General Education Information Literacy at Millersville University

Suggested Foundational Information Literacy (IL) Concepts for FYEX Courses

Since FYEX is a foundational course for first year students, it is appropriate that the suggested information literacy (IL) concepts included are primarily at the “novice” level (e.g. “Remembering” and “Understanding” on Bloom’s Taxonomy). Integrating these concepts within your class will help to develop students’ information literacy skills.  The concepts are divided into 4 broad categories: Source Exploration, Strategic Searching, Source Evaluation, and Source Attribution. The IL concepts for the FYEX course fall under the learning outcome:

#3: Develop effective communication, critical thinking skills and dispositions, and information literacy skills to explore academic content.

These concepts were drawn from the proposed Information Literacies course student learning outcomes (ILSLO) and the Library Department Student Learning Outcomes (LD). Integration of these concepts (or other relevant information literacy concepts) must be documented in the FYEX syllabi. It is up to individual faculty to decide which concepts to incorporate and how. To simplify faculty adoption of these new practices, the library faculty have listed options that allow flexibility in meeting these requirements.

Download this one-page summary PDF of the suggested concepts.

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ILSLO #1: Identify the most appropriate sources and information to meet the scope of their need.  

Concepts to discuss:

• Matching an information need to appropriate sources
• Analyzing differences between types of sources
• Identifying appropriate databases/repositories to search for sources

Materials to support your course in the area of source exploration.

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ILSLO #2: Create, execute, and refine search strategies with iteration utilizing search outcomes to find relevant sources and information.  

Concepts to discuss:

• Exploring a topic of interest using pre-searching or browsing techniques to determine appropriate topic scope and teminology for searching
• Exploring the value of brainstorming keywords
• Recognizing that searching is an iterative process with opportunities for adjustment

Materials to support your course in the area of strategic searching.

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ILSLO#3: Evaluate the credibility of sources to critically select and interpret information relevant to their need.  

Concept to discuss:

• Applying evaluation criteria in the selection of sources

Materials to support your course in the area of source evaluation.

 

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ILSLO#5: Contribute to ongoing scholarship and communities of learning and/or practice through ethical reflection, proper attribution, and respect of intellectual property.  

Concept to discuss:

• Crediting sources through proper attribution

Materials to support your course in the area of source attribution.

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ILSLO#4: Contextualize and synthesize selected information to engage in ongoing scholarship and communities of learning and/or practice.  

We purposely did not include examples for this Student Learning Outcome in this section of the guide related to FYEX courses as it is a more advanced outcome, likely more appropriate for Gateway Information Literacies courses.