Asking someone at a liberal arts college if information literacy is important is a little like saying “is breathing important?” Of course! But very few people would list it as an essential part of their life – unless they had an illness that made breathing difficult.

I appreciate Dr. Watt’s advice that we focus on hopes, not on perceived deficiencies. It’s a much more persuasive and compelling way to approach it.

Suppose you had a dialog with an instructor with the following questions as guide. (For each of these, assume that after the question was answered there would be a follow up question about why the instructor follows that approach.)

1. Do you teach with a textbook?
a) Yes, as the exclusive source of content to read outside of class.
b) Yes, yes as the primary source of content but with other supplemental readings.
c) Yes, but mainly as a reference with many other required readings.
d) No, not at all.

2. Do you use eReserves in your class?
a) Yes as the primary out of class reading activity.
b) Yes as a complement to the textbook.
d) No, not at all.

3. Do you have students read other things that are neither in a textbook nor eReserve?
a) Yes, I assign certain Web sites for students to read.
b) Yes, I have students do peer review of each other’s writing.
c) No, I don’t have students read other things.

4. Do you have course projects or a term paper?
a) Yes.
b) No.

5. If you answered yes to question 4, Do you assign the topic or do you let the students choose?
a) Students choose.
b) Assign the topic.

6. If you answered yes to question 4, do you give some assistance to the students in identifying suitable references?
a) Yes
b) No

——

There are courses where the instructor goes the textbook route because it is convenient and if a project or term paper is assigned that is done only because it is required by the institution. This is the grim reality in some instances.

There are other courses where the instructor goal is to introduce the student to the discipline, so all the readings are prescribed as is the topic of the term paper. Thinking according to a professional in the discipline may not be entirely orthogonal to information literacy but they may not be mutually reinforcing. So this is the more optimistic but perhaps still not ripe for information literacy.

Then there are courses where Prof. Watt’s story holds true. That is the hopeful case.

I don’t know the relative proportions of these, but I didn’t find the results you reported surprising. Also, especially on large campuses, even if they are doing all of 1 – 5 in your list, that doesn’t mean there is an effective mechanism to change the instructor behavior at the individual course level.

We’d appreciate your input and perspectives!