Jesús Lau

Piloting a Holistic Information Culture Program: The Experience of CETYS Universidad System of Libraries

This article presents the staff, structure, methods and preliminary results from the pilot of a holistic information literacy program developed in the System of Libraries of CETYS Universidad in Mexico. ‘Information Culture Development’ (ICD) is driven by action research (AR) and the concept of information culture (IC), comprised of information literacy (IL), digital literacy (DL), and research competences. ICD aims at developing these competences and supporting reflection and improvement upon university practices related to curriculum, teaching, and research. ICD’s initiatives and products were divided into four axes: a) curriculum and learning support, b) information and digital literacies development, c) research and scientific communication support, and d) evaluation and communication of results. ICD’s pilot involved workshops and activities framed within an AR perspective and a mixed methods approach. Preliminary results determine the success of activities with academics and students regarding their strengths and weaknesses in IC-related competencies.

Participatory Action Research and Information Literacy: Revising an Old New Hope for Research and Practice

This paper is a starting of a research which points toward constructing the basis for a research agenda integrating Participatory Action Research (PAR) into Information Literacy (IL) research and practice. In order to achieve this goal: a) we enumerate some pros and cons of using such methodology on IL with the pertinent literature and our own practice as IL researchers; b) we have developed a questionnaire to gather some insights from the research community in this matter; and c) we will start to seek an understanding of the possible contributions that a PAR-IL research agenda can bring to the field. The integration of PAR into IL research and practice is discussed from the three possible methodological stances: quantitative, qualitative, and a mixed methods perspective. Furthermore, we enumerate some of the pros, cons, hesitations and eagerness that researchers might have toward the idea of using PAR.

The arrival of information literacy

Paul Zurkowski coined the term Information Literacy in 1974, since then it has evolved into a dynamic research area within library and information science, with many milestones achieved in Europe and the United States, reflected in English-written literature. This issue of Developing Latin America traces an alternative route, exploring the arrival of information literacy to the region and its main developments.

Walking from Concepts to Facts: A Holistic Information Literacy Approach Experience at the University Level

Education theory and concepts can have daunting barriers to become facts but in the case of CETYS Universidad the will to be competitive at an international level drove the seven-year decision to get successful U. S accreditation. This process placed libraries and information literacy (IL) in the forefront of management priorities. One of the steps to identify CETYS IL standing was to study faculty information demand and competencies. The results, as well as those from a bibliometric analysis, showed the limited use of information and information and communication technologies. This motivated the institution to look for strategies to support faculty in enriching classroom information and ICT use. The main decision was to create guidelines to align the curriculum with information literacy standards and to embed information literacy into the learning process, an outcome that will be ready by the summer of 2013.

Assessing Spanish-Speaking University Students’ Info-Competencies with iSkills, SAILS, and an In-House Instrument: Challenges and Benefits

In its ongoing assessment of information literacy competencies (ILC), CETYS Universidad first developed an in-house instrument and then applied the standardized tests, SAILS and iSkills. This paper analyzes the design of these instruments as well as data gathered from their implementation. This comparison aids in finding similarities in the ILC they measure, describe how they measure them, and study their differences. The objectives of this analysis are to describe the evolution of the Institution’s ILC assessment over the past four years while providing the basis for making an evidence-based decision about improving the in-house instrument and pushing to develop a Spanish-language multi-institutional tool, and/or the continued use of international instruments.

The open access dilemma: how can costs be financed?

Open access is an idealistic concept that has both good and less good impacts in the scholarly communication system. The good side is that it sends a strong message to journal publishers who charge exorbitant prices; the bad side is that it potentially inhibits the survival of small journal publishers. In this commentary, the open access (OA) cost model of academic journals is discussed from the point of view of a Latin American researcher, addressing the questions of how this affects the region, and if there is a possible fair funding journal solution.

Diving into Deep Water: Development of an Information Literacy Rubric for Undergraduate Course Syllabi

If one wants to change the pedagogical focus of the educational ocean of a university, there is the need to dip into the profound waters of the curricular structure, a complex task to achieve by libraries. In this paper, the strategy to change academic courses, the basic blocks of curriculum, of undergraduate programs at CETYS University, with a generic information literacy rubric for professors, is described. The rubric generated by a faculty and library committee offers guidelines on how to implement information fluency pedagogical approaches and add quality information resources to their syllabi.

Information Culture and CETYS University WASC Accreditation: the Library as Stakeholder

This paper analyzes CETYS (Center for Technical and Higher Education) University’s information culture experiences from the empirical perspective of the librarians. The goal is to analyze the development of information culture (IC) as well as the actions that have been undertaken and the proposals that are yet to be considered to consolidate IC. CETYS is immersed in an educational evolution and has succeeded in meeting the high standards of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC, USA). The institution viewed IC as an element that ought to distinguish and characterize graduates of any academic program that the university offers. IC is considered a seminal element to train professionals to understand their information needs, how to search, evaluate, and use information. The study of the IC outcome is assessed here, relying on the institutional plans and reports for five of the eight objectives where the librarians were involved. These achievements have enabled faculty, students, and librarians to prepare themselves for a cultural change around information.

Outcomes and Challenges of Offering an Information Literacy Compulsory Undergraduate Credit Course: A Mexican Case

The aim in this paper is to report the learning experience evaluation of an information literacy (IL) undergraduate compulsory credit course in a country where information and research skilled lecturers are scarce. Students should begin to develop information competencies during their K-12 education; however, this is seldom the case in the Mexican educational system where students enroll at universities with limited IL training. CETYS University, whose IL evolution has been previously reported in the ECIL Conference Series, made the decision to offer a compulsory eight-credit course for all first-year students. The implementation of the course had the challenge of hiring faculty who did not have, in most cases, IL facilitation experience. The outcome of the first cohort of 17 groups that included 361 students was that the students did have a positive learning outcome, according to the two technique-assessment study but did identify important opportunities to improve the course and the facilitation process.

2.14 Mexico. Academic Libraries in Mexico with an Emphasis on the Use of Technology in Mexican State University Libraries

The results of an information technology adoption survey are presented in this paper. The population, studied through a written questionnaire and when needed, through a telephone interview, was all the 40 Mexican state university library systems. The study was focused on the use of technology for information management and promotion of library services. It included four main aspects: 1) Library management software, 2) Virtual information services, that is search engines, electronic resources management, virtual reference services and digital document repositories; 3) Computer staff and computers for library users; and 4) Use of social networks as collaborative and communication tools for library services promotion. An analysis of performance indicators based on university size identifies strengths and weaknesses in these four components. Key Terms: Library technology – Library management software – Virtual information services – Social networks – State Mexican universities *Student assistants: Sergio Gómez-Vinales, and Ivan Ruiz