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Enhance Your Course with Information Literacy

Posted by Monte Maxwell.
February 4th, 2010

An initiative between the WVU Libraries and the Provost’s Office will again help up to five faculty members enhance their courses while earning a $3,000 stipend.

The WVU Libraries’ Information Literacy Course Enhancement Program (ILCEP) is focused on integrating information literacy into the classroom. The University’s 2010 Plan, www.wvu.edu/~2010plan, states that information literacy will be a curriculum component across all disciplines by 2010.

Broadly speaking, information literacy means the set of abilities needed for digital learning by students and instructors to make effective use of the dazzling array of information options in the 21st century university.

Each of the selected faculty participants will receive a summer stipend, or other relevant professional remuneration if 12-month faculty apply. They will work with the WVU Libraries’ Director of Instruction and Information Literacy and their librarian liaison to create discipline-specific active learning assignments outcomes that address information literacy concepts. The revised courses will be taught collaboratively during the fall 2010 or spring 2011 semester.

ILCEP Objectives include:

• To strengthen student research results and prepare them for greater academic success.
• To foster collaboration between instructors and librarians.
• To implement syllabus enhancement to include information literacy based learning outcomes and information literacy active learning assignments within the discipline.
• To encourage instructors to include the full range of the WVU Libraries’ resources, expertise, and services in course planning and delivery in courses with research expectations.
• To sponsor an Information Literacy Showcase to share the results of the course enhancements, publicize discipline based projects, and encourage more departments to get involved.

Participants will also contribute to a Showcase of Information Literacy Learning Progress Forum during the academic year.

So far, thanks to the Libraries’ ILCEP, five faculty/librarian teams have taken action to address it as a high priority in their courses: Dr. Tim Warner, a professor of geology and geography in the Eberly College of Arts & Sciences; Dr. Gonzalo Bravo, an assistant professor in the School of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences; Assistant Professor Lisa Hardman, School of Nursing, Health Sciences Center; Professor Fred Jacoby, Arts and Humanities Division, Potomac State College; and Assistant Professor Rhonda Reymond, College of Creative Arts. Their Library liaisons are librarians Virginia Bender, Linda Blake, Barbara LaGodna, Beth Royall, and Carroll Wilkinson, Director of Instruction and Information Literacy. They will share their results during the Faculty Academy in May.

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