Jen’s post last week (and subsequent question on OPIEWeb) about information literacy raised other questions for me. Most of us active in the real world are constantly making judgments about the trustworthy-ness and accuracy of information. It is a skill that researchers employ when they look at prior research. It’s employed by HR when they call in references for a new hire or respond to complaints. Managers have to balance what they know about an individual and their work habits along with the reasons for particular requests. Police and journalists may be the most familiar with the process of weeding out who is a good source of reliable information and who isn’t.

Writing about these events makes them seem momentous and noteworthy, but for the most part they are snap decisions we may not even be aware of. While Christmas shopping online I went to investigate a deal I found on a site I trust, only to decide I didn’t trust the site being advertised. Why? How? Was I correct in my assessment? I may never know, and likewise, that retailer may never know either.

The real question for me though comes down to 2 central questions:

1. How do we gauge our own ability to discern the reliable from the unreliable
2. How do we get better

My guess is that, like driving, everyone assumes that they are “above average” at rating the accuracy of the information they receive. Like driving, we have also grown passive in our appreciation for what a complex and important task it is that we are performing. We have so much information dropped on our doorstep that we may be losing the skills needed to go out and actively hunt for quality data.

I watch in agony as smart people are duped by unscrupulous emails, instantly forwarding them to everyone they know and posting the payload on Facebook like they alone hold the key to the sob story contained within. A cottage industry of spammers, virus writers and scammers exists to take advantage of our inability to judge the sources of our information. Certain television programs use this to great effect when they raise “concerns” in one show and report on “concerns being raised” in another creating a feedback loop of self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is the part of the blog where I would point out the reputation system and overarching mission of OPIEWeb to take over the world, serve as a trusted and reliable information source to the communities actively researching and practicing the psychology of work. I’m not going to do that this time. Instead I am going to give you, my readers (yes, both of you), a mission of your own: Go forth and raise the bar for information reliability assessments by questioning your own sources of information and get others to question what they are being told more often. My hope is that the students, readers, employers and employees alike that we interact with can all take a more skeptical eye towards their email inboxes, the nightly news and the Wikipedia articles they like to quote in arguments.

Information Literacy is a huge buzz word in the education world lately. I hope that this is a fad that doesn’t die because teaching our students how to be information literate really captures one of my core goals as an instructor.

What is “information literacy?” Ask two different people and you’ll probably get two different answers. I see it as going beyond just knowing – it’s going beyond just teaching our students facts and figures. Books can do that just fine. My goal as an instructor is to get my students to understand how to USE that knowledge in this world where information is available everywhere from a variety of different sources. How do we know when information is good or bad? How do we find good information? Once we find good information, how do we make sense of it? How do we find counter-arguments? How do we appreciate counter-arguments? How do we use our critical thinking skills to really “dissect” an idea? And how do we use information so that it has practical value? To me, being information literate means that you can adequately find, evaluate, and use information. And sadly, it’s a skill that way too many undergraduate students do not have.

I was talking to one of my students who did not do so well on one of my exams. She said to me, “In my other classes, you can just read the book and do well. That’s not the case in your class.” I’m glad this student had this revelation. You mean I have to do more than just read?? I’m also somewhat disheartened by this statement because it could mean that other instructors are not doing enough to encourage information literacy skills. They are just encouraging memorization. Anyone can memorize the definitions of a bunch of terms. You don’t need an instructor to help you do that. But, an instructor – a GOOD instructor – will encourage you to make think about where the definitions of those terms came from, whether there are alternate definitions, and how this term is important in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, designing exams that assess students’ information literacy skills is difficult. But I think we are doing students a disservice if we don’t challenge them in this way. It’s easy to design an easy course. But life is not easy and college is life training. Let’s encourage students to spend more time researching, reflecting, critiquing, and applying and less time staring blankly at the textbook Wikipedia page.

What are your feelings on the subject? Weigh in on this question, or via email at OPIEWeb@gmail.com.

I don’t have enough cobbled together to create a single, meaningful post for this week so I thought I would get a handful of items out as one:

• Redesign:

  It’s taking me much longer than anticipated to change the site over to the new design. I am working on it and I assure you I have fantastic excuses. Just to whet your appetite, here is the new logo:

• Linked Blogs

  One reason I haven’t completed the redesign is the nifty list of blogs here on the right ⇒. I encourage you to check them out early and often. There are some fantastic topics, familiar frustrations and thought provoking commentary in that little list. One additional item to add to the OPIE Suggested Reading List is ProfHacker.com which I have mentioned here a couple times at least.

• New Feature: Email Notification

  Starting last Monday, when you ask a question you now have the option of being alerted via email when comments or answers are added to it. If you are a logged in user, this field will pre-populate with your account’s email address, but you can change it to something else if you desire. Anonymous users will need to provide an address for the feature to work.

  That reminds me, I need to create a privacy policy for the site. What I can say right now is that we do not use/sell/share or plan to use/sell/share any personally identifiable data such as email addresses in any way, unless you specifically check a box to receive notifications, at which point we will notify you, then forget that your details exist.

• Call for (More) Questions

  No question is too basic, too easy, or conversely, too ornery for the OPIEWeb audience to handle. We only ask that you be specific and that it relates to the psychology of work in some way, shape or form. I say this because in my travels I have encountered a reluctance among OPIEwebbers to post questions which may out them as not knowing every. single. thing. that they feel they should (shudder at the thought). So, I am opening up my email inbox (OPIEWeb@gmail.com) and asking you, the faithful OPIEWebber who has a potentially embarrassing question, common student, friend or family question that you want and answer to, please …

  [...] Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me…

  Questions sent to the OPIEWeb@gmail.com will be asked by an anonymous user so that you may get the answers you need. And by all means, feel free to provide your own answer

Have a good weekend everyone and keep a lookout for the new OPIE design. You’ll know it when you see it.