What is a Graduation Standard?
The Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees has instituted graduation standards for all Associate's and Bachelor's degree candidates. The object of these standards is to provide assurance that VSC graduates have certain essential skills for success in the workplace and in life in general. These standards are now being phased in.
What is the Information Literacy program?
The Information Literacy Program at Lyndon State College is a response to the Vermont State College’s Board of Trustees implementation of graduation standards in information literacy. These are considered the basic skills needed to help students succeed in college-level coursework.
At the Vermont State Colleges, it means that upon graduation students will be able to:
1. Define a research topic and the information needed.
- Understand the process for stating a research question.
- Differentiate between types and depth of information sources.
- Understand the limitations of information availability.
- Define information producers, providers, and formats of information required for a topic.
2. Use a variety of traditional and electronic resources to collect and organize that information.
- Select appropriate resources (experts, printed, online) to navigate the information environment.
- Formulate a research strategy.
- Use a variety of techniques to search catalogs, indexes, and full text databases.
- Record and synthesize results of search as evidenced in written work.
3. Evaluate the information and its sources critically.
- Identify the purpose for which the information was produced and its intended audience.
- Investigate qualifications and reputation of authors and publishers. Verify information.
- Locate and examine critical reviews of information sources.
- Recognize cultural, physical, temporal, or other contexts within which information was created, and consider those contexts in evaluation of sources.
4. Acknowledge and document the sources needed.
- Differentiate between one’s own and others’ ideas.
- Properly acknowledge and assign authorship.
- Select an appropriate documentation style and use it consistently.
How is information literacy taught?
Most instruction occurs in conjunction with first-year English Composition classes, specifically ENG 1051 and ENG 1052. Sessions include a library tour, and instruction on finding and evaluating books, articles, and websites. Librarians work closely with English instructors to address such issues as plagiarism, developing a topic, and citations.
Librarians do most of the instruction in cooperation with English Composition instructors. In addition, faculty members in academic departments are encouraged to integrate information literacy concepts into their coursework so that your fluency will increase as you progress toward your degree.
TILT: The Information Literacy Tutorial is available from the library website to help you familiarize yourself with the concepts involved. It can also be a refresher before you take the test. TILT can include quizzes to test yourself, but the tutorial has to be embedded in a Blackboard course to make them available.
Incorporating Information Literacy into the Curriculum: a Faculty Guide was created to provide instructors with information about literacy proficiencies, with strategies and suggestions for assignments that incorporate them.