York County Community College is committed to promoting information literacy as a lifelong learning skill for its students. In Spring 2003, the ad hoc Information Literacy Committee created the following definition and areas of Competency for information literacy at the College:
Definition:
Information literacy is an intellectual framework for recognizing information needs and finding, evaluating, and using information in an ethical manner.
Areas of Competency:
- Recognize information needs
- Find and retrieve information
- Evaluate and use information
- Understand the ethical and social issues surrounding the use of information
For each area of competency, the committee developed assessable learning outcomes.
Options for teaching your students information literacy skills
Custom-designed library instruction by YCCC Librarians
The librarians at YCCC can conduct an instruction session for your class that is specifically designed to teach your students the skills they need to complete a research assignment. The session can be held in your classroom, in a computer lab, or in the Library.
Examples of classes include:
- Developing an effective search strategy
- Finding appropriate magazine and journal articles
- Finding primary sources
- Evaluating web sites
- Using proper citation style
Schedule a library instruction session for your class. Give your students the skills they need to complete their research assignments successfully. For better retention of newly developed skills, we recommend that the class be scheduled around the time that students will realistically begin their research. Our teaching calendar fills up quickly, so please make your requests well in advance.
Online tutorials
If you and your students prefer a self-paced tutorial, the Library recommends the TILT tutorial developed by the University of Texas. The TILT tutorial has three modules that take about ½ hour each to complete. TILT is interactive, easy to understand, and fun.. Quiz results can be emailed to faculty for credit.
TILT can be accessed from the Library’s web site or at http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu/
“Do-it-yourself” instruction and online demos
If you prefer to teach information literacy skills to your students yourself, the Library staff would be happy to recommend resources, active learning activities, and effective library assignments. We can also provide you with class handouts.
You might also like to combine your instruction with some of the Library’s online demos. The Library is developing online demonstrations for all of its online resources, including the Library web site, the online catalog, and the research databases. These demos offer step-by-step, animated guides to using the Library’s research tools. We also have online tutorials on plagiarism and citation style. The online demos are available on the Research Tips page of the Library’s web site.
Learn more about Information Literacy at York County Community College.
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