thinking,truth-seeking friendships, and learning through ups and downs She haspublished articles, inter alia, in the Journal of Philosophy of Education,Educational Philosophy and Theory, and a variety of Dutch journals In 2016

a public version of her thesis was published by the Dutch publisherKlement Her recent research interests are ICTs and the public sphere.Spain

Francisco-Javier Garcı´a-Marco

Francisco-Javier Garcı´a-Marco obtained his PhD in Philosophy and Arts

in 1994, and has been a Lecturer in Information and Library Science atthe University of Zaragoza from 1996 and professor since 2011 He hasbeen the head of the Department of Library and Information Science,organized the library and information science (LIS) postgraduate program

of the University of Zaragoza and was director of the EducationInnovation program of his university He has been the chair of Ibersid, aninternational conference on information and documentation systems,since 1996 In addition, he is editor of the journals Scire and Ibersid and acommittee member of several Spanish and Brazilian journals He hasresearched and published extensively on the theory of information,knowledge organization, information literacy, and digital change and itssocial, ethical, and legal impact (http://scholar.google.com/citations?user5lXSuQzQAAAAJ&hl5en)

Russia

Natalia Gendina

Natalia Gendina is director of the R&D Institute of InformationTechnology of Social Sphere, Kemerovo State University of Culture andArts (in Kemerovo, Russia) She has a PhD in pedagogical sciences and aprofessor and Honorary Worker of Science of the Russian Federation.She was also a member of the Standing Committee of InformationLiteracy in the International Federation of Library Associations andInstitutions (IFLA in 2007 11; 2012 15) She is a member of theRussian Committee at the UNESCO Information for All Programme

United Kingdom

Anthony Anderson

Anthony Anderson is a senior teaching fellow in psychology at theUniversity Strathclyde (United Kingdom), where he is also vice-dean(Academic) of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Hisresearch has focused on language understanding within conversationalcontexts, peer interaction and learning, and thinking skills such as criticalthinking He has authored a number of papers published over the years

on peer interaction and learning He is coauthor with Bill Johnston ofthe forthcoming book, From Information Literacy to Social Epistemology:Insights from Psychology (Chandos)

Bill Johnston

Bill Johnston is an honorary research fellow in the School ofPsychological Sciences and Health at the University of Strathclyde(in Strathclyde, United Kingdom) Before retiring in 2010, he was seniorlecturer and assistant director at Strathclyde’s Centre for AcademicPractice and Learning Enhancement His academic interests includeinformation literacy, strategic academic development, the First YearExperience at university, and curriculum and course design He hastaught, researched, and published in these areas and continues to beacademically active in them, as well as in the field of lifelong learning At

an earlier stage in his career, Bill was a professional librarian and worked

in both the public and academic library settings

Italy

Carla Basili

Carla Basili is head of the research line “Knowledge circulation andScientific Information Policies” within the Italian National ResearchCouncil, coordinator of the European Network on Information Literacy(EnIL), and head of the project “Information Policy in Science KnowledgeSharing and Transfer in Scholarly Disciplines.” She has published about 80works Selected volumes include Information Literacy in Europe A First Insightinto the State of the Art of Information Literacy in the European Union (2003),Information Literacy at the Crossroad of Education and Information Policies inEurope (2008), The Observatory on Information Literacy Policies and Research inEurope (2009), Sinergie invisibili Ricerca e Informazione Scientifica nell’Economiadella Conoscenza (2010), and Information Policies in the Humanities (2014)

Huge thanks to Glyn Jones, Tessa de Roo, George Knott, Omer Mukthar,and Mani Prabakaran, for their invaluable help and support Above all,many thanks to the contributors to this volume for making it possible.

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LITERACY, AN OPEN CHALLENGE

Information literacy has many faces and shapes that need to be considered when determining the broad nature of the phenomenon and its place in the learning agenda in both educational and workplace contexts A “one-size-fits-all” approach to information literacy and the setting of generic standards might not

be feasible More broadly based approaches to teaching information skills may need to be considered

Lloyd (2005, p 235)

As is broadly assumed, information literacy (IL) forms the basis forlifelong learning It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environ-ments, and to all levels of education It enables learners to master contentand extend their research, become more self-directed, and assume greatercontrol over their own learning An information-literate individual is able

to determine the extent of the information needed; access the requiredinformation effectively and efficiently; evaluate the information and itssources critically; incorporate selected information into their knowledgebase; use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose; under-stand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of infor-mation; and access and use information both ethically and legally As caneasily be seen from the functional complexity of IL, there are many para-digms involved in the consolidation of a concept that is still in the devel-opment stage and which, consequently, is expected to undergo a certaindegree of evolution that must always be compatible with its innermostessence But teaching a phenomenon that is still evolving is at least ascomplicated as its more than likely intuitively foreseeable evolution.From the theoretical complexity of the concept of IL (Bawden,

2001, 2012; Bruce, Edwards, & Lupton, 2006; Hjørland, 2002; Oakleaf,2008; Webber & Johnston, 2000), new holistic theoretical models arise(Detlor, Julien, Willson, Serenko, & Lavalle, 2011) regarding three areas

of IL (Lindauer, 2004), three landscapes (Lloyd, 2006, 2007, 2012),three directions (Nichols, 2009), an information-literate university(Johnston & Webber, 2004; Webber & Johnson, 2006), and changes inlearners’ cognitive states (Walton & Hepworth, 2011) These examples,among many others, highlight the enormous complexity of the phe-nomenon of IL

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As could be expected, the topic of IL is addressed from an endlessarray of perspectives: from competency and skills (Head & Eisenberg,

2009, 2010; Head, van Hoeck, Eschler, & Fullerton, 2013); from thelibrary (Hufford, 2010; Oakleaf, 2009); from instructors’ perceptions(Mehra, Olson, & Ahmad, 2011); from the disciplines (Farrell & Badke,2015; Grafstein, 2002; van Helvoort, 2010; Pinto & Sales, 2015); frominstitutions (Association of College & Research Libraries, 2015; IFLA,

2013); from technological-digital-online perspectives (Jenkins, 2006;Kules & McDaniel, 2010; Somerville, Smith, & Macklin, 2008); fromlearning (Arum, Roksa, & Cho, 2012; Samson, 2010; Searing, 2007);from measurement (Cameron, Wise, & Lottridge, 2007); from students(Gross & Latham, 2007; Pinto, Ferna´ndez-Ramos, Sa´nchez, & Meneses,

2012); from attitudes and motivation (Small, Zakaria, & Figuigui, 2004; Weiler, 2004); from assessment (Sonley, Turner, Myer, &Cotton, 2007); and from constructivism-phenomenography (Diehm &Lupton, 2012; Diller & Phelps, 2008; Gulikers, Bastiaens, & Kirschner,

El-2004) This list is by no means exhaustive, but rather includes the worksthat we have been using over the last few years, and which reflect thevitality of this field

In sum, IL gives learners the ability to confront contents critically, tobecome more self-sufficient, and to take more control over theirown learning process In order to handle the complexities of today’sinformation environment, a broadly based and complex concept of liter-acy is needed Definitions of IL have primarily been provided by expertsfrom the fields of education and library and information science Thesedefinitions often offer a simplified view of IL, which do not provide acomprehensive understanding from the learner’s perspective, as Lupton’s(2004) key study put forward IL should include all skills-based forms ofliteracy but should not limit itself to them or to any particular technology

or set of technologies Understanding purpose and context must be thecentral theme

From the viewpoint of instruction, IL should be part of any

“programmatic solution that ensures that every undergraduate is providedinformation literacy instruction before graduation” (Owusu-Ansah, 2004,

p 3) In order to achieve this, “a gradual but ultimately complete tion of information literacy instruction into the general educationcurriculum” should be desirable (Owusu-Ansah, 2004, p 11), since, atthe heart of the matter, there is an underlying “desire to reach as broad a

integra-student population as possible, at the early stages of college life” (Ansah, 2004, p 12).

Owusu-In consonance with the universality of the IL phenomenon and itsadaptation to the sociotechnological progress made in recent years, theAssociation of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), within theFramework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, posits sixconcepts: authority is constructed and contextual; information creation as

a process; information has value; research as inquiry; scholarship as versation; and searching as strategic exploration (Association of College &Research Libraries, 2015) Likewise, six categories of students’ experi-ences of learning IL have been suggested by Diehm and Lupton (2012):learning to find information, learning a process to use information, learn-ing to use information to create a product, learning to use information tobuild a personal knowledge base, learning to use information to advancedisciplinary knowledge, and learning to use information to grow as a per-son and to contribute

con-Importantly,Elmborg (2006) highlights the relevance of critical ing within the context of IL He stresses the need to enable conceptualthinking and offers proposals for action in this field In this sense, he notes

think-a need to move beyond think-an instrumentthink-al conception, bthink-ased on prthink-acticthink-alskills and competencies, to complement this with a rigorous understand-ing of IL as a phenomenon central to culture and society and grounded

in the ways in which communities construct meaning and the activitiesthat they carry out

Information skills cannot be developed independently of fields ofknowledge, since they are integral to the learning process If rigorousand productive progress is to be made by initiatives for IL, it is neces-sary to analyze and understand the interaction between informationand communications technologies, the professional learning context,and the instruction (requisite for specific subject areas) The concept ofcommunities of practice helps us explain how the process of seeking, using,and evaluating information is not a purely personal one but may beunderstood within the context of a particular academic training, socialorganization or professional activity, as applied and specialized skills

In other words, the different forms of literacy cannot be separatedfrom the socioinstrumental practices that are specific to each domain

of knowledge IL is a generic need for all those who are part of today’sinformation society but, above all, it is framed by the activities of

specific groups and communities As Tuominen, Savolainen, and Talja(2005, pp 341 342)state:

If we see the learners of information skills as belonging to information-literate communities, we need to understand the practices of these communities before

we can effectively teach IL In essence, the socio-technical practice approach calls for empirical research efforts to analyze how specific communities use vari- ous conceptual, cultural, and technical tools to access printed and digital docu- ments and to evaluate and create knowledge.

Thus, the concept of community of practice, coined by Lave and Wenger(1991)to describe the context in which learning and knowledge produc-tion take place, has an immense potential as regards the consideration andthe didactic implementation of IL, from a sociocultural learning approach.Indeed, there are inspiring papers that specifically defend this adjustment

of the concept of communities of practice within the field of IL, such asthe studies by Lloyd (2005) and Harris (2008) In tune with thoseauthors, the work we are presenting here aligns itself with the sociocul-tural learning theories, in that it assumes that all human activity, includinginformational activities, are essentially social and are related with a partic-ular context and situation AsTalja and Lloyd (2010, p 12) state:

The sociocultural approach places emphasis on shared ways of interacting and communicating, and sees literacy as something that develops in social contexts and is specific to a particular community The overarching aim in promoting such an approach is that it may help in developing educational practices that move learners to the centre of educational practice and enable them to take responsibility more fully for learning and knowledge-building in the communi- ties that they participate in.

Furthermore, it is important to take into account the following:

A social constructivist approach attends to information as a product of social relations, constituted and effected by practices that occur among people within particular contexts Throughout their interaction, information is used to create meaningful constructs about practice and profession From this perspective, information literacy is not viewed as an abstract process, but as something that can be affected by the social, historical and political relations among peo- ple engaged in practice This enables access to information and directs the pro- cess of becoming information literate In this respect, information literacy manifests as a dynamic interaction between people which enables them to work collectively and to develop a collective view of practice and profession.

Lloyd (2005, pp 231 232)

Furthermore, Harris (2008) highlights communities as the primarylocation of IL learning and practice, taking into account that IL should be

viewed and tackled from a sociocultural and situated perspective In thesame sense, and as opposed to the focus on individuals as learners andperformers, Elmborg’s aforementioned critical IL recognizes how the pro-duction, distribution and uses of information are sociopolitical processesthat require and encourage community involvement In his words:

People produce, read, and interpret texts in communities, not in isolation Communities reach consensus about interpretation, sometimes easily and sometimes contentiously Literacy cannot be described, therefore, in broad terms

as a set of universal skills and abstractable processes Rather, literacy is in stant flux and embedded in cultural situations, each situation nuanced and dif- ferent from others.

con-Elmborg (2006, p 195)

Since every community of practice needs, generates, seeks, retrieves,and uses resources and sources related to the discipline or area beingresearched or studied, and the practical tasks being performed, the needarises to undertake studies focused on real user communities, and to makeefforts to reflect upon the teaching approaches used in IL training Thisedited collection gathers contributions from an international perspective,

on a key topic for information studies in the 21st century It offers abroad scope and a diversity of insights on IL as a cultural practice andsocial process which is situated and contextual, as well as on teaching-learning experiences, educational methodologies and case studies, written

by reputed experts in the field

This volume uses the concept of community of practice in a broadsense, highlighting a discipline-based and/or community of practice-basedapproach to IL, and the need to go beyond standards and models in order

to reflect upon the applied field, as stated, e.g., in Chapter 1, InformationLiteracy and Critical Thinking: Context and Practice, by Grafsteinincluded in this work The challenge is to draw up formative proposalsthat cater for specific needs for specific groups within specific contexts All

in all, IL is always situational, without forgetting that the horizon is long learning and, therefore, training is a continuous and necessarily openprocess In fact, following the work focused on the definition of IL stan-dards during the 1980s and 1990s, essential organizations in the field, such

life-as theAssociation of College and Research Libraries (2015), have evolved

to the point where they have gone beyond the standards and have posed a real Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education,which is still lacking a more contextual approach, but which represents astep forward along the pathway of IL, which offers so many possibilities

pro-The work that we are presenting here gives a clear idea of the globalscope of IL and its momentum, as it has gathered contributions by expertresearchers and teachers from the United Kingdom, United States,Australia, Italy, Mexico, Russia, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Spain, all ofwhom are recognized both in their own countries and internationally.The first section of the book focuses on perspectives on IL teaching andbegins with Chapter 1, Information Literacy and Critical Thinking:Context and Practice, by Ann Grafstein, who shows how IL always involvesthinking about information in a contextualized way, i.e., about its relation-ship with the context in which it is sought, interpreted and analyzed Uponthis foundation, Grafstein centers her attention on critical thinking and theneed to develop it with a thorough knowledge of the characteristics andneeds of the discipline in which one is working, the community of practice,and its characteristics The author argues that critical thinking (i.e., theability to effectively evaluate research) is crucially dependent upon anunderstanding of the research practices of particular disciplines and anawareness of the environment—the social, political, economic, and ideolog-ical context—that affects the creation and dissemination of research.

Grafstein demonstrates how recognition of the context in whichresearch occurs is crucial to the ability to evaluate it critically Her chaptershows how effective critical thinking can only be developed whenresearch is situated within the context of the discourses, cognitive struc-tures, and research practices specific to particular disciplines Furthermore,she also explains how research practices of particular disciplines and com-munities of practice exist relative to the economic, ideological, and politi-cal context within which research is funded, produced, and disseminated.Then, Chapter 2, Inquiry Learning: A Pedagogical and CurriculumFramework For Information Literacy, by Mandy Lupton, examines theteaching approach of inquiry learning as a pedagogical and curriculumframework for IL, useful both in K 12 and higher education Luptonpresents the didactic possibilities of this approach, which aims to get asmuch as possible out of the involvement of the students themselves, sothat their learning, understood as a process, revolves around inquiry andreflection Thus, Lupton makes a suggestive contribution that can help ILteachers in the challenge of designing didactic tasks that motivate andaddress their students, based on the needs of each discipline and eachcommunity of practice It is a challenge the new era forces us to take up,

if we truly assume the responsibility of wanting to train students for theinformation society that surrounds us And it is really a path that leads

IL to truly cross-curricular territory, beyond specific subjects, taught bylibrarians or teachers of information science Situating IL as part ofinquiry learning not only helps to make its relevance more clearly visiblebut also to consider how it can be wholly integrated within the curricu-lum of both K 12 and higher education.

In Chapter 3, Information Literacy and Flipped Learning, SerapKurbano˘glu and Buket Akkoyunlu take an in-depth look at the possibili-ties of the flipped learning approach for IL instruction from a critical per-spective that takes into account the benefits and advantages, as well as thechallenges deriving from it Their approach is based not only on a review

of the literature on the didactics of flipped learning, but also on the sis of a case study of student learning and student perceptions pertaining

analy-to an experiment on flipped IL instruction

As the authors state, the flipped classroom refers to a teaching method(a pedagogical model) that delivers the lecture content (interactive videos

or tutorials) to students prior to the class for them to study in their owntime while class time is devoted to practical application activities wherestudents review and apply what they have previously learned The imple-mentation of this model has been favored by the potentialities offered byWeb 2.0 for searching, creating, publishing, and systematizing resourcesvia the Internet At the same time, this opens up a series of novel possibil-ities for the teaching-learning process and allows the traditional roles ofteachers and students to alternate with each other It is an attractive teach-ing approach with a huge potential for today’s students, most of whomare digital natives, millennials

In Chapter 4, Inclusion of Information Literacy in the CurriculumThrough Learning Communities and Action Research, Javier Tarango,Jose´ Luis Evangelista, Juan-Daniel Machin-Mastromatteo, and Jesu´sCorte´s-Vera, an acknowledged group of experts in IL in Mexico, describethe practical and transversal process of integrating IL into university cur-ricula, specifically with undergraduate students from the philosophy pro-gram of the Autonomous University of Chihuahua (Mexico) They do so

by developing alternatives to help traditional classroom teaching practicesevolve towards integrating learning communities and using actionresearch (AR) as a means of influencing a continuous improvement uponlearning processes, while offering some critical thought based on this casestudy, from this practical experience The authors defend the role of theclassroom as a formal learning space, where a direct applied influence can

be exercised on students Moreover, it must be kept in mind that more

often than not IL has been included in curricula thanks to individualinitiatives enacted by teachers or information professionals, rather thanbecause institutions have become aware of the importance of implement-ing this instruction in higher education in a general sense In any case,and above all, the authors defend not only the inclusion of IL in curric-ula, but also the need to reflect and apply it to the needs, interests, andmotivations of the particular students As a result, the classroom may betransformed into a real learning community (LC) of critical participantsthrough AR, where students are the real protagonists of the action andinteraction dynamics that may take place in the classroom, in the institu-tion, and especially outside (lifelong learning).

Chapter 5, The Scoring Rubric for Information Literacy as a Tool forLearning, the contribution by Jos van Heelvoort and Henrie¨tta Joosten,describes the use of a scoring rubric to encourage students to improvetheir IL skills The Scoring Rubric for IL is a proposal developed by vanHeelvoort, and it is a pioneering tool within the field of IL assessment

In this chapter, the authors analyze its potential as a way to stimulate ILlearning, from an active learning approach, by means of a case study con-ducted at The Hague University of Applied Sciences The authors explainhow the students apply the rubric to supply feedback on their peers’ per-formance in information problem solving (IPS) tasks, and how supplyingfeedback appears to be a promising learning approach in acquiring ILknowledge, not only for the assessed but also for the assessor

The second part of this book includes Chapters 6, The Relevance ofCommunicative Competence in the Context of Information LiteracyPrograms, and 7, Information Culture and Information Literacy as aScientific Direction and a Field of Educational Activities in Russia byFrancisco-Javier Garcı´a Marco and Natalia Gendina, on IL programs.Garcı´a-Marco offers a suggestive contribution on the relevance of commu-nicative competence in the context of IL programs, not only as the finalstage of any research project, specially in scholarly and academic environ-ments, but also taking into account its essential presence for any humanactivity, any context and discipline He also tackles communicative compe-tence from the point of view of library and information science (LIS),taking a cognitive perspective As the author states, because of its transdisci-plinary nature, communicative competence training is usually scatteredthroughout many different subjects and activities via academic and nonaca-demic programs, and it is not generally treated in an integrated manner.This reflective contribution shows diverse views of communicative

competence, with a special mention to the production, dissemination, andimpact of academic documents and scientific publications from an LIS per-spective and enhancing the social networking technologies and the semanticweb Also, it reflects on how to implement communicative competence in

IL programs

For her part, Gendina provides a detailed look at the importance

of IL in Russia, where the most widely extended term is in factinformation culture She, a pioneer in this field in her country, conducts

a thorough review of the history of instruction in informationculture in Russia since the 1970s She then goes on to detail its multidis-ciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary scope, together with itsconstituent elements and its typology, while describing in depth its didac-tic implementation and its configuration as an academic discipline Hercontribution could be seen as a complete review of the case of a country,Russia, and its way of dealing with the need to consolidate training in IL.Finally, the third part of the book includes contributions on practicing

IL, both in academic and scholarly contexts In Chapter 8, Toward aCommunity of Epistemological Practice: A Case Study of Adult Returners

to Higher Education, Anthony Anderson and Bill Johnston offer anappealing case study that takes adult returners to higher education as thecommunity of practice, a topic on which they have conducted ground-breaking research The authors use a qualitative method that enables them

to analyze the experiences, patterns of study, and the IL of adult returners

in order to illustrate some of their epistemological perspectives Indeed,the concept of community of epistemological practice is posited by the authors

as being of particular relevance in their case study, as it focuses on theexperience and potential to bring the epistemic awareness of adult retur-ners to maturity The authors end by opting for a pedagogy based on socialconstructivism, the theory of learning in which learners construct theirunderstandings via social and critical engagement with knowledge to buildpersonal structures of knowledge After all is said and done, learning ismore than the assimilation of new knowledge by learners: it is the process

by which learners are integrated into a knowledge community Andersonand Johnston end by putting forward a series of recommendations thatcould be taken into account in designing any program of instructionrelated to communities of practice, as they defend the idea that such acourse design could include the conscious development of a community ofpractice aimed at encouraging students to engage in relevant epistemologi-cal and information-literate academic practices

Carla Basili’s contribution, Chapter 9, Information LiteracyRequirements for Open Science, explores scholarly information literacy, an areaundergoing permanent development, and is a proposal of great interest to theacademic community in any area of specialization The key concept is openscience, which is currently becoming increasingly more significant, both

in the communication of advances made in research and in its global impact,

in today’s digital environment The author offers a detailed description of thedevelopment and impact of the academic social media as new forms of schol-arly communication The concept of open science proposed by Basili is ofparticular interest, and she posits that her openness is related with three specificareas of the scientific system: knowledge dissemination (open access), knowl-edge creation (transparency), and knowledge transfer (science outreach).Overall, this volume provides a snapshot of some open pathways into

IL teaching and learning, a fruitful area in which to keep pushing ahead

It brings together contributions that focus on the importance of tional competences, shaped by informational skills and knowledge that—situated in a particular manner—all communities of practice need asthe basis for lifelong learning The book aims to be of a proactive, opennature and the contributions deal with a range of lines of work related

informa-to the IL framework, such as considerations about different teachingapproaches and their practical implementation, the IL needs of the scien-tific community itself within the current context of research, teachinginnovation projects and case studies within specific areas of application

We trust that this collective work may also serve as a meeting pointallowing the different proposals for thought and didactic practice on IL tobecome somewhat more familiarized with each other, and perhaps giverise to fruitful exchanges and novel synergies

Banking on this being the case, we believe that any considerations andany proposals on such a vivacious and evolving training need, as is thecase of IL, have to be accepted as an ongoing task of reflexive and inter-disciplinary revision and updating, and one that is always ready to evolvetaking into account the context and the needs that are required In otherwords, the process of reflection never ends and involves a path and achallenge that are constantly under way In this sense, this volume isbut another step forward, but one that we trust will spark new proposals,considerations, and even doubts, so that the journey forward continues todeliver the benefits of IL for all

D Sales and M Pinto

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Jenkins, H (2006) Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: media education for the

21 century Chicago, IL: MacArthur.

Johnston, B., & Webber, S (2004) The role of LIS faculty in the information literate university: Taking over the academy? New Library World, 105(1/2), 12 20.

Kules, B., & McDaniel, J (2010) LIS program expectations of incoming students’ technology knowledge and skills Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 51(4), 222 232.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Lindauer, B G (2004) The three arenas of information literacy assessment Reference & User Services Quarterly, 44(2), 122 129.

Lloyd, A (2005) No man (or woman) is an island: Information literacy, affordances and communities of practice Australian Library Journal, 54(3), 230 237.

Lloyd, A (2006) Information literacy landscapes: An emerging picture Journal of Documentation, 62(5), 570 583.

Lloyd, A (2007) Recasting information literacy as sociocultural practice: Implications for library and information science researchers Information Research, 12(4), 1 13 Lloyd, A (2012) Information literacy as a socially enacted practice: Sensitising themes for an emerging perspective of people-in-practice Journal of Documentation, 68(6),

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A self-assessment The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 39(2), 144 154.

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46 53.

Information Literacy and Critical

communi-an essential component of this view of information literacy I argue thatthis ability to effectively evaluate research crucially depends on an under-standing of the research practices of particular disciplines and an awareness

of the environment—the social, political, economic, and ideological text—that affects the creation and dissemination of research

con-I have argued elsewhere (Grafstein, 2002) in favor of a discipline-basedapproach to information literacy, one that situates information literacy skillswithin disciplinary methodologies However, as argued in Grafstein(2002), the concept of information literacy as generally described in theliterature does not place a great deal of emphasis on the context of thecommunity within which information is sought and evaluated The litera-ture promoting the importance of information literacy for libraries andeducation typically describes it as a generic set of skills that includes theability to (1) identify and articulate an information need for a particular

I would like to thank Alan Bailin for insightful comments and editing.

3

Pathways into Information Literacy and Communities of Practice DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100673-3.00001-0

© 2017 A Grafstein Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

purpose, (2) understand how to find information sources that are ate to the information needed, (3) distinguish appropriate from inappropri-ate sources for a particular purpose, and (4) critically assess the informationgathered (see, e.g., the Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: FinalReport, 1989, and seeBehrens, 1994 for a good overview of the develop-ment of information literacy up to that date) This chapter advocates anintegrated view of information literacy that includes an understanding ofthe research needs and practices of particular disciplines and communitiesand a recognition of how the contextual factors noted above affect knowl-edge creation and dissemination within these communities of practice.The focus here is on the critical evaluation of information and researchand its relation to context Recognition of the conceptual link betweencritical thinking and information literacy is neither new nor controversial.

appropri-It is widely acknowledged that people are exposed to a myriad of oftencontradictory information—information that can have a significant impact

of the decisions they make in their daily lives—on a wide variety of topics,including politics, health, education, and economics, to name just a few Inits seminal statement on information literacy in 1989, the AmericanLibrary Association’s (ALA) asserted that only information-literate peoplewould have the skills needed to evaluate this onslaught of seemingly cha-otic information from diverse sources According to the ALA’s PresidentialCommittee on Information Literacy, “in such an environment, information lit-eracy provides insight into the manifold ways in which people can all bedeceived and misled Information-literate citizens are able to spot andexpose chicanery, disinformation, and lies” (Presidential Committee onInformation Literacy: Final Report, 1989) This statement effectively placescritical thinking at the heart of information literacy

However, despite the emphasis accorded to critical thinking in theinformation literacy literature, as well as in the Association for College &Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards forHigher Education(2000)(http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationli-teracycompetency), critical thinking has not been explicitly defined in thelibrary literature (see, e.g.,Albitz, 2007) Perhaps one consequence of thislack of explicit definition is that the ACRL standards, which have had adominant influence over the teaching of information literacy in highereducation for the past 15 years, limit the description of the critical evalua-tion of information largely to the ability to recognize the authority andcredibility of sources, with no reference to the interaction between infor-mation sources and their broader context Although the standards do

specify with respect to critical thinking, the “cultural, physical, or othercontext within which information was created,” and the 2015 Frameworkfor Information Literacy for Higher Education (http://www.ala.org/acrl/stan-dards/ilframework), places greater rhetorical emphasis on context and dis-course communities, little attention has been paid to elaborating the role

of context in the critical evaluation of information

This chapter demonstrates how recognition of the context in whichresearch occurs is crucial to the ability to evaluate it critically It will showhow effective critical thinking can only take place by situating researchwithin the context of the discourses, cognitive structures, and researchpractices characteristic of particular disciplines Additionally, we will seethat the research practices of particular disciplines and communities ofpractice exist relative to the economic, ideological, and political contextwithin which research is funded, created, and disseminated An awareness

of these factors, then, is essential to the ability to accurately assess research

1.2 BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

In order to situate the notion of critical thinking within the development

of information literacy, let us take a brief look at the history of informationliteracy and the point at which critical thinking begins to assume a signifi-cant role The term “information literacy” was first introduced into the lit-erature by Paul Zurkowski in a 1974 report written by for the NationalCommission on Libraries and Information Sciences Zurkowski’s primaryinterest was in expanding the ability of the population to locate and applyinformation resources appropriate to their work He distinguished peoplewho are literate in the widely understood sense of being able to read andwrite from those who are information literate “People trained in theapplication of information resources to their work can be called informa-tion literates They have learned the techniques and skills for utilizing thewide range of information tools as well as primary sources in moldinginformation solutions to their problems” (Zurkowski, 1974, p 6)

Zurkowski’s emphasis was on the ability to extend and adapt tion appropriately for tasks in the workplace He was concerned with theability to locate and use information effectively, rather than with eithereducation or critical thinking

informa-The application of the term “information literacy” to libraries in highereducation, or to libraries more generally, did not follow immediately uponZurkowski’s introduction of the concept The first mention of the term

with respect to education seems to have come in a 1976 presentation byLee Burchinal to Texas A&M Library’s Centennial Academic Assembly,where he argued that information literacy skills are essential to being able

to function in the burgeoning information society He connected thisurgency with the rise of new communication technologies and electronicmedia Burchinal believed that, given the new information environment,conventional literacy, the ability to read and write, were no longer suffi-cient skills The importance of information literacy skills, according toBurchinal, entailed new mandates for education He believed that informa-tion literacy skills had become so crucial that “no college graduate todayshould be without such skills” (Burchinal, 1976, p 11), and maintainedthat ultimately, even elementary schools would share in the responsibility

of developing information-literate citizens (p 12) It should be noted,however, that Burchinal’s articulation of information literacy did notexplicitly include critical thinking Similar to Zurkowski, his concern waswith developing the ability “to efficiently and effectively locate and useinformation needed for problem-solving and decision-making” (p 11)

It is not surprising that Zurkowski’s and Burchinal’s assertion of the tance of information literacy back in the 1970s did not spark a great deal ofinterest in the library or education literature For the vast majority of libraryusers, the availability of information remained largely restricted to the libraryfor probably most of the following two decades Indeed, citing research byBruce (1997),Behrens (1994),Breivik (1998), andRader and Coons (1992),Grafstein (2002)observes that it was not until the 1990s with the advent andgrowth of the World Wide Web that widespread interest in information liter-acy began to manifest itself in the library literature (Grafstein, 2007)

impor-No doubt a great catalyst in the growth of interest in information eracy was the 1989 Final Report of the American Library AssociationPresidential Committee on Information Literacy referred to earlier This reportcalled for a coalition of schools and colleges to integrate information liter-acy into their curricula in order to reduce knowledge inequality andempower citizens with the tools to make their own informed decisionswithout having to rely on the expertise of others The ALA broadenedZurkowski’s and Burchinal’s views of what it means to be information lit-erate by explicitly linking critical thinking skills and the capacity for life-long learning with information literacy The report states that acurriculum restructured to accommodate the development of informationliteracy will “not only enhance the critical thinking skills of students butwill also empower them for lifelong learning and the effective

lit-performance of professional and civic responsibilities” (PresidentialCommittee Final Report, 1989).

Since the ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the worldand plays an international leadership role within the library profession, its

1989 report marked a significant recognition by the library community ofwhat Zurkowski and Burchinal first observed back in the 1970s: that con-ventional literacy skills—the ability to read and write—were no longersufficient skills in order to function in a changing society

1.3 INFORMATION LITERACY STANDARDS AND RUBRICS

Not surprisingly, along with an increased emphasis on teaching tion literacy in higher education, standards were developed to codifywhat it means for a student to be information literate At the same time,

informa-we see an increasing concern with how to assess the degree to which dents are learning the skills that are being taught It is in arguably themost influential of these sets of standards that we can see the way inwhich the role of critical thinking was actualized

stu-1.3.1 Information Literacy Competency Standards

American higher education has generally looked to the standards developed

by the Association for College & Research Libraries (ACRL) for guidelines

in developing and assessing information literacy programs The ACRL tifies itself as “the higher education association for librarians,” and it repre-sents “11,000 academic and research librarians” (www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl).1 Because of the ACRL’s prominent position within academiclibraries, these standards have been both highly significant and influential.The Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education,adopted by the ACRL in 2000, delineates a set of standards, performanceindicators, and outcomes that define the criteria that characterize theinformation literate student at the postsecondary level The third standardrelates specifically to critical thinking It states that “The information-literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incor-porates selected information into his or her knowledge base and valuesystem” (Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education, 2000)

iden-1

This is not to imply that ACRL has a monopoly on information literacy standards See, for example, the Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework ( Bundy,

2004 ).

For the purposes of this chapter, the most relevant performance indicatorfor Standard 3 is the following:

The information-literate student articulates and applies initial criteriafor evaluating both the information and its sources

As stated underneath Standard 3, the outcomes for this performanceindicator are that the student:

1 Examines and compares information from various sources in order toevaluate reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness, and point

of view or bias

2 Analyzes the structure and logic of supporting arguments or methods

3 Recognizes prejudice, deception, or manipulation

4 Recognizes the cultural, physical, or other context within which theinformation was created and understands the impact of context oninterpreting the information (Information Literacy CompetencyStandards for Higher Education, 2000)

These outcomes imply that students who have mastered these skillswill be able to effectively evaluate information critically

Let us look a bit more closely at outcomes 1, examining sources, and

3, recognizing prejudice and deception It could be assumed from come 1 that there is some particular set of skills that allows students toevaluate “reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness, and point ofview or bias.” Outcome1, for example, might be construed as suggestingthat such properties as reliability, authority, and bias are characteristics thatare inherent to particular sources, and that, as stated in outcome3, “prej-udice, deception, or manipulation” can be recognized exclusively frominformation sources themselves and not from an awareness of the interac-tion of the research with a variety of contextual factors

out-To be sure, it should be acknowledged that the language in outcome

4 does indeed refer to the broader context affecting the creation andinterpretation of information However, it is not clear how a studentwould concretely demonstrate a recognition of these contextual factors in

a work product This may be the reason we do not seem to find thesefactors reflected in information literacy assessment metrics

1.3.2 Assessment and Rubrics

Along with the widespread adoption2 within academic libraries of theACRL information literacy standards came an interest in developing

2

See, for example, Bell (2013)

means of assessing the progress students have made along the continuum

of becoming information literate

The focus on skills that we see in the ACRL standards lend themselves

to assessing students’ progress toward information literacy in terms of theextent to which they demonstrate mastery of these skills in their workproducts Indeed, an ACRL document entitled “Assessment Issues,” liststhe reasons that assessment is essential One of the bulleted reasons givenis: “Evaluate students’ mastery of skills: What they can do” (http://www.ala.org/acrl/issues/infolit/resources/assess/issues)

We find this skill-based focus reflected in the standardized metrics thatare used in many academic libraries in order to score students’ attainment

of information literacy standards These metrics are typically called rics.” Rubrics distinguish levels of student proficiency for each standardand specify the learning outcomes students must demonstrate at each level

“rub-of pr“rub-oficiency

The “Rubrics Assessment of Information Literacy Skills” (RAILS),3 aproject intended to help academic librarians and other faculty developrubrics to assess student information literacy outcomes (seehttp://railson-track.info/), provides examples of rubrics in different categories from var-ious institutions It can be seen from looking at these rubrics that theyfocus on the skills that students demonstrate in their work products andignore broader external contexts that affect the evaluation of informationand research

Below I consider three rubrics that are used at academic institutions

As can be seen from comparing them to the sample rubrics in RAILS or

by performing a simple Google search, they are typical of many of therubrics that have been developed by academic libraries The first is fromthe University of California at Irvine, the second comes from CaliforniaState University, and the third from the City University of New York(CUNY).4 Since the emphasis here is on the critical evaluation of infor-mation, we will continue to limit our attention to the metrics employed

to assess students’ degree of attainment of Standard 3, which addresses theissue of critical thinking

The rubrics are typically presented as charts that show what mance indicators must be present in students’ work in order for them todemonstrate their progress along the continuum toward mastery of eachstandard The rubrics in the examples chosen each use somewhat differentterminology, but they all situate students’ work along varying levels ofproficiency ranging from novice to expert Since our focus remains oncritical thinking, we will look at a few examples from these rubrics thatillustrate the characteristics of the criteria for demonstrating progresstoward mastery of Standard 3.

perfor-In the information literacy rubrics used by the University ofCalifornia at Irvine (jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/ucirvinerubric.pdf), stu-dent outcomes are assessed in categories of proficiency according to (1)the degree to which cited information is relevant to the topic, (2) thecredibility of the cited sources, described in terms of appropriateness, and(3) the degree to which cited sources were published within an “appro-priate time frame.”

In the rubrics adopted by California State University (statela.edu/academic/aa/assessment/assessment_tools_resources/rubrics/infocompetencerubric.pdf), a student’s degree of mastery of Standard 3 ismeasured by the extent to which he considers the criteria of “authority,credibility, relevance, timeliness, and accuracy” for the sources selected

http://web.cal-At the most advanced level of mastery, we find a recognition of ary contexts in that students are also expected to evaluate sources

disciplin-“according to their appropriateness to the practices of the discipline.”

A faculty committee of CUNY, the Library Information LiteracyAdvisory Committee (LILAC) (https://infolit.commons.gc.cuny.edu/teachingtool/rubrics/) provides a set of different rubrics for the assess-ment of information literacy, among which is the “Rubric for aResearch Paper” (https://infolit.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2010/11/Rubric-Revised-April-20111.pdf) developed by LILAC in 2011.5 Asapplied to Standard 3, the rubrics assess a student’s mastery in terms ofhis or her understanding of the authority of selected sources At thehighest level, the student demonstrates “critical awareness of the quality

of the sources used .”

5

The CUNY rubric for evaluating research papers departs from the ACRL Standard

1 5 format in that instead of adhering to five standards, it subdivides each standard into more discrete groups student competencies An examination of the rubric, however, shows that the student competencies delineated are closely articulated with the five ACRL standards.

The rubrics referred to above are just three examples of rubricsadopted by universities to assess the information literacy level attained by

a student with respect to their work products Despite differences in theway the rubrics are formulated, what they share is a focus on an unelabo-rated set of criteria for assessing critical thinking skills The rubric used ineach case to assess students’ progress toward mastery of Standard 3 treatseach relevant criterion (authority, quality, credibility, and so on) largely as

a property of the information sources themselves In each case the sourceseither do or do not have these properties, and the presence or absence ofthese properties transcends all contexts

The rubrics we have looked at are used to assess critical thinking tion as a checklist of criteria that measure a student’s progress toward mas-tery of critical thinking skills (cf Hjørland, 2012; Meola, 2004) Like theStandards on which they are based, the rubrics evaluate the progress ofstudents’ critical thinking abilities against a set of criteria for determiningwhether or not an information source is authoritative and credible As inthe Standards, authority is evaluated as an objective property of informa-tion sources rather than as subject to interpretation relative to contextualfactors

func-1.4 INFORMATION LITERACY CONTEXTUALIZED

Recently there has been growing attention in the literature to the contextwithin which information is retrieved, used, and evaluated Someresearchers reject the view, implied by the 2000 ACRL standards, thatinformation literacy is a unitary phenomenon consisting of a single set ofskills that must universally be acquired by people in order to be informa-tion literate (e.g., Elmborg, 2006; Lloyd, 2005a,b; Lloyd and Williamson,

2008;Whitworth, 2014;Wilkinson, 2015)

The idea that the skills and the abilities that characterize literate people cannot productively be decontextualized from informationcommunities underlies what some researchers refer to as “communities ofpractice.” This applies not only to the context of the assessed work but tothe context in which the work is being assessed Lloyd (2005b)differenti-ates the teaching of information literacy in higher education from itsapplication in the workplace In higher education, she notes, informationliteracy is conceived of as a set of competencies, framed in terms of

information-“generic graduate outcomes” (p 231), which information-literate dents are expected to attain She states further that “generalizations from

stu-research in the educational sector to workplace situations do not ily reflect the realities of experience and use of information in those con-texts” (Lloyd & Williamson, 2008, p 5).

necessar-A related but broader critique of the conception of the view of mation literacy embodied in the ACRL standards and the rubrics thathave been developed to assess the degree to which students have attainedthem comes from the research on “critical information literacy.” In theview of critical information literacy research, the assessment of informa-tion cannot be appropriately taught in terms of a generic, unitary set ofcriteria, which assume that concepts such as authority and credibility arepreexisting and objective characteristics of the work being assessed.Within this view, these concepts are not independent of values, politics,and economics Rather, as Elmborg (2006) argues, critical informationliteracy “involves developing a critical consciousness about information,learning to ask questions about the library’s (and the academy’s) role instructuring, and presenting a single, knowable reality” (p 198)

infor-This approach puts a higher value on contextualized critical thinkingand a lesser value on decontextualized skills As Simmons (2005, p 300)notes, critical information literacy extends the concept of information lit-eracy beyond “the acquisition of the research skills of finding and evaluat-ing information,” and leads students to a skeptical questioning of suchconcepts as knowledge and authority This approach allows for a more in-depth and more accurate assessment of research When information liter-acy is viewed as a set of skills, the attainment of which is measurable byoutcomes and performance indicators, it leads to the misconception that

“information literacy is a neutral, technological skill that is, at heart, merelyfunctional or performative” (Norgaard, Arp, and Woodard, 2003, p 125).Contextualization is of prime importance Critical information liter-acy situates information literacy within communities of knowledge,involving an understanding of the cognitive structures and social valuesthat are shared by members of particular communities With respect toacademic disciplines, each discipline has its own modes of communica-tion, discourse styles, and rules of evidence that may be difficult for outsi-ders unfamiliar with those characteristics to understand (see Elmborg,

2006) These characteristics represent the paradigmatic structure of demic disciplines Each scholarly community shares common sets ofvalues and conventions that govern research protocols, standards of evi-dence, and discourse conventions (see Elmborg, 2006; Grafstein, 2002;Simmons, 2005)

aca-The idea that information literacy involves negotiating the cognitivestructures, the knowledge base, and the social, economic, and politicalvalue system of particular information communities is not consistent withthe formulation of a single set of standards with invariant definitions ofauthority and credibility Criticism of the Standards approach from criticalinformation literacy researchers (e.g., Elmborg, 2006; Luke & Kapitzke,

1999; Simmons, 2005; Swanson, 2004) may have influenced the ACRL’smost recent statement on information literacy in higher education

In 2015 the ACRL adopted a Framework for Information Literacy inHigher Education(http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf), which is not formulated as a set ofstandards It is still too early to see the kinds of outcome assessments thatwill emerge to accommodate this new document What does seem appar-ent, however, is that the 2015 Framework for Information Literacy for HigherEducation marks somewhat of a philosophical shift in assumptions fromthose that underlie the Competency Standards Mahrya Carncross (2015,

p 248) captures aspects of that philosophical shift by observing that

“Conceptually, the framework departs from the standards in several ways

It emphasizes scholarship as an ongoing conversation instead of a finiteproduct It recognizes that research inquiries are born of theseconversations.”

The six frames that constitute the Framework are as follows:

• Authority is Constructed and Contextual

• Information Creation is a Process

• Information Has Value

• Research as Inquiry

• Scholarship as Conversation

• Searching as Strategic Exploration6

Underneath each frame is a set of knowledge practices and tions that are appropriate to each frame Knowledge practices, which bear

disposi-a rough resembldisposi-ance to outcomes, specify whdisposi-at cdisposi-an be expected in thework of learners who are developing their information literate abilities.Dispositions, as the word might imply, refer more generally to learnerattitudes as they relate to a particular frame

It was noted that the skills enumerated in the Standards deemphasizethe role of context, as do the rubrics that have been developed to assess

6

The document lists the frames in alphabetical order and explicitly dispels the assumption that there is a sequence in which they are acquired.

them The Framework, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance ofcontext surrounding information and research The Framework can beseen, then, as a recognition by the ACRL that information literacyrequires a more nuanced approach than is represented by the Standards, anapproach that explicitly acknowledges the importance of context in thecritical assessment of research Let us look at a few examples of how theFramework explicitly acknowledges the role of context.

• The discussion of the Information Creation as a Process frameincludes an explicit acknowledgment that the role and value of infor-mation varies according to the context of the discipline or community

in which it is used: “Experts recognize that information creations arevalued differently in different contexts, such as academia or theworkplace.”

• The frame Scholarship as Conversation views the research processthrough the lens of context and community The research process isrecognized as occurring within the paradigmatic and epistemologicalstructure of a discipline As stated in the description of this frame,

“Developing familiarity with the sources of evidence, methods, andmodels of discourse in the field assists novice learners to enter theconversation.”

• The frame relating to Authority states that “Information resourcesreflect their creators’ expertise and credibility and are evaluated based

on the information need and the context in which the informationwill be used.” It goes on to state that “Authority is constructed in thatvarious communities may recognize different types of authority It iscontextual in that the information need may help to determine thelevel of authority required.” Carncross differentiates the view ofAuthority as expressed in the Framework from that of the Standards bynoting that central to the Framework is “[t]he idea of authority as con-textual and constructed .” (Carncross, 2015, p 148) The standards,

on the other hand, “implicitly grant authority only to sources and tems found in academic libraries .” (p 148)

sys-Particularly in the Authority frame, we see a move away from anapproach to authority and credibility in which there is a single set of cri-teria that can be used determine whether or not an information source isauthoritative, credible, and appropriate In contrast, the frame encourages

an “attitude of informed skepticism and an openness to new perspectives,additional voices, and changes in schools of thought,” and acknowledgesthe “biases that privilege some sources of authority over others .” It

represents a departure from the earlier standards by stating that it is onlynovice users who need to rely of “basic indicators of authority, such astype of publication or author credential, where experts recognize schools

of thought or discipline-specific paradigms.”

The approach to authority as articulated in the Framework lizes authority relative to communities or disciplines by viewing authority

contextua-as a “type of influence recognized or exerted within a community,” ratherthan as an inherent attribute of particular information sources or authors.Moreover, as we have just seen, it explicitly recognizes factors external tothe research that can affect the attribution of authority, including “world-views, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural orientations.”7

1.5 CRITICAL THINKING: RESEARCH IN CONTEXT

While the Framework develops a concept of information literacy and cal thinking that recognizes the centrality of context, it is nevertheless notclear from the Framework how the role of context can be operationalized.For example, one of the Knowledge Practices underneath the frame onAuthority expects that students will show an understanding that “manydisciplines have acknowledged authorities in the sense of well-knownscholars and publications that are widely considered ‘standard,’ and yet,even in those situations, some scholars would challenge the authority ofthese sources.” Another Knowledge Practice calls for students to “under-stand the increasingly social nature of the information ecosystem whereauthorities actively connect with one another and sources develop overtime.” How would students demonstrate such abilities, and how, con-cretely, would they be taught? While the Framework moves beyond theStandards by recognizing the centrality of context, it unfortunately stillleaves us in the dark about concrete and effective methods of using con-text to assess the credibility and authoritativeness of information Withoutconcrete means to apply the Framework approach, the result can be frus-tration and a sense that all resources are equally problematic

criti-William Badke thoughtfully addresses this frustration He writes of theconfusion that confronts students in the face of a shifting andunstable information landscape, in which the role of authority hasbecome eroded in a postmodern environment that emphasizes the “sub-jectivity of authors and readers” (Badke, 2015, p 193) He notes a

7

All of the quotations relating to Authority are from the Framework document.

commonly held perception among students that “all information is tially of the same nature, with none having more authority or believabilitythan any other,” (p 201) particularly for students who are not familiarwith the discipline under study (p 197) As I will demonstrate, an aware-ness of the interplay between the contextual factors affecting research andthe information practices of particular disciplines can suggest to studentsthe kind of questions to ask that will assist them in making distinctionsconcerning the credibility of the research they encounter.

essen-Although discussions of information literacy instruction focus sarily on students, the need for information literacy skills does not endwith the attainment of a bachelor’s or a graduate degree Indeed, infor-mation literacy education aspires to instill in students the skills that willenable them to continue to seek and evaluate information throughouttheir lives However, since the Framework is too vague to offer concreteguidance to students as to how they can substantively use context notonly in college and university but also in their poststudent lives, the frus-tration that Badke refers to with respect to students remains equally prev-alent for postgraduates

neces-This kind of frustration is not inevitable It is possible to talk aboutthe role of context in critical thinking in concrete ways that avoid simplyhand-waving at the role of context More specifically, I argue that if welook at different kinds of context we can meaningfully understand theroles it plays in research and the evaluation of research In the discussionthat follows, I outline some ways that context can be used to examineresearch with a critical lens I explore three categories of contextual fac-tors that can affect research: financial influences, the role of research para-digms, and practices of research dissemination Using these contextualfactors, I suggest the kinds of questions that can be asked to avoid thealmost nihilistic sense that there is no way to distinguish between thecredibility of different research and the perception that the conclusions ofall research are consequently equally credible

1.5.1 Criteria for Evaluating Research: The Gold Standards

The roles played by context need to be understood with respect to monly accepted practices for knowledge production Although the prac-tices for knowledge production vary substantially from discipline todiscipline (Grafstein, 2002), it is widely recognized that to a certaindegree there are shared “gold standard” criteria for evaluating research