Overview

Work on the Mellon Information Literacy Grant began with a department retreat in December 2000 with Charlie Priore, Carleton Science Librarian. The retreat resulted in a draft statement of information literacy in Geology. That statement has been refined during the remaining 3 years of the grant.

Further department discussions during the grant period have confirmed information literacy as a major skill area for the department. Each faculty member has committed, in his or her own way, to pursuing this goal in classes for the major.

Activities under the Grant

• Discussion of information literacy skills and incorporation in geology curriculum at full department meetings. Faculty acknowledged the tension between the goals of information literacy and the goal to have students collect and interpret their own data. When students collect and interpret their own data, they bring a better sensibility to the task of reading the primary literature.
• Discussions of expectations for information literacy in comps proposals and execution with seniors and juniors.
• Worked with reference librarians, Charlie Priore and Colleen McFarland to develop a survey instrument to assess geology students' information literacy skills at the beginning of an Introductory Geology course. Results from September 2002 include:
  • Most students c an distinguish from a list of magazines and journals which articles are appropriate for a search of scientific literature on tectonics.
  • Fewer than half of the students were confident that they knew how and when to cite outside sources.
  • One-quarter of the students said they were "very confident" in their ability to use an academic library.
  • Most students said they would begin doing research either by "searching the library catalog" or "asking a faculty member for help"
• A student researcher, funded by the Mellon grant, completed a study of all 2003 comps papers and selected papers from previous years (2000, 1995, 1989, 1984, and 1979). Preliminary results include:
  • Average number of sources cited is fairly constant in the four earlier years (from 19 to 27 per paper) and is markedly higher in 2003 (38 per paper).
  • The percentage of total cited sources represented by journals has increased from about 48% in 1979 through 2000 to about 64% in 2003.
  • Citations of journal articles acquired electronically went from zero in 1995 to 23% of total sources in 2000 and 17% of total sources in 2003.
  • Many students make errors in citations, including non-correspondence between text and references cited, lack of crucial information in citations, and incorrect formatting and spelling.

Outcomes

• Specific information literacy objectives and assignments incorporated into geology courses. Assignments were developed and revised for Mineralogy, Petrology, Introductory Environmental Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentary Geology and Tectonics.
• EndNote instruction is offered to all senior geology majors each winter term as part of the Senior Seminar.
• Information literacy, related library instruction, and assignments requiring searching literature and data are most common in the non-intro courses. The 200-300 level courses will be the focus of information literacy initiatives.
• Clarified expectations for literature references in the comps proposal (see the Comps Proposal Criteria).
• Beginning with the class of 2003, geology students submit their papers as .pdf documents with EndNote libraries that incorporate the References Cited section.
• Students wrote informal reflection pieces about what they learned from specific information literacy assignments. Students in several Geomorphology classes commented that the assignment using Web of Science was difficult but ultimately valuable.

Definition of Information Literacy in Geology

Information-literate geologists should be proficient at using the full range of information sources in the discipline, including:

• Monographs and books
• Periodicals
• Government documents, including print, microfilm and microfiche (published and unpublished)
• Topographic, geologic and other kinds of maps
• Field guides
• Reference materials
• Electronic materials, including:
• Web-based bibliographic tools
• Web searching
• Data

Information-literate geologists should be able to search and locate these documents, manage the results of the searches, and also learn to evaluate the sources they locate.

Information-literate geologists should be able to frame a research question, determine whether or not it is answerable and determine where one would get the information to answer it, through literature or new research. An example of an unanswerable question in geology because of lack of data is: How does the sea-bottom topography of the Gulf of Maine change after each storm and trawling event?

The need to use outside data and documents (to put one's own research into context and acknowledge prior work) drives information literacy. Information-literate geologists should use established procedures to cite and acknowledge sources of information.

Information literacy is one of the six major skill areas for Carleton geology majors (the others are "Engaging the World," "Interpretation and Critical Evaluation," "Documentation and Communication," "Quantitation," and "Experimentation and Simulation"). Information literacy in geology also helps students to understand how the profession of geology works.