Information Literacy Practices Research Articles

Information Literacy Empowerment in Islamic Education: Examining the Potential in the Indonesian Context

Information literacy plays a critical role in empowering individuals within the realm of Islamic education. This study explores the empowerment potential of information literacy in the Indonesian context of Islamic education. As the world’s largest Muslimmajority country, Indonesia provides a unique setting to investigate the intersection of information literacy and Islamic education. The study aims to examine the impact of information literacy on knowledge acquisition, critical thinking, and ethical engagement within Islamic education in Indonesia. It also identifies challenges, opportunities, and best practices for integrating information literacy in Indonesian Islamic educational institutions. Through a literature review and qualitative analysis, the study sheds light on the role of information literacy in strengthening Islamic education and highlights the specific cultural, social, and technological factors influencing information literacy practices in Indonesia. The findings contribute to a better understanding of information literacy’s significance in the Indonesian context of Islamic education and provide practical insights for educators and policymakers to enhance information literacy programs. This research underscores the importance of information literacy in empowering individuals within Islamic education and emphasizes the need for context-specific approaches to maximize its potential in the Indonesian educational landscape.
 Keywords: empowerment, information literacy, Islamic education

Civic roles of libraries in combating information disorders in social media: A scoping review

This study used scoping review as an approach to examine and determine the extent of studies undertaken in civic engagement roles of libraries and librarians in times of rapid growth of information disorders in the social media environment. The research identified concepts, and methods by providing a systematic examination of academic and scientific literature published in the field. The scoping review was prepared based on Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis. After careful synthesis, a total of 22 documents were analyzed, and found that most research done in this area apply qualitative methods. The main concepts captured revolve around democracy, public sphere, civic engagement, and critical literacy. It is hoped that this scoping review provides a background understanding of the related concepts that appeared in this study. This study helps Library and Information Science (LIS) educators and librarians to discuss and collaborate in strengthening the practice of critical and information literacy.

Memes to an End: Why Internet Memes Matter to Information Research

Abstract This theoretical paper explores the significance of Internet memes to the field of information research. Adopting a constructivist framework, it conceptualizes memes as documents that undermine popular assumptions about people’s engagements with information. In particular, it argues that Internet memes are conceptual tools through which people can negotiate different representations of reality and the logics that underlie them. Through a close reading of several memetic examples, I propose that memes are a means through which Internet users document and test their values against those of others, thereby allowing them to explore the different courses of action associated with situations they encounter. Memetic communication is thus presented as an important new information literacy practice that has critical implications for the following research areas: education, freedom of expression, ethics and policy, and the preservation of cultural heritage.

Centering justice/decentering whiteness: the case for abolition in information literacy pedagogical praxis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to make visible the field's propensity to center whiteness even in engaging inclusive practices in information literacy classrooms. This paper offers abolitionist pedagogy as a means to understand and address these concerns.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses interdisciplinary research methods in the fields of education, library science, feminist studies, Black studies and abolition studies to examine and provide an analysis of current information literacy practices by using abolitionist pedagogy to articulate how it is possible to expand information literacy instruction practices.FindingsCurrent information literacy practices and methods that seek to create inclusive learning environments for racialized and minoritized learners rely on a set of institutionalized practices such as critical information literacy and culturally sustaining pedagogies. An examination of these practices through an abolitionist pedagogical lens reveals how the field has engaged in reductive and uncritical engagement with these methods despite employing them to create inclusive spaces. Using abolitionist pedagogy as a lens, this critical essay examines the field's foundations in whiteness and illustrates pathways for transformative educational justice.Originality/valueThere has been much work on inclusive teaching practices that discusses challenging information literacy structures' reliance on dominant culture.? To date, there has been little to no scholarship on how information literacy practices could engage in abolitionist pedagogical praxis.

Marks of usage: discerning information literacy practices from medieval European manuscripts

PurposeThis study aims to discern medieval information literacy (IL) practices through scrutiny of medieval manuscripts: both the content and the “marks of usage” evident therein.Design/methodology/approachAnalysis of the writing of scribes. Engagement with selected primary texts (manuscripts) and prior scholarly investigations.FindingsAmple evidence exists of the practice of IL in the medieval era, and how it was transmitted and negotiated across time and space. Popular guides for scholars, including Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon, and the marks of usage left on manuscripts by readers/scribes, are evidence of how members of scholarly communities engaged in collaborative metacognitive work, helping each other with tasks such as understanding the ordinatio (organisation) of texts; cross-referencing; locating information; and making judgments about relevance, amongst others. New practices were stimulated by key historical transitions, particularly the shift from ecclesiastical to secular settings for learning.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a preliminary study only, intended to lay foundations and suggest directions for more detailed future investigations of primary texts. The scope is Eurocentric, and similar work might be undertaken with the records of practice available elsewhere, e.g. the Arab world, South and East Asia.Originality/valueSome previous work (e.g. Long, 2017) has investigated medieval scholarly communities by retrospectively applying notions from practice theory, but no prior work has specifically focused upon IL as the practice under investigation.

Development of ICT Oriented Reproductive System Materials Learning Module for Training the High School Students’ Information Literature Skill


 
 
 
 The explosion of information that occurred due to advanced technology caused people to have information literacy skills. Information literacy skills are needed by students so that they are able to obtain accurate information from trusted sources. The purpose of this research was to develop the module and to find out the potential and to test the feasibility of the module in training information literacy to students. In this study, the Research and Development/R&D method based on Sugiyono’s theory of 2015 version was used with modifications. The method sequentially included the potential and problem stages, initial information collection, module design, module validation by experts, module revision phase I, trial use of small-scale modules, revision of phase II modules, and large-scale module trials. The trial design used a pre-experimental design method in the form of a one-shot case study. The module trial was carried out at SMAN 3 Tegal involving 9 students of class XI-MIPA 1 and SMAN 14 Semarang involving 30 students of class XI-MIPA 2. The data collected includes data on students' perceptions of the information literacy content in the module and data on the module's ability to practice information literacy through tasks/activities on the module. Data were collected through questionnaires and instruments in the form of assignments in the module. The data were analyzed quantitatively using the formula for the percentage of qualitative criteria. The results showed that the developed module was suitable to be used regarding the material expert assessment results that reached 96.87%, while the assessment of media experts was 95.24%, and the assessment of biology teachers was 99.62%. In addition, the student assessment data was obtained stating that the module could be used as a learning resource. Based on the data analysis of the potential of the module in training students' information literacy, it could be seen that in the small-scale trial, a percentage of 85.49% was obtained with the criteria of highly eligible, while in the large-scale trial, the percentage of 77.41% was obtained with the criteria of eligible. Thus, it could be concluded that the developed module was eligible to be used and it was able to train students' information literacy.
 
 
 

What role can affect and emotion play in academic and research information literacy practices?

While significant progress has been made in broadening information literacy’s (IL’s) scope, its conception of the user and their relationship to information remains painfully limited. This is particularly evident when the affective or emotional factors of information seeking behaviour are considered. Thus far, IL’s models and discourses have failed to acknowledge emotion’s fundamentally disruptive nature and have either ignored, repressed, or misrepresented users’ emotions. This has resulted in a deeply limited and inaccurate conception of the user’s information needs, and this has a particularly harmful impact on marginalised users and users engaging with affectively fraught information. This article seeks to address this oversight, initially by outlining the origins of IL’s repression of emotion and then examining the consequences of this repression in the standardised IL models; specifically in Carol C. Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process and the ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Subsequently, this essay will examine several critical models of librarianship and IL—including Holocaust librarianship and Indigenous conceptions of relationality—in order to illuminate models of IL that adopt a relational perspective that enables an engagement with the affective elements of the user’s information needs. Finally, this essay will suggest that these relational perspectives facilitate the adoption of an ethics of care that helps address the insufficiencies inherent to our current conceptions of IL.

Fractured academic space: digital literacy and the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThe study focussed on information literacy practices, specifically on how higher education staff managed the transition from established and routinised in-person teaching, learning and working practices to institutionally mandated remote or hybrid working patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative study forms part of a broader research project, examining how information literacy and information practices unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phase Three of this project, which forms the subject of this paper, employed semi-structured interviews to explore the impact of COVID-19 on the workplace and, in particular, the role that technology and digital literacy plays in enabling or constraining information literacy practices necessary for the operationalisation of work.FindingsThe complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a fracturing of workplace information environments and worker information landscapes by disrupting all aspects of academic life. The study recognises that whilst the practice of information literacy is predicated on access to modalities of information, this practice is also shaped by material conditions. This has implications for digital literacy which, in attempting to set itself apart from information literacy practice, has negated the significant role that the body and the corporeal modality play as important sources of information that enable transition to occur. In relation to information resilience, the bridging concept of fracture has enabled the authors to consider the informational impact of crisis and transition on people's information experiences and people's capacity to learn to go on when faced with precarity. The concept of grief is introduced into the analysis.Originality/valueThis study presents original research.

Translanguaging and Spatial Repertoire: Academic Information Literacies of Multilingual International Doctoral Students

This paper presents a case study of the academic information literacy practices of two Chinese international doctoral students in the United States, drawing on the theoretical concepts of translanguaging and spatial repertoire. This investigation is situated within and against the deficit discourses surrounding the information literacy of international students, especially those who use English as a second language in western English-dominated academia. Using phenomenological interviewing, weekly information-seeking diaries, and focus group data, the study shows that these two students gather online information in multiple information ecosystems through the mobilization of multiple languages and diverse spatial repertoires. The results highlight the role of situated assemblages of linguistic, semiotic, and multimodal resources for successful information seeking and call for an expanded conceptualization of information literacy for multilingual international students. This paper concludes with a discussion on the importance of adopting an asset-based perspective when examining the information literacy of these students and provides recommendations for faculties, librarians, and research supervisors to consider when designing information literacy education for multilingual international doctoral students.

Your Information Literacy Practices (YILP): Information Literacy and Resourcefulness

Post-secondary students bring with them unique skills and knowledge which may affect their learning. Information literacy (IL) is a set of abilities which permits the discovery of information as well as using this information to create new knowledge (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2016). While IL abilities are heralded as important, it is difficult to find a simple measure of information literacy, especially since its conceptualization as a framework (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2016). In this paper, we propose a new online measure of information literacy—Your Information Literacy Practices (YILP)—which aligns with the new framework. We compare it to another published measure of IL and student resourcefulness. Implications and recommendations for its use are discussed.

Becoming a competent weaver: information literacy practice of the weavers of the Bonwire Kente Centre in Ghana

PurposeThis study examines what constitutes competence and how a novice becoming a competent weaver is enabled by information literacy in the fabric-weavers’ workplace landscape.Design/methodology/approachEthnography as a research design was employed using participant observation and semi-structured interviews as the data collection techniques.FindingsCompetence constitutes the demonstration of Kente knowledge and mentorship capability enabled by information literacy through access to the on-the-loom and off-the-loom information in the Kente-weaving landscape.Research limitations/implicationsThis study explains how the transition from a novice weaver to a competent weaver is underpinned by information literacy.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies that contribute to the understanding of information literacy in the craft workplace. The study proposes a framework for weavers' information literacy practice.

Authority is constructed and created … but not by you

This paper engages in a critical review of information literacy practices as manifest through materials shared publicly on the ACRL Sandbox. Focusing primarily on the frames “Authority is Contested and Constructed,” and “Scholarship as Conversation,” we analyze lesson plans shared on the ACRL Sandbox that address those frames, including the positionality of the students for whom the lessons were created. Preliminary analysis finds that most of the lessons shared position students exclusively as information consumers, learning how to find and evaluate existing published research, rather than emphasizing their potential roles as producers. This perspective fails to capitalize on students as creators (e.g., from formal undergraduate research to social media). We conclude by presenting some ways in which information literacy instruction can be adjusted to prepare future librarians to recognize and respect students’ existing knowledge and build upon that knowledge.

Agency and liminality during the COVID-19 pandemic: Why information literacy cannot fix vaccine hesitancy

This article employs a sociological and dialogical information perspective to identify what shape information literacy practice takes for people who are hesitant about the COVID-19 vaccine. An information perspective places information and people’s relations with information at the centre of the inquiry. The study carried out 14 semi-structured interviews with UK adults who had not yet received or taken up their invitation to have the COVID-19 vaccine. Outcomes of this study suggest that information literacy practices related to vaccine hesitancy emerged through the liminal space and in relation to agentic performance, which was catalysed through engagement with experiential, corporeal and social information. This study has implications for the teaching of information literacy, in particular, the idea that being informed is an affirmative action that will automatically empower learners to make appropriate choices.

Strategi Literasi Informasi di Komunitas Belajar Qaryah Thayyibah: Pendekatan konsep literasi, teori empat wacana lacan, dan pedagogi kritis

Qaryah Thayyibah Learning Community (QTLC) is a non-formal school with an anti-mainstream method inspired by Freire and Ivan Illich, rather than adapting national-conventional curricula. In the age of information overload, in line with the emergence of digital natives in QTLC, it is important to discuss (1) how were the critical information literacy practice in this community; (2) teachers’ roles associated with the literacy; (3) and critical pedagogy perspective on the phenomenon. This research was designed using the ethnographic method with a qualitative approach. It was conducted from December 2016 until June 2017 in Kalibening village, Tingkir subdistrict, Salatiga district, Central Java province, Indonesia. The result was that the students of QTLC had been practicing critical information literacy although neither optimal nor ideal yet based on Potter’s criterion and DIKW diagram. The main supporting factors were the culture of discussion and expressing opinions that had been cultivated and ingrained in their school activities, in line with the product or works-based learning strategy. The efforts of the school committee and management to be on the "free school movement" track to some extent—compared to regular schools—freed this community to determine the most appropriate learning method with QTLC’s vision of critical pedagogy, one of which is the practice of critical information literacy. However, the interaction between students and teachers was dominated by hysteric discourse and showed very little of any analytic discourse which is an important factor to realize critical pedagogy. Despite the shortcomings that currently exist, QTLC represents a step toward the realization of critical pedagogical practices in information literacy.

A grounded theory of information exclusion and information inclusion: framing the information experience of people seeking asylum

PurposeThis paper discusses an original theory of information exclusion and information inclusion, which explains how information interactions can be structured in ways that either exclude or include people seeking asylum.Design/methodology/approachThis theory was developed through an ethnographic study of the information experience of people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. Fieldwork involved participant observations, participatory research workshops and semi-structured interviews, analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach.FindingsPeople seeking asylum are confronted with two main information environments: the asylum system and the local third sector. Each environment frames contrasting information access, sharing and literacy practice modalities: the former produces information deprivation, information sharing agency denial and a fracturing information literacy practice; the latter facilitates multiple information affordances, information sharing agency promotion, and both local and heritage information literacy practice promotion. Our theory of information exclusion and information inclusion describes how through these modalities, an information environment can either promote or preclude inclusion.Originality/valuePrevious information studies of migration tend to conceptualise social ex/inclusion as a linear journey. Our theory originally frames this as a non-straightforward and conflicting process, allowing to better understand the experience of people who are not simply either socially excluded or included, but may experience both states depending on context. It also shows that exclusion is not a matter of fact and is not fundamental to asylum systems: it is produced by specific policies and procedures and can therefore be changed. Thus, this theory provides conceptual tools for researchers to investigate the information experience of individuals moving between conflicting information practices, and for civil society actors and policymakers to document exclusionary information practices and design inclusive ones.

Adolescent Social Media Information Literacy Outside of School: A Scoping Review of the Literacy and Educational Technology Literature

The information literacy practices of adolescents on social media outside of school are worth considering, since adolescents use social media near ubiquitously and must grapple with all types of content they encounter incidentally or intentionally. This scoping review followed the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) to examine the extent and nature of scholarship on this topic from the perspective of educational technology and literacy scholarship, as both fields are uniquely poised to collaborate on this interdisciplinary topic. Surprisingly, only four articles fit the scope of our review. The literature found, and not found, revealed several themes. These themes were the imprecise use of keywords across scholarship, use of social media for community support, exposure to incidental information, evidence for different literacy practices on social media, and the need for addressing social media information literacy in school. Opportunities for future work and collaborative research between both fields is also discussed.

Subject Librarianship in Kazakhstan: Exploring Information Literacy Skills, Functions, and Practices

Subject Librarianship in Kazakhstan: Exploring Information Literacy Skills, Functions, and Practices

Undergraduate Research and Information Literacy in the English Classroom

The previous special issue of Pedagogy, “Undergraduate Research as a Future of English Studies,” featured institutional and pedagogical strategies for helping undergraduate students make original intellectual and creative contributions to the fields of literary studies, writing studies, and linguistics. Authors in this special issue described large-scale, multi-institutional strategies for promoting undergraduate research, and they used traditional definitions of undergraduate research from the Council on Undergraduate Research: students are mentored by faculty or more experienced researchers, they use research methods widely accepted in their discipline, they make at least modest contributions to their discipline, and they circulate their work beyond a classroom audience (Hakim 1998: 190). These characteristics are part of what marks undergraduate research as a high-impact practice, and this cluster of articles highlights how the spirit of undergraduate research—original, primary, and secondary research that aims to answer meaningful, authentic questions in a discipline—invigorates individual courses.Undergraduate research offers students and institutions clear benefits around success and retention: students who participate have higher retention rates, grade point averages, and graduation rates (Bowman and Holmes 2018). It further promotes student learning as students make demonstrated gains in independent critical thinking, the ability to integrate theory and practice, and oral and written communication. The articles in this cluster highlight the ways in which course-based undergraduate research can also foster learning gains in information literacy, particularly the information literacy practices required in English studies. Information literacy is often associated with first-year writing courses, but these courses are simply the beginning. Information literacy should extend vertically through undergraduate majors, and it can be effectively paired with undergraduate research experiences.The authors in this cluster demonstrate how novel, course-based undergraduate research experiences can foster growth in information literacy. First, Angela Laflen and Moira Fitzgibbons, a composition professor and a medieval literature professor, describe how a multimodal, digital research project—the Graphic Narrative Database—gives students an authentic context in which to develop writing, literary analysis, and information literacy skills. Second, Laci Mattison and Rachel Tait-Ripperdan, a literature professor and an academic librarian, share their work in the digital archives with the Journals of Queen Victoria. By working with this archive, students deepened both their knowledge of Victorian culture and their primary research skills, including the skills needed to navigate an extensive digital archive. And finally, Michael Gutierrez and Sarah Singer argue for the value of primary and secondary research in the creative writing classroom, demonstrating how an autoethnography assignment is deepened with attention to information literacy. At Pedagogy, we hope this cluster provides readers with examples of innovative, course-based undergraduate research projects that can be adapted to multiple contexts and that promote information literacy in the undergraduate English curriculum.

Reaching into the basket of doom: Learning outcomes, discourse and information literacy

Learning outcomes form a type of arrangement that holds the practice of information literacy within higher education in place. This paper employs the theory of practice architectures and a discourse analytical approach to examine the learning goals of five recent English-language models of information literacy. Analysis suggests that the practice of information literacy within higher education is composed of 12 common dimensions, which can be grouped into two categories, Mapping and Applying. The Mapping category encompasses learning outcomes that introduce the learner to accepted ways of knowing or what is valued by and how things work within higher education. The Applying category encompasses learning outcomes that encourage the learner to implement or integrate ideas into their own practice, including to their own questions, to themselves or to their experience. Revealing what is prioritised as well as what is less valued within the field at the present time, these findings also raise questions about supposed epistemological differences between models, the influence of research, and the language employed within these documents. This paper represents the third and final piece of work in a research programme that is interrogating the epistemological premises and discourses of information literacy within higher education.

Student experience of digital learning tools: Information literacy training in higher education

The paper presents a qualitative study of how students in higher education experience the use of digital learning objects as part of information literacy training.Methods. The study is inspired by the phenomenographical method and take a second-order perspective asking how students experience information literacy training and digital learning tools. The study builds on seven focus-group interviews with a total of 29 students from law, engineering, and nursing. The first part of the analysis presents results on students’ experience of the digital learning tools across the cases with focus on student motivation. The second part of the analysis focuses on the roles of the different actors in information literacy building. The analysis illustrates how the use of digital learning tools and face-to-face information literacy training is deeply related to the roles of the different actors taking part in the information literacy practice. The academic librarian is almost invisible to the students in two of the three cases, but student interaction with the digital learning tools promote visibility. The findings confirm related research on the importance of integrating information literacy training into curriculum and nuances our understanding of how students experience information literacy training and digital learning tools.