Biology and the Library:

Creating a Model Assignment

for Information Literacy in the

Life Sciences

Susan Wood, Libraries

Joe Napolitano, Biology

Suffolk County Community College

Eastern Campus

The Assignment and Instruction

Mini Literature Review

• Current life sciences topic

• Major written assignment

Information Literacy Lab

• Basic research and assessment

skills needed for assignment

The Collaboration

Susan’s Big Idealistic Fantasy

• College-wide essay contest on

environmental science topics

The Reality

• Partnering with Joe and his BIO152

students (Modern Biology II)

• Single assignment and lab-length

one-shot for promoting information

literacy in the sciences

Information Literacy in the Sciences

Why emphasize IL in biology?

• Increased amount and accessibility of info

• Specific science communication format

• Lexical density (= content : grammar)

• Foster skills needed later

• Life sciences issues affect everyone

• Cultivate scientific literacy

Information

Literacy in the

Sciences

Literature Review Assignment

Course: BIO152 - Modern Biology II

• College-level, major’s course

• Previous assignments:

• Library research, science media comparison

• APA format required

Assignment: 3 part literature review

1. Literature search and evaluation

2. Argument synthesis and support

3. Critical assessment of research

Literature Review Topics

Choosing Topics:

• 13 issues w/popular appeal and recent media

• Broad enough to be individually refined

Refining Topics:

• During IL lab after initial search

• Another important IL skill

Cause

Location

Taxon

Metrics

Ecotype

The Sixth Mass Extinction

Frogs

The Info Lit Lab Activities

• Lab activity 1: scholarly & popular analysis

• Structure of a research article

• Working from a background source

• Database demos

• Lab activity 2: correcting database citations

• Google Scholar

• Database controlled vocab

• Workshop time:

Lab activities 3 & 4: documenting research process;

paraphrasing content

Other Librarian-Delivered

Instruction Libguide

• ‘Informally’ screencasted tutorials

Phone/Email/office visits

• One email question

Reference Desk?

Recipe for Effective Info Lit

Instruction

• Well-designed assignment

• Concrete, immediate application; not

abstract or prophylactic (Blakesley 2003)

• Faculty involvement in the session (Small, et

al. 2004)

• Librarian/library visibility on assignment

instructions, syllabus, and in the course (Lee 2012)

ACRL Info Lit Competency Standards for

Science, Engineering, and Technology

• 2006, ACRL Science & Technology Section

• Standards similar to the Info Lit Competency

Standards for Higher Ed

• Performance indicators and outcomes specific

to scientific inquiry

What is a literature review?hat is a Literature Review?

In order to be considered by the greater scientific community, scientific

research must be reviewed by other scientists and then published in a

scholarly (or ‘peer-reviewed’) journal. This process is very different

from the publication of information in ‘popular’ sources (e.g. books,

news media, websites), which do not require formal peer review. There

are many scientific journals, and they vary in discipline, scope and

circulation. Scientists researching a particular topic may draw on the

existing published research for insight. In turn, their newly published

research is added to the body of knowledge on that topic.

As the published research on a topic increases over time, it is useful to

organize this information into a single publication called a literature

review. The goal of a literature is to gather, organize, explain and

assess the previously published work on a topic. Like research

articles, literature reviews are published in scholarly journals…

For this assignment, you will be performing a formal, but non-

comprehensive, lit review on a specific, current topic in biology. You

will be given class time at the library to conduct your literature search

and specific instruction on searching for and evaluating research

articles.

Science Info Lit

Standards

I.2.a: purpose &

audience,

scholarly/popular

I.3.e: organization of

knowledge into

disciplines

V.1.a: assimilation &

preservation of

knowledge

II.1.a: uses an

appropriate investigative

method

III.1.a: structure of

science research article,

finds main ideas

A Gap in the Standards?

Lascar & Mendelsohn (2011)

“Th[e] ability to distinguish between

science, nonscience, and pseudoscience

is a crucial information literacy issue; yet

for all the excellent goals and objectives

in the…Information Literacy Standards for

Science and Technology, it is the one skill

not addressed” (356).

Assessment for Credit in BIO152

• ‘Knowing vs. understanding’

• Argument development and support

• Paraphrasing

• Mechanics - citation formats

• Minimum length

• Plagiarism

• Time, effort and engagement

Time and Effort

“How I felt at the end of this assignment.”

Assessment What did they cite?

• Peer-reviewed? YES!

• Original research? YES!

• Popular sources were used appropriately

• Currency: very good

• Journal overlap: very little

• Article overlap: very little

Documentation (APA 6th)

280 reference list citations

36 citations were completely correct (12.8%)

Common format problems:

italics, punctuation, capitalization, line

spacing, word spacing, hanging indent,

numbered not alphabetized, centered, j

abbrevs, how to handle multiple authors,

confusion with MLA

Documentation (APA 6th) • If no DOI, what to put? “Retrieved

from…?”

• Elsevier & Ebsco

• permalinks

• Databases: Medline, Academic Search Complete,

Environment Complete, Science Direct

• Left out journal titles

• Wrong years

• Parentheticals: listed all authors

Challenges with documentation

Confidence: high; skills: low

(Salaway 2008; Schilling & Applegate 2012; Gross & Latham 2009)

Attitudinal measures: is it cheating?

“a lot of times I have thougth [sic] I did it

right but it seems like i was wrong”

(n=100)

4% very confident (can create citations w/o citation

generators)

41% confident (can use citation generators and fix

mistakes)

41% somewhat confident (sometimes need assistance and

unsure how to fix mistakes)

14% not confident (not familiar with citing sources and

frequently need help)

100-level Info Lit Assessment,

Libraries Info Lit Committee, 2013

(n=336)

V.3.a: Student demonstrates an ability to select

and consistently apply a citation style

35.7% approached meeting the standard (citing

with several errors)

29.2% did not meet the standard (5 or more errors

or not citing at all)

SCCC Academic Integrity Committee,

2011 Questionnaire (n=1662)

“How serious do you consider paraphrasing or copying material from

the Internet without citing it?”

19% not cheating

45% trivial cheating

36% serious cheating

“How serious do you consider fabricating or falsifying a bibliography?”

19% not cheating

51% trivial cheating

30% serious cheating

Next Steps • Documentation & paraphrasing: how to help?

• Lab report concept

Standard IV.5.a-c: “Maintains a journal or log of activities related to the

information seeking, evaluating, and communicating process. Reflects on past

successes, failures, and alternative strategies. Applies devised improvements to

subsequent projects.”

• Open access, free, WWW-based resources

• More assessable outcomes

• Broader or more deeply integrated implementation

• Tertiary>>primary source assignment: “Science Seekers”

• Science-media comparison critical thinking question

ACRL Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/infolitscitech

Blakesley L. E. (2003). A collaborative approach to information literacy in the freshman seminar. Academic Exchange, 7(3), 23-27. Retrieved from

http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/

Bowder, T.S. & DiBenedetto, A. (2002). Information literacy in a biology laboratory session: An example of librarian-faculty collaboration. Research Strategies, 18, 143-49. doi:

10.1016/S0734-3310(02)00071-X

Bryan, J.E. & Karshmer, E. (May 2015). Using IL threshold concepts for biology: Bees, butterflies, and beetles. C&RL News, 76(5), 251-55. Retrieved from

http://crln.acrl.org/content/76/5/251.full

Firooznia, F. & Andreadis, D.K. (2006). Information literacy in introductory biology. Journal of College Science Teaching, 35(6), 23-27. Retrieved from Academic Search

Complete.

Fuselier, L. & Nelson, B. (2011). A test of the efficacy of an information literacy lesson in an introductory biology laboratory course with a strong science-writing component.

Science & Technology Libraries, 30(1), 58-75. doi: 10.1070/014262x.2011.547101

Gross, M. & Latham, D. (2009). Undergraduate perceptions of information literacy: Defining, attaining, and self-assessing skills. College and Research Libraries, 70(4), 336-50.

doi: 10.5860/crl.70.4.336

Henderson, F., Nunez-Rodriguea, N., & Casari, W. (2011). Enhancing research skills and information literacy in community college science students. The American Biology

Teacher, 73(5), 270-75. doi: 10.1525/abt.2011.73.5.5

Lee, S. W. (2012). An exploratory study of library anxiety in developmental education students. Community & Junior College Libraries, 18, 67-87. doi:

10/1080/02763915.2012.726806

Jacob, N. & Heisel, A.P. (2008). A faculty-librarian partnership for investigative learning in the introductory biology laboratory. Journal of College Science Teaching, 37(4), 54-59.

Retrieved from Academic Search Complete.

Pautasso, M. (2013). Ten simple rules for writing a literature review. PLoS: Computational Biology, 9(7), e1003149. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149

Petzold, J., Winterman, B., & Montooth, K. (Fall 2010). Science Seeker: A new model for teaching information literacy to entry-level biology undergraduates. Issues in Science

and Technology Librarianship, 63. doi: 10.5062/F4ZW1HVJ

Salaway, G. (2008). The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008. https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0808/rs/ers0808w.pdf

SCCC Academic Integrity Committee Survey. (2011). http://lgdata.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/docs/458/1047984/14-03-

04_AI_Survey_Selected_Results_for_LG_after_LR_mtg.pdf

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1.amazonaws.com/docs/458/885265/Information_Literacy_100_Level_Courses_8.16.13.pdf

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the Medical Library Association, 100(4), 258-69. doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.100.4.007

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http://libguides.sunysuffolk.edu/WoodNapolitano