Scholarship as Conversation

The Un-Research Project sample materials

The Un-Research Project was created and implemented by Allison Hosier as part of a credit-bearing information literacy course in 2014. The project, a twist on the traditional annotated bibliography, and its connections to themes from the ACRL Framework were detailed in an article published in Communications in Information Literacy in 2015.This resource includes a list of materials associated with the project that can be adapted for use for anyone interested in implementing the un-research project or a similar one as part of their instruction.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
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CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Teaching Information Literacy Through "Un-Research"

Students who write essays on research topics in which no outside sources are cited and accuracy is treated as negotiable generally should not expect to receive good grades, especially in an information literacy course. However, asking students to do just this was the first step in the “un-research project,” a twist on the familiar annotated bibliography assignment that was intended to guide students away from “satisficing” with their choice of sources and toward a better understanding of scholarship as a conversation. The project was implemented as part of a credit-bearing course in spring 2014 with promising results, including a more thoughtful choice of sources on students’ part. With some fine-tuning, the un-research project can offer an effective alternative to the traditional annotated bibliography assignment and can be adapted for a variety of instructional situations.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific

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Leveraging New Frameworks to Teach Information Appropriation

This chapter investigates the ACRL and WPA frameworks to discuss commonalities in how they approach appropriation of information in compositional contexts.  The chapter presents two sample assignments and outlines a case study of a collaboration between library and English faculty.

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

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CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License CC-BY-NC-SA

Citations

The Citations lesson is mapped to Information has Value and Scholarship as Conversation Frames. It discusses why citations are a foundation of scholarly communication and the basic components of a citation. Through infographics and videos, students will learn the differences between paraphrasing, summarizing and quoting.

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Multidisciplinary
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License CC-BY-NC-SA

Visual Literacy

This assignment has students analyzing data presented in graphs, charts and infographics that are pre-selected by librarian and instructor based on how poorly the information is being presented through various outlets.

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Scholarly Conversations

The Scholarly Conversations lesson is mapped to the Scholarship as Conversation Frame and introduces the concept of scholarly conversations developing over time, and how to follow a scholarly conversation.

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Multidisciplinary
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License CC-BY-NC-SA

Rhetorical Reinventions: Rethinking Research Processes and Information Practices to Deepen our Pedagogy

This resource includes files and links for the conference paper and slides of the presentation Rhetorical Reinventions: Rethinking Research Processes and Information Practices to Deepen our Pedagogy, presented at LOEX 2016 by Donna Witek, Mary J. Snyder Broussard, and Joel M. Burkholder. Both the slides and the paper include a detailed bibliography of related resources.Presentation/Paper Abstract:The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy offers instruction librarians an opportunity to reconsider not only how they teach but also how they think about research and information. This new thinking has the potential to reinvent instructional practices, resulting in learning that is both situated and transferable. The discipline of rhetoric can inform this effort.This presentation will consider three traditional “steps” of the research process: question formulation, information search, and source evaluation. Traditional approaches over-simplify each activity: broaden the question by including related elements or narrow it by concentrating on a specific time/area/population; follow these steps to find the “correct” number and types of sources; and evaluate information based on the presence of external characteristics.Yet when information literacy is approached rhetorically, librarians can partner with classroom faculty to teach much more meaningful and transferable information literacy knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Librarians can then guide students in the complex processes of navigating the expectations of disciplinary audiences and developing a critical self-awareness of themselves as scholarly contributors; engaging with search tools, strategies, and processes in ways that are flexible, iterative, and exploratory by design; and comprehending more fully their information sources for deeper evaluation that better meets their own rhetorical goals. In an interactive presentation, the presenters will explore how rhetoric and composition theories have the potential—with creative and strategic thinking—to work in synergy with the Framework, make information literacy more authentic and meaningful, and develop true lifelong learners.

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Disciplinary Thinking in Research Processes

Students often feel like outsiders in their courses.  Their professors speak a different "language" and have different values.  If scholarship is a "Conversation," students need to grasp what forces and cultures drive scholars within a discipline to converse the way they do.  This slide presentation lays out the main features of disciplinary culture, the basis of all conversations.  If students can learn to "read" disciplines effectively, they will be better able to grasp the nature of conversations as they do their research.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Multidisciplinary

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License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-ShareAlike License CC-BY-SA

Collegiate Research: More than Google

Drawing on the frames "Scholarship as conversation" and "Information creation as a process," this lesson was created for students in a university-wide freshman success seminar.  An instruction librarian and writing faculty collaborated to create the lesson under the auspices of the university's Center for Academic Services and Advising, which coordinates the seminar.

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

The Hip Hop Lib Guide

The Hip Hop LibGuide is a scholarly comprehensive online resource about Hip Hop Information Literacy and the artform in general. The libguide has been developed to engage novice, intermediate, and skilled learners that are interested in learning more about the culture, social issues, and artistic components of Hip Hop.

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