AFN495 Senior Seminar is a new course. It fulfills the Information Literacy degree requirement. I have been able to incorporate the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education to strengthen the course and its prescribed objectives.

My project is the design of a semester long critical policy review for EVS 364 Natural Resource Policy. Students will engage in the project throughout the semester to explore a natural resource policy in depth, while finding, evaluating, and using a diverse set of sources.

RSP 421 Information Literacy in respiratory care is a course that is required for graduation in the new OAP respiratory care program. This course is seven weeks long. The final project for the respiratory care program is a research project in respiratory care disease management. This course is an important component of the project. My project was to design the entire course. I am submitting the syllabus and the course schedule. This course is slated to be taught in Summer.

I chose to revise and expand the final paper assignment for my PAR115 Intro to Ethics course, which I teach each semester at UNCW. I mostly engaged with the Scholarship as Conversation IL frame.

The goal of this assignment is for students to experience and understand the multi-tiered process of creating information and participating in a scholarly conversation, including choosing a suitably narrow paper focus, understanding the scholarly and topical limitations of this project, situating one’s paper against the background of existing scholarship, evaluating secondary sources used in one’s paper, and inserting oneself within an existing scholarly debate.

The students write a philosophical paper approximately 1,600 words in length. Their work on this paper is a process that involves the following stages (involving multiple grades):
1. Selection of paper prompt (not graded; see below for prompt ideas);
2. Submission of an outline, thesis statement, and scholarly sources/“references” (graded);
3. Submission of a literature review, including your explanation how you will situate yourself within the existing scholarship (graded);
4. Optional: Submission of a paper draft (not graded);
5. Submission of the final version of the paper (graded);

Why does the Scholarship as Conversation frame particularly suit my PAR115 course and its final paper assignment?
• My PAR115 Introduction to Ethics class involves a writing component: students are assigned a final research paper.
• The process of developing their papers is broken down by me into several stages (most of them graded separately): choosing a paper topic, developing the main thesis of the paper, selecting academic texts that will go into the bibliography and be cited in the paper, creating a literature review and a commentary of one’s position within it, planning and outlining the main sections and arguments of the paper, drafting the paper, and revising the paper into its final version.
• This process helps the students understand the multi-tiered process of creating information, including choosing a suitably narrow paper focus, understanding the scholarly and topical limitations of this project, situating one’s paper against the background of existing scholarship, evaluating secondary sources used in one’s paper, and inserting oneself within an existing scholarly debate.

Implementing the Scholarship as Conversation frame into the PAR115 final paper assignment:
• Students participate in classroom discussions, extending these discussions to informal venues, and reading texts already makes the students participate in the scholarship conversation.
• Students see themselves as taking active part in the scholarly conversation – they see themselves as contributors to scholarship rather than only consumers of it.
• Students understand their point of entrance: what do they already know/have experienced?
• Students understand that they are not only summarizing the literature and existing perspectives on the topic, but are adding their own point of view too.
• Students are required to make use of a number of academic sources, not just one or two – thereby taking note of the ongoing conversation and existing disagreements. They seek out, and understand, many different perspectives on the issue at question.
• Students learn to be open to being wrong: in scholarly discourse, participants must suspend judgment on the value of a particular piece of scholarship until the larger context and other points of view is better understood.
• Students recognize that the scholarly conversation will not be completed with their paper and their perspective, but will keep going.
• Students recognize that they will only make a modest, limited contribution. These constrains reflect their relatively introductory knowledge level and the assignment structure.

Assignment stages that reflect the Scholarship as Conversation idea:
• Selection of paper prompt.
• Submission of an outline, thesis statement, and scholarly sources/“references” – graded.
• Submission of a literature review, including the student’s explanation how they will situate themselves within the existing scholarship – graded.
• Submission of a paper draft (optional) and the final version of the paper – graded.

This assignment will help students improve on how to document and reflect on a research process with the use of library resources, and also prepare them for writing researched argumentative essay.

This project presents a set of in-class exercises to be completed over the course of 6 days in an advanced undergraduate or graduate course. The focus is to improve understanding of review papers and how they can be used to identify research gaps in a field of study. An extension of this project would be to use the research gaps as topics for student research projects also completed in the same semester. I plan to use these exercises in my Wildland Fire Ecology class (EVS 414/514), but they would work well in many UNCW classes.

This project aims to help students in Leadership, Policy, and Advocacy in Early Childhood Program (LPAEC) at WCE develop a researcher mindset and better approach, understand and implement their master level action research project. An introductory Module will be developed and incorporated into EDN 551: Advocacy research 1, as the first Module in the course, before students are required to start their proposal (which is currently what happens in this course). Students become familiar with designing and proposing a research project around an area of need in early childhood education in this course. Students are required to implement the proposed project during EDN 567: Advocacy Research project II. By completing the introductory Module, students will be able to apply and synthesize their knowledge to create their action research proposal in EDN 551 and implement the actual study in EDN 567. This project aims to smooth the transition from being a practitioner to being a researcher and help students develop a researcher mindset.

As a culmination of their political science education, students will be asked to complete an independent research paper in the style of an academic journal. This assignment is required in all PLS 401 course sections. To emphasize information literacy skills, this assignment contains a bifurcated rubric.

This multi-step research project guides students through topic selection, identifying reputable primary and secondary sources, the process of writing a first draft, and revising the draft into a final paper by incorporating feedback and engaging in self-reflection.

Students engage in a multi-stage process of identifying connections between sources, reflecting on their understanding of the scholarly discourse around a given topic, and grouping sources into themes before writing draft of part of their literature review that synthesizes the literature in each theme.

This project is intended for ENG 103 or ENG 201 students. The goal is to encourage students to think more critically about not only the scholarly works they may use in a research paper, but also how the scholars themselves are part of the conversation. Students are familiar with discussing source credibility of popular sources (looking at “About Us” pages, discussing the author’s blurb in the tagline, etc.) but they rarely examine the authors of scholarly articles because the article is peer-reviewed. I am not downplaying the peer review process, but I want students to think more critically about the author’s research interests and other publications as well as the journal itself to provide a more comprehensive look at how his/her/their work fits into the conversation.

https://spark.adobe.com/page/doyrHoYZqtnKW/

Students are asked to either:
I. Analyze a depiction of a real-world religion in media.
II. Analyze a depiction of a fictional religion in media.

Utilizing questions and prompts drawn from Digitial Literacy Methodology and Religious Studies Methodology. Students can analyze media in a bevy of forms, ranging from traditional texts to newer formats such as video games.

This assignment asks students to consider how higher education, research, and publishing can be complicit in producing particular representations surrounding where knowledge and power is located. It gives them a chance to ‘write back’ against these trends and engage in decolonizing and reclaiming the meanings of ‘academic scholarship,’ particularly in the context of Western research. Students are asked to complete the outline of a small-scale literature review on a topic of their choice through a mixture of ‘canonical’ and non-traditional sources. They then reflect on the existence of dominant discourses and the influence of dominant groups in what/who we research. Can 'mainstream' research be of value for the issues it raises, even when academics are removed from the communities they study? How can researchers ensure knowledge is shared in relevant representations? What should a decolonized research project look like?

The project is based on ENG 319 Document Design course in which students researched and developed interruption maps for the administrative assistants from three CAS departments. The purpose of the maps was to identify and understand interruptions in task flows of these users. The students interviewed administrative assistants from the departments of Communication Studies, Sociology and Criminology, and Psychology and studied individual event-logs of interruptions, which were recorded by the users, to create these maps. The students further developed prototypes of interruption visualizations and conducted usability studies with the users before creating the final version of the maps.

Project includes a lecture aimed at stimulating discussions about how information has value, how value has multiple meanings, and how marketing efforts contribute to the communication and dissemination of information.

This Information Literacy (IL) Project was written for PAR 225: Women and Religion. The project will be implemented in an online version of the class in Fall 2019 and modified for on-campus sections of the class in Spring 2020.

PAR 225 is a religious studies course that examines women’s religious practices and the construction of gender, power, and agency in American history from the 1600s to 2000s.

PAR 225 satisfies the following requirements:

• Satisfies University Studies II: Approaches and Perspectives/Living in Our Diverse Nation;
• Partially satisfies University Studies II: Approaches and Perspectives/Historical and Philosophical Approaches;
• Partially satisfies University Studies IV: Building Competencies/Information Literacy;
• Satisfies a Core Course in the Women and Gender Studies Minor;
• Satisfies an Elective Course for PAR majors and minors with an emphasis in Religion.

This IL Project introduces students to primary research, the importance of primary research in the field of women and religion, and how to find, analyze and evaluate primary sources about women and religion. This project is concentrated on reframing the common misconceptions (among historians and students) that women have not been significant actors in American religious history and that women are rarely, if ever, found in primary sources pertaining to American religious history. To these ends, the IL Project contains five components (interspersed with other course readings and assignments) that build over the course of the semester and focus on primary research and primary source evaluation.

Component 1: Searching for Women in American Religious History
Component 2: How to Define, Find, and Cite Women and Religion Sources
Component 3: How Authority is Constructed, Contextual, and Gendered in Primary Sources
Component 4: Finding Women and Religion Archival Reports
Component 5: Evaluating Women and Religion in Primary Sources Final Paper

See the attached document for details about these components and the IL Project.

The North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards (NCPTS) detail the requisite knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teachers in the 21st century. As such, they guide teacher preparation, including the planned learning experiences and assignments in methods courses.

In LIC 501, students will co-design an integrated curriculum unit for elementary learners aligned with academic content standards and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, the SDGs outline 17 goals to ensure a sustainable future for all. The interconnected nature of the SDGs, from eliminating hunger and poverty to promoting health and clean energy, reflect the natural linkages between the core content areas of English Language Arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Students learn about and take action on the SDGs in classrooms throughout the world, thereby empowering children as agents of change in their local communities and beyond.

This assignment serves to build students' content knowledge and information literacy skills by (a) investigating a standards-aligned issue of local and global significance; (b) curating diverse trustworthy, relevant sources of information relative to the curricular focus; and (c) writing a research brief outlining critical content a teacher should know prior to instructional planning.

My project is a research/writing assignment to be started in class and completed as homework; the assignment will result in a "braided" or segmented essay--a student-friendly approach to writing creative nonfiction, which relies on discrete segments and makes meaning via accretion and juxtaposition. I've designed this project with several short prompts that will help students quickly hone in on concrete research tasks, each with a varying degree of flexibility regarding subject matter. I've done this in the hope of getting students to experience early on in the semester the ways in which research can galvanize the creative writing process, making that process richer and producing richer work. The project will also necessitate student investigation of various modes of locating data and incorporating that data into their own creative work. This assignment should lay the groundwork for wholly student-identified, research-based projects of their own to be undertaken later in the semester.

The focus of my IL fellows project is on authority is constructed and contextual in my SOC292 Applied Research course. This is a newly created course that is part of a larger initiative to incorporate community-based research across the sociology curriculum. This course is designed as a lower level introduction to applied research methods intended to get students involved in community-based research early in their college careers.

The students in SOC292 will be partnering with the Wilmington Police Department (WPD) to work on a community-based research project that focuses on social determinants of crime. The overarching goal of this community-based research project is to identify why the crime rate in one district in Wilmington is so much higher than others. The students will collect data and map community resources to overlay with crime data for that district to begin to address this research question. Through incorporating information literacy into this project, I hope to help students to identify and see the value in multiple sources of authority and how using multiple sources of data can answer important and relevant research questions and help create policy and social change.

Measurable objectives
Students should:
1) seek out multiple types of authority and be able to identify the strengths and limitations of each.
2) develop an appreciation for multiple sources and a curiosity for comparison through demonstrating the value in each different type of information
3) identify biases they hold and acknowledge how those biases impact how they interpret information
4) find traditional sources of authority on determinants of crime as well as non-traditional sources including information from community members, physical space, and existing documentation from police departments.

Activity
1. After providing a basic introduction to the class project, I will ask the students to define different types of authority related to the social determinants of crime (specifically in southeastern NC). I anticipate that they will identify the following: scholars, police officers, elected officials, business owners, community members, and those engaging in crime within the community.
a. After students have come up with their own lists in pairs we will share as a class and write a complete list on the board.
b. The complete list will inform the types of authority the students will use for their community-based research project.

2. After defining the different types of authority, I am going to have the students identify the types of information each type could potentially provide (e.g. first-hand account, crime data, etc.) and in what format (verbal account, newspapers, report, etc.).
a. Again, students will first do this in pairs and then share with the class, comparing what each of the groups came up with and the range in types of information available on the topic.
b. The results of this conversation will be integrated into the lectures on research methods and research designs throughout the semester and provide opportunities to revisit the different types of authority throughout the semester.

3. Students will then be asked to identify the best way to access this information
and have students identify interested parties that produce information on social determinants of crime. Students will be required to identify three interested parties that produce information on the social determinants of crime (in Wilmington or Southeastern NC) and then search for that information. They will document their search process and will discuss the process and what they have found in class.

Students will use information they’ve come up for each of these three exercises described above to construct report on what is known on social determinants of crime (from multiple sources of authority) and create a plan to gather additional information through mapping.

Assessment: I will use two forms of assessment for this project a reflection with prompts and a knowledge survey both before and after the exercises. The reflection will touch on knowledge practices but will mostly focus on dispositions while the knowledge survey will mostly address knowledge practices.

Example reflection prompts:
Think back to your beginning reflection and one of the goals of applied learning in the community: to gather information from different types of sources. We wanted you to learn to “question traditional notions of granting authority and recognize the value of diverse ideas and worldviews” (Association of College and Research Libraries 2016). Authority in this context means the information creators’ expertise and credibility. What did you learn from working directly with the Wilmington Police Department that is different from what you learned from academic sources? Why do you think those differences exist? (adapted from reflection prompt from Julia Waity, Spring 2020).

What can different sources of information be good for? For example, when would you use information from academic articles about social determinants of crime compared with the data you gathered from within Wilmington? (adapted from reflection prompt from Julia Waity, Spring 2020).

Looking back at prior courses and projects, can you identify ways in which you now think about authority differently now? Are there sources of authority that you feel are often left out of academic coursework?

In reconsidering bias, do you have a different understanding of bias? Are there ways in which you have identified how bias may impact how you and others interpret information?

Example knowledge survey questions:

In a knowledge survey, students are asked to indicate their level of confidence in answering a question (Nilson 2013). Students will be asked for example:
To follow are a series of questions related to information literacy and research. Language from the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education was used to construct these questions (Association of College and Research Libraries 2016). You do not need to answer the question… you simply need to indicate how confident you would be in answering the question (3) Very confident, (2) Somewhat confident, (1) Not at all confident.
1) Define different types of authority
2) Identify strengths and weaknesses of different types of authority
3) State a specific research question and describe different types of authority for that specific topic/question
4) Determine the credibility of a source and provide information on the elements that might temper this credibility.


References
Association for College and Research Libraries. 2015. Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Chicago: ACRL.

Nilson, Linda. 2013. Creating Self-Regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students? Self-Awareness and Learning Skills. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

This project is intended for English 201 students, who complete a research project that often begins with an annotated bibliography. This annotated bibliography is "spatialized" in the sense that it requires students to position their sources relative to one another in a Prezi or other presentation software. Scholarly sources available through databases are "deeper" or lower on the page than popular sources; sources that are frequently cited are larger than other sources, and sources that are "in conversation" with one another are close to each other.

I revamped the syllabus for GGY/GLY 495 to build upon two Information Literacy frames: Research as Enquiry and Searching as Strategic Exploration. The main goals for this course (senior seminar) is for the students to develop a research question, read pertinent peer-reviewed literature, and develop and give a final presentation. I have substantially increased the IL content by further developing the iterative process of formulating a research question and then how to conduct peer-reviewed research to address a specific question.

This project introduces the language of the IL frames to students, then uses these frames to complete several assignments over the course of the semester: an annotated bibliography (including preliminary and revised versions), program notes, a literature review, and a research proposal. Several reflections and several smaller "scaffolding" tasks are included.

In this brief report, I unpack each of the 6 frames in the ACRL's Framework for Information Literacy and offer my own interpretation of how they relate to political science. This report is useful for students and faculty within the discipline in order to underscore the importance of information literacy specific to the scientific study of political phenomena.