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Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Frame: Scholarship as Conversation

Overview and advice for using the Framework

Framework Defined

Scholarship as Conversation refers to the idea of sustained discourse within a community of scholars, researchers, or professionals, with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of competing perspectives and interpretations.

Visual Guide

Visual Guide of Scholarship as Conversation

From “Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students,” NCSU Libraries, (CC-BY-NC-SA license)

Alignment with 2000 ACRL Standards

Standard Three: The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.
 
***Mostly New***

From: Hovious, Amanda. “Alignment Charts for ACRL Standards and Proposed Framework.” Google Docs, January 23, 2015.

Key Aspects

  1. Look behind and ahead of a source. Who does the author mention in their work? Who mentions this source in their work?
  2. Find its purpose. How does a source contribute to its subject field? Does the source refute, support, or contribute knowledge and in what ways?
  3. Learn the jargon. What is the structure and language used in the discipline?
  4. Make your mark! What do you have to say about the subject? Understand your place in the field and know that your voice matters.

Possible Learning Objectives

  • Examine the bibliography, footnotes, or references section of sources they find in order to locate additional sources of information. Some steps in this process include:
    • Identify different genres of sources: books, articles, chapters, reports, etc.
    • Identify the appropriate search tool (catalog, database, discovery layer, Google Scholar, etc.) to locate each genre of source.
    • Use the search tool effectively and efficiently in order to locate and access the source.
  • Explain the metaphor of “conversation” to describe the purpose of research.
  • Identify the contribution of specific scholarly pieces and varying perspectives in a scholarly conversation within a specific discipline.
  • Contribute to the scholarly conversation at an appropriate level, either by creating new knowledge or by offering criticism of existing research.
  • Locate and analyze sources that cite a particular source in order to evaluate the impact of that source (and find more info on the topic).
  • Identify the functions of different sections of a scholarly article (especially the literature review), as appropriate for the discipline.

Classroom Activities

Ideas to Incorporate into Classroom

  • Jigsaw- Looking for demographics, 1 table searches usa.gov, another Discovery, another census.gov, another?  Then mix and have students teach each other.
  • Distribute a diagram of citation chaining:
    • Then, have students “chalk talk” the value of citation chaining and any questions they have.
  • Learning Outcome: Students will understand how to understand and analyze a scholarly peer-reviewed article and identify and understand all the parts of the article
    • Online
      • Discussion Board
      • 3 groups each has a different research article
      • create concept map of theoretical concepts - each offer their own concepts
      • 2 short sentences to discuss each section
      • 2 peers respond.
    • Blended Course
      • 4 groups
      • each get an article
      • group discussion
      • group get large sheet-work on concept map
  • Context: they need to find 3 relevant and scholarly articles for their topic. After demonstration and time to find articles, each student shares and article in small groups to get feedback on its level of authority and relevance.
  • Think/pair/share as an introductory activity.  Have students think about what questions they would have to ask to determine a health claim’s validity
  • Padlet.com - contribute words or pictures on the topic of cited articles, citing articles and citation chaining.

ACRL IL Framework Task Force

Private Academic Library Network of Indiana logo

This guide was created by a task force of PALNI librarians. 

Task Force Members:
Eric Bradley | Goshen College / PALNI
David Dunham | [formerly] Taylor University
Sally Neal | Butler University
Amber Pavlina | University of Saint Francis
Catherine Pellegrino | Saint Mary's College

Literature Review

Creative Commons License

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education by PALNI's ACRL IL Framework Task Force is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless marked otherwise. PALNI’s logos and branding template are not covered by this license, and all rights to such material are reserved.