materials members federated search  GO

advanced search materials | advanced search members

• Join MERLOT/
• Login to MERLOT

IL/ICT Literacy News Bites

• October 5, 2009: President Obama declares October to be National Information Literacy Awareness Month!
   

  “Every day, we are inundated with vast amounts of information.  A 24-hour news cycle and thousands of global television and radio networks, coupled with an immense array of online resources, have challenged our long-held perceptions of information manage­ment. Rather than merely possessing data, we must also learn the skills necessary to acquire, collate, and evaluate information for any situation… Though we may know how to find the information we need, we must also know how to evaluate it. Over the past decade, we have seen a crisis of authenticity emerge.  The ability to seek, find, and decipher information can be applied to countless life decisions, whether financial, medical, educational, or technical… This month, we dedicate ourselves to increasing information literacy awareness so that all citizens understand its vital importance.”  (President Barack Obama)

  
  

  This was an initiative of the National Forum on Information Literacy (http://infolit.org <http://www.infolit.org> ), supported by Senator Kerry and the late Senator Kennedy. Lana Jackman, President of the National Forum, deserves much credit for leading the effort.

  Visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Proclamation-National-Information-Literacy-Awareness-Month/ for the full proclamation.
  
  

• October 5, 2009:  Social Networking News:

• Understanding the Psychology of Twitter.  Psychology Today.  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-tao-innovation/200903/understanding-the-psychology-twitter

• Revealing the People Defining Social Networks.  Brian Solis.  PR 2.0.  http://www.briansolis.com/2009/10/revealing-the-people-defining-social-networks/

 

• October 2, 2009:  APA style issues revealed.
  

  The Information Literacy (ILI) listserv has been abuzz with discussions about how to cite DOIs for articles and the many errors with the first printing of the APA style manual.  In case CSU woes, furloughs, etc. have kept you from keeping abreast of this, here are some helpful URLs:
  

• APA Style Blog:  http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/

• APA Style Blog entry on DOIs and URLs:  http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/09/dois-and-urls-special-focus-next-week.html (note:  see also links for DOI Primer  on this page)

• Publication Manual of APA, 6th ed., Corrections to first Printing(July 2009): http://supp.apa.org/style/pubman-reprint-corrections-for-2e.pdf

 

• September, 2009: Catherine Haras, CSU Los Angeles, has been selected to participate in the national iCritical Thinking Standard Setting Panel this fall. She, along with representatives from K-12, and workforce training arenas, will spend two days reviewing the test to recommend a passing score on the "iCritical Thinking" certification exam, Congratulations Catherine on being chosen to represent the CSU! For more about the iCritical Thinking certificate exam, visit:
  http://www.certiport.com/Portal/desktopdefault.aspx?page=common/pagelibrary/icritical_thinking.htm
  
  
• September 15, 2009: Congratulations to Monica Fusich, Information Literacy Instruction Coordinator at CSU Fresno. She is featured in the September, 2009 issue of C&RL News in the article "Assignment Research Calculator: Designing and implementing a customized product to reach your students." Visit http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2009/sep/arc.cfm to read the article on CSU Fresno's innovative project.
  
  
• CARL Research Award Winners!  Jennifer Quinonez-Skinner, Danielle Skaggs, and Luiz Mendes, library faculty at CSUN’s Oviatt Library won the Carl Research Award with their proposal entitled “Subjecting the Catalog to Assessment:  Subjects vs. Tags.”  Congratulations!
  
  

• May 28, 2009:  Importance of ICT Digital Literacy recognized by Governor Schwarzenegger!
  
  With Executive Order S-06-09, Governor Schwarzenegger called attention to and supported the need for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Digital Literacy.  The order stated that ICT Digital Literacy “is a defining component of California’s competitiveness for a knowledge-based economy and is growing in importance to attract capital investment that will generate higher quality jobs.” 

  The executive order calls for the establishment of a Leadership Council to be chaired by the Chief Information Officer.  The Leadership Council will establish an Advisory Committee with representation from educational, private and public-purpose private-sector organizations.  These two bodies will work an ICT Literacy Digital Literacy Policy “to ensure that California residents are digitally literate.”  Visit http://gov.ca.gov/executive-order/12393 for the actual order.
  
  

• CSU Fresno Provost’s “Technology in Education” Award awarded to Monica Fusich!  Monica, Coordinator of Instruction and Outreach Services, is recipient of this prestigious provost’s award.  Monica is committed to developing and implementing technological solutions to advance information literacy on her campus.  Congratulations!
  
  
• C&RL News article by CSUN library faculty!  See the April, 2009, (vol. 70, no. 4 ) issue  of C&RL News for a valuable  article written by library faculty Karin Duran, Eric P. Garcia, and Mara L. Houdyshell.  Take a look at “From the inside out and the outside in:  The academic library interview process in a tight economy” for useful tips on interviewing in academic libraries.

•  Congratulations to Christy Stevens, Cal Poly Pomona, on being elected as ACRL Instruction Section’s Member at Large. 

•  2009 Horizon Report

 

Greetings,

As the semester/quarter winds down, if you haven’t already, take a look at the 2009 Horizon Report located at:  http://www.educause.edu/ELI/2009HorizonReport/163616.  Published by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and Educause’s Learning Initiative (ELI), it identifies and describes 6 areas of emerging technology.  Per the ELI website, the areas of emerging technology cited for 2009 are:

   •  Mobiles (i.e., mobile devices)
   • Cloud computing
   • Geo-everything (i.e., geo-tagging)
   • The personal web
   • Semantic-aware applications
   • Smart objects

Each section of the report provides live Web links to examples and additional readings.

Gerry McKiernan’s blog, “Friends:  Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services” contains a nice outline of the report.  You can view it at:  http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2009/01/blog-post.html

---

November 10, 2008:  A must have for your professional collection: From CSU Northridge librarian, Lynn Lampert’s recent book Combating Student Plagiarism: an Academic Librarian's Guide, 2008 is available via Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.  Here is a brief summary:  “The book provides up-to-date overviews of student plagiarism, examples of ways in which librarians can educate students through proven instructional techniques, collaboration approaches and outreach methods, and discusses common problems and questions librarians may encounter when incorporating current anti-plagiarism instruction into their instructional services. Topics include: role of the academic librarian in combating student plagiarism, discipline-based approaches to combating student plagiarism, information literacy techniques and faculty/librarian collaboration.”

November 1, 2008:  Missed the Internet Librarian 2008 conference or want to relive the moment?  Presentations are available at the Internet Librarian 2008 conference website. Congratulations to CSU presenters:  Patrick Newell, CSU Fresno. “Digital Preservation Solutions”, Shannon Staley, SJSU, “SharePoint for Libraries:  Streamlining Your Intranet Management”, and Tiffini Travis, CSULB, “Creative Training:  Blending Technological Tools and Learning Styles.

October 23, 2008:  “I don’t look at it as “getting on the Internet.”  The Internet is a part of life.  It’s a lifestyle” – Undergraduate student.

This is the opening quote from the ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology Abstract:  “This 2008 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study is based on quantitative data from a spring 2008 survey of 27,317 freshmen and seniors at 90 four-year institutions and eight two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 75 students at four institutions; and analysis of qualitative data from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2008 study also includes a special focus on student participation in social networking sites.” See Gerry McKiernan’s blog for his profiled report.

CSU News Bites is a place for you to share your announcements, conference presentations, research, recent publications, campus activities, good books, articles, blog entries, and MORE! Send items to Ying Liu.

Using the iSkills (formerly the ICT Literacy Assessment) Assessment in your campus projects

Systemwide Library Initiatives in the Chancellor’s Office has purchased test keys for both the Core (12th grade and incoming Freshmen) and Advanced (Sophomores – Seniors) versions of the assessment instrument to be used in campus assessment and evaluation projects. The CSU Board of Trustees were briefed on the CSU’s involvement with ICT Literacy and the iSkills assessment at the November, 2007 meeting.  Also, it is still being considered as one of three assessment tools, along with the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and the National Survey of Student Engagement. (NSSE).   For more information or to access the test keys, please contact Stephanie Brasley ( sbrasley@calstate.edu).

CARL Conference Presentations – As those who attended the CARL conference in Irvine can attest, it was a great success!  You may review a presentation, or check out what went on if you weren’t able to attend by visiting the CARL Conference website and clicking on After the Conference. 

Do you have a relevant conference to share? Please send the information to Ying Liu (yliu@calstate.edu).

top of page