Presenters: Donna Witek and Teresa Grettano PaLA’s Teaching, Learning & Technology (TL&T) Round Table Spring 2012 Workshop, Harrisburg, PA, March 30, 2012 Description: It's a safe bet that the majority of our students are on Facebook. For students old enough to use the website, Facebook is reshaping what it means to find and use information. As librarians our knowledge of this shift can be leveraged in the information literacy classroom. In this presentation, attendees will learn the ways that Facebook as a tool is affecting our students' information seeking behaviors and practices. Using as a guide the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, the presenters will identify the conceptual links between Facebook's core functions and information literacy as defined by the Standards. They will then suggest ways in which these conceptual links can be co-opted by information literacy instructors seeking to reinvigorate the research process for their students ("using Facebook" to do so). Attendees will leave this presentation with concrete strategies, based on a conceptual framework, of how to use Facebook as a teaching tool in the information literacy classroom.

1. Facebook in the Information Literacy
Classroom: Framework and Strategies
Donna Witek, Weinberg Memorial Library, The University of Scranton
Teresa Grettano, Department of English & Theatre, The University of Scranton

2. Our Collaboration
Information Literacy Stipend
Applying ACRL Standards
Teaching Rhetoric & Social Media
Presentation goals
Disclaimers

3. Standard 2: Access
"The information literate student accesses
needed information effectively and
efficiently."
PI 1: "information retrieval systems"
PI 5: "extracts, records and manages the
information and its sources"

4. Traditional Application: Access
Using the Library Catalog/OPAC
Locating articles via online databases
Understanding the Library of Congress Classification
System

5. Facebook Functions: Access
News Feed: user controlled variables
Who is in my network?
What types/formats of info do I want to see?
How recent is the info I'm looking at?
What specific info sources do I want to access in my feed?
Timeline: content management and recall
status updates, links, photos, etc.
Activity Log
privacy settings
content repository

6. Leverage the Connection: Access
Liken Facebook network of connections to database
selection
Compare News Feed to database search results screen
Connect Timeline to bibliographic management software

7. Standard 3: Evaluation
"The information literate student evaluates
information and its sources critically and
incorporates selected information into his or
her knowledge base and value system."
PI 1: extracts, summarizes, and quotes
PI 2: evaluates information and its sources
PI 3: "synthesizes main ideas to construct new
concepts"
PI 6: "validates understanding [...] through
discourse"

8. Traditional Application: Evaluation
Primary vs. secondary vs. teritiary sources
Scholarly/peer-reviewed sources
Criteria for web page evaluation

9. Facebook Functions: Evaluation
Share: "Write Something..."
context/agenda
endorsement (or not)
provocation for new argument/point
Comment
collaborative evaluation
debate and discourse
"Like" as a social peer review

10. Leverage the Connection: Evaluation
Identify users who summarize/quote/evaluate when
posting links
Practice posting in an information literate way
Start a thread on Facebook and create a dialogue about
the information posted through Comment

11. Standard 5: Ethics
"The information literate student understands
many of the economic, legal, and social
issues surrounding the use of information
and accesses and uses information ethically
and legally."
PI 2: etiquette in access and use of resources
PI 3: acknowledgment and attribution

12. Traditional Application: Ethics
Copyright
Academic Integrity/plagiarism
How to cite sources

13. Facebook Functions: Ethics
Share
"via" feature
culture/attitude of attribution
News Feed
algorithm
politics of information

14. Leverage the Connection: Ethics
Ask about "tagging" practices
Connect citation to social media etiquette
Liken attribution of sources to the "via" feature
Discuss credibility of network connections and who they
choose to access information from

15. Implications
Meta-literacy
Revision of ACRL Standards
Development of new instructional practices

16. Questions
Donna Witek: donna.mazziotti@scranton.edu
Teresa Grettano: teresa.grettano@scranton.edu
Association of College & Research Libraries. (2000),
“Information literacy competency standards for higher
education”, available at
http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycom
petency (accessed 29 March 2012).
Witek, D. and Grettano, T. (2012), "Information literacy
on Facebook: an analysis", Reference Services Review,
Vol. 40 Iss: 2.