Assign a classroom of high school students to research and write a paper on nearly any topic, and the vast majority will scurry off to their computers to copy information from the Internet. Given the poor reputation and inaccuracy of some Web-based information and the current problem with plagiarism, this marks a tough issue for most school teachers.
But the problem gets worse. After graduation, many of those students head off to college, thus becoming a monumental challenge for universities nationwide — especially one striving to produce world-class graduates and researchers.
If you doubt the seriousness of this issue, consider this: According to a national study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of college students say they use the Internet more than the library, while only 9 percent said they use the library more than the Internet for information searching.”
Undaunted, the WSU Libraries have tackled the issue head on — assigning staff, creating programs and working hand in hand with faculty and departments campuswide. Complete resolution of the issue is in the distant future, at best, with training programs designed to carry on indefinitely. Aggressive efforts by the libraries, however, have already established Washington State University as a leader in finding realistic solutions to this issue.
Testimony to that fact recently was made clear when the Association of Research Libraries selected WSU as one of eight universities that will work with Kent State University as a team to help develop a Web-based assessment tool. With this tool, universities nationwide can measure incoming and outgoing student skills in information literacy. Also participating in this project are Auburn University, University of Arizona, University of Connecticut, San Jose State University, Virginia Tech University, Wayne State University and Weber State University.
Helping spearhead the WSU effort is Scott Walter, interim assistant director for public services and outreach, and Beth Lindsay, head of library instruction.
“The SAILS project is intended to develop an assessment tool that will enable us to evaluate students’ information literacy skills,” said Virginia Steel, director of libraries. “If the assessment shows that students need additional instruction, then we’ll be able to work with classroom faculty to provide that.”
One of the reasons ARL chose WSU, Walter said, is because it already has a proactive information literacy program that involves participation by a wide number of students and faculty. Programs already in place include regular library instruction for students in the Composition Program (Eng 101/201/301/402), the Freshman Seminar Program, the World Civilizations Program, and Accessing Information for Research taught by librarians in various areas of interest. In addition, there are collaborative instructional projects being pursued by faculty in the College of Pharmacy and the College of Education, and subject-specific instruction provided by librarians to a wide variety of upper-division courses in almost every department on campus.
In 2001 – 02, the WSU Libraries provided 555 individual instructional sessions to more than 9,100 students, staff and faculty via its Library Instruction Program.
The primary objective of the Library Instruction Program, Walter said, is to train freshmen through graduate/research level students to be balanced, critical thinkers — people who can locate, evaluate and apply accurate information.
“It’s a bit different than the traditional teaching of library services and skills,” said Lindsay. “We’re hoping to provide training and assistance to students throughout their studies at WSU, and assess their abilities along the way. We’re pointing them toward broadly applicable process that they will be able to use throughout their lives, whether they are students, employees, citizens or consumers.”
Ironically, in a world glutted with information via the Internet, magazines, e-mail, radio, television and books, that challenge has become markedly tougher.
“This issue is much broader than just the Internet,” said Walter. “Students need to know how to effectively locate, evaluate, manage, synthesize and present information. They need to learn how to determine which resources are the best for a given type of paper or presentation, how to balance Internet information with traditional print-based information, and how to evaluate whether a source constitutes a reliable and scholarly reference.”
According to the The Pew Internet & American Life Project, faculty nationwide have reported a significant drop in the number of scholarly references used by students in bibliographies. So faculty are restructuring the criteria for their papers.
What many students don’t realize is the reliability that often accompanies books and many professional journals, Walter said. In addition to being written by people with certified academic credentials, those publications usually have been reviewed by several levels of peers, passed one or more levels of editorial review, and have been reviewed and selected by librarians or classroom faculty for inclusion in a research library collection.
“So, by the time students go to pick a book off the shelf, they can be relatively confident of its accuracy,” said Walter.
With the Internet, accuracy and scholarly integrity cannot be assumed.
“In selecting information,” Walter said, “criteria can differ depending upon how the information is to be used and presented. Is it for a debate, an electronic presentation, a term paper or a thesis?
“The responsibility to critically weigh what methods and sources are appropriate and efficient is now on the student.”
While the primary focus of the Library Instruction Program is on student learning, Walter said he and the libraries staff increasingly are helping faculty and academic departments:
• train and graduate people with these critical thinking skills
• effectively use the Internet themselves
• address the issue of plagiarism
• make assignments to appropriately include scholarly references, the Internet references, and other sources
• evaluate a website’s academic integrity
“We view the teaching of information literacy skills as a partnership with faculty,” said Steel. “The libraries are ready to collaborate with faculty to develop assignments that teach information literacy skills, and we hope to expand these collaborations. One of our goals is to give students the knowledge they need to be able to find information that will enable them to write better papers.”
(For the full text of this article see the WSU Today PDF Archive files (a link is located in the top left hand corner of the website.)
