Information Literacy Instruction Assignment In an Online Module

Date

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Publisher

American Society for Engineering Education

Abstract

Description

One problem with trying to introduce information literacy skills to engineering students is that some faculty are reluctant to change their courses to include this new material. Other faculty have difficulty developing an assignment that will require students to learn and use information literacy skills. Having had success with a freshman orientation class, a librarian and instructional designer collaborated to transform that assignment into an online module. The module was created in Blackboard and was designed to be generic enough so that it can easily be modified for any course. The assignment asks students to work in teams on a design project. The specific design project can be determined by the course instructor, making the module customizable to any engineering discipline. Students are told that early in the design process working engineers need to gather and analyze information from a variety of sources. Students will submit a report outlining their research process along with a bibliography of the sources they used. These reports will be evaluated on the clarity of the writing, the variety and appropriateness of sources cited, as well as the accuracy of the citations. This module teaches information literacy skills while also showing how those skills are part of the engineering design process. This paper will describe the process by which this module was developed, how this module can be integrated into courses, and how this module teaches information literacy while also showing how those skills are part of the engineering design process. Previously published in: Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exhibition, 2013

Keywords

Blackboard, online tutorials, information literacy, engineering education, Information literacy, Web-based instruction, academic libraries

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