13. Common Learning Requirements

Information literacy is an important subset of digital citizenship. Information literacy course learning objectives appear in First Year Seminar, Oral Communication, Written Communication, and Writing in the Major. Information literacy is defined as the ability to ethically locate, evaluate and manage credible, effective, and diverse information sources used in academic and professional endeavors.

Through their coursework and with the support of Messiah University librarians, students develop a range of information literacy skills:

1. Orientation: Efficiently navigate through spaces and request assistance
   1. Identify library spaces and their purposes
   2. Navigate and find basic content on the library website
   3. Contact a librarian for research assistance
   4. Identify liaison librarian
   5. Locate a print book using Library of Congress (LoC) call number system
2. Determine the Information Need
   1. Differentiate among information types
   2. Identify information type needed based on research topic, discipline and personal knowledge level of topic
   3. Identify similarities and differences between Primo and specific databases
   4. Deliberately choose databases based on information need
   5. Describe importance of diverse voices and sources for research
   6. Synthesize diverse voices and sources to form unique arguments
   7. Generalize and apply information from sources to support unique arguments
3. Find Information
   1. Create search strategies including identifying appropriate search terms
   2. Combine search terms with Boolean logic to narrow or expand search results
   3. Revise search strategies based on terms found in the database or relevant sources
   4. Filter search to appropriately focus search results list
   5. Locate and access sources in library collection
   6. Request sources not in the library collection through interlibrary loan
4. Evaluate Information
   1. Determine if a source is credible
   2. Determine if a source is scholarly
   3. Determine if a source is appropriate for research topic, genre, discipline
   4. Identify and avoid predatory publishers
   5. Identify misinformation, disinformation and bias
   6. Assess data manipulation in research methodology
5. Cite and Manage Information  
   1. Identify citation elements to use with appropriate citation style
   2. Determine source type based on citation
   3. Create correct citation in appropriate style
   4. Decide whether to use citation management software
   5. Identify shortcomings of citation management software
   6. Create appropriate file structures in secure cloud locations for file storage and efficient retrieval
6. Ethically Use Information
   1. Describe scholarly research as an ongoing conversation over time using credible and scholarly sources
   2. Acknowledge and cite sources correctly to avoid intentional and unintentional plagiarism
   3. Respect copyright and intellectual property
   4. Ethically create, use and share information based on disciplinary standards and guidelines (ex FERPA, HIPAA, IRB)