Professional Development

This presentation, from Elmhurst College, called Laying an Ethical Foundation: Information Ethics as a Good Beginning –

IL in a first-year seminar (new program to Elmhurst) –

• Dean brought it into the curriculum
• Went to First Year Experience conference (in Hawaii!!!)
• Partnered with Student Affairs personnel
• Wanted FYS to be very academic in nature (rather than an extended orientation class)
• 4 pilot classes (Business, Geology, Education, Rhetoric/Composition)
• Rhetoric/Comp Professor was an honors section “Exploring Chicago” — place as text — history/politics/economics/culture/immigrants
• All 4 sections taught at the same time — they would get them together for larger discussions
• For all 4 classes - 5 specific goals
  • Articulate an understanding of the value of a liberal arts education and its synergy with professional preparation.
    • Liberal Arts Articles
    • The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World– common text
    • Class Reflections
    • Final Synthesis Paper
  • React ethically to varied perspectives and experiences to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to expand cultural awareness
    • Attendance at campus events and reaction papers
    • off-campus trips that required critical & reflective thinking about the experience
  • Respond critically to varied texts from different disciplinary speheres of knowledge and perspectives
    • critical examination of readings from many different perspectives
  • Contribute to the campus and/or society through varied means including civic engagement
  • Articulate and demonstrate ways to ethically gather, synthesize and present information in school, work and life
• Last goal was Information Literacy — library partnership
• Focus on access and evaluation in first year programs results in lack of time for consideration of communication and ethics
• College’s mission to teach ethics and values
• Millennial students as creators and users of information
• Goals of the Information Literacy Module
  • Engage students where they are
  • Prompt them to think about information ethics
• 3 blog assignments
  • Academic dishonesty — group discussion, followed by reflective writing
  • Sources of information — critical thinking exercise on web-based resources — analyze Wikipedia and Britannica entries
  • Ownership of information - blog ‘reports’ on events with multimedia component

Results (Librarian Perspective):

• Most students completed blog assignments
• Used information ethically
• Did not comment on each others posts -
• Did not use this blog for other assignments or recreationally
• Resistance to blogging
• Engaged students in learning with librarians
• Embedded librarian in a course
• Introduced information ethics as part of information literacy
• established information literacy as essential skill in gen ed revision
• Importance of integrating information literacy instruction with ocourse content
• collaborative course design
• understanding faculty styles

Results (faculty perspective)

• Very positive
• Supportive expertise
  • In-depth knowledge of most current reference materials
  • Understand best practices regarding ethical use of resources, source evaluation, citation, etc.
  • experience with the latest technology
• Enhanced academic experience
  • Integrated instruction
  • content focused
• Class blog
  • resources materials
  • student postings

Results (student perspective)

• Initially anxious about research and the technology
• Glad (and surprised) to know the librarian knew more about blogs than students
• Learned a lot from in-depth exploration of mis-use of information….. ‘don’t cheat’ does not make students understand the use and misuse of information
• Librarian contact and instruction took away the excuse ‘I didn’t know how to find the research’ –
• Students connected with each other…..through exploring Chicago, etc.
• Time in class might have made students read each others postings
• If more assignments had used them, students may have been more comfortable….
• Blogs did help students synthesize the information…..

Next Year

• expanding to 8 sections then to 28 sections for all students
• assignments will be more integrated with course content
• spread workload out over librarians
• follow up with students over the summer

Q & A

1 librarian assigned to all 4 sections

went to most of the common sessions

did grade blog assignments

workshop for faculty beforehand on blogs

Interesting discussion about whether the blogs should be public……