Through the assignments you make as instructors, you have the opportunity to develop students’ ability to critically and appropriately seek and use information. You have the power to bring forth their creativity and encourage their enjoyment of research and libraries. By carefully planning the design of the research assignment, faculty can maximize student learning while avoiding the pitfalls of plagiarism, frustration, and uninspired final products.
As faculty Reference Librarians and instructors in Information Literacy, we are eager to partner with you to incorporate Information Literacy into your curricula.
One of the best ways to help students avoid plagiarism is to work with your librarian to develop learning outcomes and assignments that track the student’s critical thinking process in their work. The result is a path of student learning that instructors can identify and assess as authentic and verifiable.
The Association of College and Research Libraries provides an extensive guide designed specifically to introduce faculty to the Information Literacy concepts, practices and model programs. See their guide at Information Literacy for Faculty and Administrators.
For the 2008-2009 academic year, the EdCC librarians took part in a grant funded by LSTA. The purpose of the grant was to have library faculty collaborate with faculty from any discipline to integrate information literacy assessment into courses. At EdCC, one librarian workedwith an English 102 faculty and another librarian worked with two faculty from DevEd to develop instruction and in-class activities. Read the report, and supporting documents, that we submitted about our project:
For more librarian-faculty collaborations, read the grant reports from other community colleges, on the LSTA Grant web site