These slides are from a workshop run at a Teaching and Learning Conference at the University of Leicester, UK, in January 2013. Slides have had minor tweaks to correct a couple of errors and clarify one point.

1. Learning & Teaching Conference, Leicester 2013
Helping students develop their
information literacy
Dr Chris Willmott
Dept of Biochemistry,
University of Leicester
cjrw2@le.ac.uk
University of
Leicester

2. Background
• There was a time, not SO long ago…
• The internet provides an apparently bottomless pool
of information
• There are concerns that students may not possess
the skills to appraise the merits of online sources 1,2
• Information literacy
• Digital literacy
http://tinyurl.com/indexmedicus

3. Activity
• Students are asked to evaluate eight online sources
• One week before group tutorial, sent instructions,
plus:
• File listing top eight hits on a “Google search”
• Link to proforma for recording evaluation of the
sources
• Student complete activity in their own time prior to
the tutorial
• Ensures they can work at own pace
• Enables me to collate cohort response

4. Activity

5. Activity
• For each source students are asked to consider:
• The “academic quality” of the source
• Veracity?
• Credibility?
• Would person marking your work think that it is
an appropriate source document for the purpose?
• 1 (low) to 10 (high)

6. Activity
• For each source students are asked to consider:
• The “suitability” and “relevance” for two assignments
• A first year essay on the role of mitochondria in
energy production
• A final year dissertation on the role of
mitochondria in ageing
• For each category 5-point Likert scale offered
• Open-text box to give short explanation of their
reasoning

7. Source 1
• Mean student rating*: 7.7
• Tutor rating: 8
• What is it?
Chapter from Molecular
Biology of the Cell
• Why is this example included?
Alerts students to fact some major texts are online
Raises point that textbooks = good, but not pinnacle
* 2010-12 (n=299)

8. Source 1
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Suitable
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Relevant
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Not Sure – textbooks unlikely to play major role in
final year
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Probably Irrelevant – cursory mention of topic

9. Source 2
• Mean student rating*: 6.1
• Tutor rating: 4
• What is it?
Wikipedia
• Why is this example included?
First port of call for casual research
Students need to be aware of differences of opinion
Raising notion of Wikipedia as a portal not endpoint
* 2010-12 (n=299)

10. Source 2
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Not Sure – Definitely Unsuitable? who authored?
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Probably Relevant – some relevant level content, but…
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Probably Unsuitable – raise notion of “portal”, “good”
Wikipedia pages are well referenced
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Not Sure

11. Source 3
• Mean student rating*: 5.3
• Tutor rating: 2
• What is it?
Essay from “papermill”
• Why is this example included?
Important to raise educational concerns (and quality
concerns) regarding sub-contraction services
[Worry – alerting students to their existence?]
* 2010-12 (n=299)

12. Source 3
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Unsuitable – academic dishonesty issues
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Not Sure – title almost identical, but can it be trusted?
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Definitely Unsuitable
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Definitely Irrelevant

13. Source 4
• Mean student rating*: 8.3
• Tutor rating: 9
• What is it?
A short review article in an
important journal
• Why is this example included?
An example of a top peer-reviewed journal
An opportunity to discuss peer review and validation?
* 2010-12 (n=299)

14. Source 4
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Probably Unsuitable or Definitely Suitable? – tougher
than expected for students at Yr1. Setting reasonable
expectations?
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Probably Irrelevant – energy production mentioned,
but focus is on ageing
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Definitely Suitable – perfect for job
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Definitely Relevant

15. Source 5
• Mean student rating*: 8.7
• Tutor rating: 9
• What is it?
A research article from a
top journal
• Why is this example included?
Raise differences between “primary literature” and
review articles
Good point to discuss citation scores?

16. Source 5
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Unsuitable
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Irrelevant
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Definitely Suitable – perfect for job
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Definitely Relevant

17. Source 6
• Mean student rating*: 6.8
• Tutor rating: 6
• What is it?
Educational website with
peer-reviewed articles
• Why is this example included?
A “good” website – run by American Institute of
Biological Sciences
* 2010-12 (n=299)

18. Source 6
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Not Sure – claims of “peer review” but likely to be
sceptically received by markers
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Probably Irrelevant – not main thrust of article
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Definitely Unsuitable
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Probably Relevant – topic aligns, but…

19. Source 7
• Mean student rating*: 4.7
• Tutor rating: 3
• What is it?
CBS News website
• Why is this example included?
The title is alluringly close to
one of the set assignments
Written by staff writer “Jamie Holguin”, no evidence of
scientific training
* 2010-12 (n=299)

20. Source 7
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Probably Unsuitable – an illustration for introduction?
Not authoritative on matters of scientific fact
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Definitely Irrelevant
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Probably Unsuitable – as above
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Not Sure – material is on same topic, but…

21. Source 8
• Mean student rating*: 5.2
• Tutor rating: 5
• What is it?
TED talk
• Why is this example included?
Raising notion that not all sources are written
(though a transcript is available)
* 2010-12 (n=299)

22. Source 8
• Suitability for 1st year essay on energy production?
Probably Unsuitable – videos and podcasts can be
valuable, probably not this one!
• Relevance for 1st year essay on energy production?
Probably Irrelevant
• Suitability for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Probably Unsuitable – as above
• Relevance for Final year dissertation on ageing?
Probably Relevant – concepts under discussion are
relevant to dissertation, but concern over authority

23. Comments at close of tutorial
• Reminder that although internet useful tool for
accessing fantastic resources, other resources
• Library offers access to books and expertise of staff

24. Summary of outcomes

25. Evaluation
• 2010-2012, 169 students completed anonymous
evaluation of activity
• 91% of students gave positive feedback:
This was a useful exercise
Agreed (56%)
Strongly Agreed (35%)

26. Evaluation
• “In some instances my opinion and the actual
answers differed by quite a lot. This activity gave me
greater insight into how sources are viewed in terms
of authority at a university level”
• “It really opened my eyes to some aspects I had
never given a lot of thought to”
• “It made me aware of how important the quality of
sources is and how to judge this”
• “It was really useful, as I was a bit apprehensive
about using the wrong sources in essays.”
• “I didn’t learn much new, but the practice and the
feedback session helped me to understand better.”

27. My reflections
• A valuable, if imperfect, exercise
• Terminology: explaining key issues hard to get across
succinctly a priori
• Works best as blended (online then F2F) activity
• Could be quicker without requesting explanation
“After about five sources the task got tedious,
however it was still useful”

28. Adapting for your course?
• Researching possible sources and shortlisting to about
eight takes time
• Check that sources are available off campus (and
expect some tinkering to be required as URLs change)
• Search pages prepared as PowerPoint slides and
uploaded to connect.le.ac.uk using Adobe Presenter
• Data collection form prepared in Plone

29. References
1. Beetham H. et al. (2009) Thriving in the 21st
Century: Learning literacies for the digital age (JISC)
2. Pan B. et al. (2010) Assessing the dynamics of
search results in Google. Information and
Communication Technologies in Tourism 11:405-416

30. Acknowledgements
• Stuart Johnson
• Paul Smith
• Alan Cann & Jo Badge
• Ethical approval cjrw2-7991b

31. Any Questions?
E-mail: cjrw2@le.ac.uk
Twitter: cjrw
Slideshare: cjrw2
Delicious: chriswillmott
Blogs: www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
www.biosciencecareers.wordpress.com
www.lefthandedbiochemist.wordpress.com
University of
Leicester