Incorporating Information Literacy Into Oberlin First Year Seminars

Consider adding an explicit statement to your syllabus or assignment that connects how the library can contribute to a student's success in your course. As a starting point, we have drafted some sample language:

Using the Oberlin College Libraries

To be successful, all Oberlin students should take advantage of the Oberlin College Libraries. Beyond having access to a great collection, you also have access to expert librarians who can help you with anything related to research. You can visit a research help desk for immediate help or schedule a 30-minute research appointment. Librarians will help you at any point in your research. They are skilled at helping you brainstorm terms, develop a search strategy, identify relevant search tools, evaluate sources, and use any citation style at Oberlin. Like anything, developing as a researcher requires practice and knowing when to ask for help. The library staff is committed to helping you to succeed at Oberlin.

Research and Inquiry Assignments ask students to find and use information beyond that assigned in a course to:

• Answer a question
• Explore a topic or issue
• Solve a problem
• Create new knowledge

Some first-year students may be accustomed to a high school research process that asks them to:

• Look for neutral sources that present a single, factual, correct answer to a question.
• Summarize information provided in those sources without applying their own analysis. 
• Rely entirely on online sources, especially if they were in high school during the pandemic. 

As they adjust to college-level research, it is helpful to be as explicit as possible with your expectations.

Ask: 

• Do you expect students to develop an original argument building on information gathered from other sources? 
• Are there particular types of sources you are expecting students to use? (E.g., peer-reviewed article, book, primary source, reputable news article, etc.) It is helpful to define these terms for students. Remember that there may be disciplinary differences in what some terms mean. 
• Are there particular functions you expect different types of sources to be used for? (E.g., using a peer-reviewed analysis in one way and a primary text in another.) Remember that there may be disciplinary differences in how it is appropriate to use different types of sources. 
• Are there particular search tools you expect students to use? 
• Are there particular citation practices you expect students to use? 

Learning bottlenecks are "where students tend to get stuck, unable to perform specific tasks or move forward in their learning."

Ask: 

• Which specific parts of the research process have caused problems for past students? (Finding sources? Evaluating sources? Scoping? Developing an argument?) 
• What specific steps do students need to take to get past these bottlenecks? 
• Are any bottlenecks emotional? (E.g., shame over poor time management, imposter syndrome, fear of repeating past negative experiences?)

As you scaffold your research assignments and build them into smaller chunks, consider structuring your scaffold around common bottlenecks. Including a process reflection paper in the scaffold can help you identify bottlenecks for future versions of the assignment. 

As an experienced researcher, you have developed a deep and intuitive understanding of your research process and the threshold concepts for research in your discipline. This deep understanding can make it hard to see where novices coming to a new topic benefit from explicit instruction. 

Ask: 

• Who are the experts in your field? 
• What types of sources are considered reputable? How do you expect those sources to be used? 
• What are the expectations for attribution in your field? 

It may seem counterintuitive to suggest reflecting on disciplinary expectations in the often interdisciplinary first-year seminar context. However, sometimes, faculty working in an interdisciplinary context have expectations for student work rooted in their discipline but not explicitly stated to the students.

The more you think critically about those expectations and clearly communicate them to students, the better able the students will be to complete assignments successfully.