Promoting Lifelong Learning in Engineering via a One-Credit Information Literacy Course Edward Eckel, Engineering Librarian Western Michigan University

GE103 at Aquinas College “Introduction to Information Literacy” One-credit, freshman level, general education 8 weeks long (hour and a quarter/week) Required of all incoming freshmen Originated in Fall 2002 by Shellie Jeffries Mandated by Aquinas administration (top- down)

Skill Set Taught - ACRL Determine the nature and extent of the information needed Access needed information effectively and efficiently Evaluate information and its sources critically Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose

Lifelong Learning “Half-life of an engineer’s knowledge is less than five years.” Leah Jamieson

Measuring the Skill Set Pre/Post tests Weekly homework assignments Final project – pathfinder (annotated bibliography)

Pretest Freshmen given opportunity to test out Pretest is given in the summer before freshman year 45 minute blocks during orientation activities Test out score is >75% Fall 2005: 23 out of 418 tested out

Pretest 25 multiple-choice 15 short answer Short answer questions include story problem Story problem designed to test the ability to generate keywords and create online search statements or strategies

You’ve been given the assignment to write a 7-10 page paper discussing this thesis statement: “The federal government should devote more money to renewable energy research so society’s dependence on foreign oil is lessened.”

A.Write the main keywords for the thesis statement above, plus some synonyms/alternatives for those keywords. KeywordSynonym

A. Write the main keywords for the thesis statement above, plus some synonyms/alternatives for those keywords. KeywordSynonym federal gov’tPresidentCongressEnergy policies Renewable energy Alternative / sustainable Solar / wind / geothermal Fuel cells / hybrid vehicles OilPetroleumGas / natural gas Fossil fuel(s) foreign oilopec Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Saudi Arabia / Venezuela

Grading Rubric – Part A Fair: Identifies keywords (4 pts) Good: Identifies the most appropriate keywords and a few synonyms (5 pts) Excellent: Identifies the most appropriate keywords and the most relevant synonyms (6 pts)

B. Write the search statement(s) you would type in when searching an online database; incorporate as many tools in your search statement as you can to make your search efficient and effective

Sample answers Federal AND (oil OR petroleum) AND polic* (limit by date and to peer-reviewed journals) “energy policy” AND (oil OR petroleum) AND federal AND (opec OR foreign)

Grading Rubric – Part B Fair: Two or more synonyms/alternative keywords, Boolean operators (3 pts) Good: Two or more synonyms/alternative keywords, Boolean operators, phrase searching, parentheses (5 pts) Excellent: All of above plus truncation, limiting to peer-reviewed articles; searching in specific field, etc. (7 pts)

Posttests Final Exam, taken in class 50 multiple-choice questions 15 short answer Research topic sentence is usually different for each class

Engineering Education Examples of contexts:  Senior design projects or other capstone  Background in scholarly research for future graduate students  Writing-intensive courses (such as at WMU)  Can be integrated into existing technical communications courses

Ethical Use of Information Not covered in GE103 – time constraints Avoiding plagiarism Can be integrated into engineering ethics courses