CRITICAL APPROACHES TO THE INFORMATION EXPLOSION

MIT 144F -- FALL 1997

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Course Instructor

J. Stephen Downie <jdownie@uwo.ca>; Rm. 2168, Elborn College
Instructor Information: Curriculum Vitae

Office hours: 30 minutes before and after class meetings (UC 30); By appointment otherwise.

Course Teaching Assistants

Robin Isard <risard@uwo.ca>
Instructor Information: Curriculum Vitae

Jonathan Demers <jdemers@uwo.ca>
Instructor Information: Curriculum Vitae

Von Darnell <ydarnell@uwo.ca>
Instructor Information: Curriculum Vitae

Course Objectives

Students who take part in this course will:

1. ) Gain an awareness of theory and research findings about information seeking;
2. ) Understand the processes of scholarly and journalistic communication, research, and publication;
3. ) Be familiar with the universe of available sources of information, both print and electronic;
4. ) Understand how information is organized and presented;
5. ) Develop their information retrieval skills and strategies;
6. ) Be able to critically evaluate information and information sources.

Rationale:

This course is designed to assist students in developing their own information literacy: that is, a greater understanding of the information universe at their disposal, and critical and evaluative skills in information retrieval and use. This will be accomplished by exposing students to theoretical concepts and models in information-seeking and information retrieval, developing specific information retrieval skills, and enabling students to see those strategies/skills as important not only in their undergraduate programs, but as part of life-long learning.

A key feature of the course is a project involving the production of an extensive guide to the literature on a selected topic (presented either in print or electronically). By week 3, students will be expected to choose a project from a list of 10 approved topics. In their guides, they must be able to demonstrate an understanding of the dimensions of their topic through a written overview, and also by providing annotated citations of relevant materials in both print and electronic form, using all of the information sources covered in the course. The annotations must include not only an indication of the content of the material, but also an evaluation of (justification for) each citation included, thus demonstrating critical thinking abilities with respect to information sources and retrieval.

Evaluation:

Assignment	Information	Value
Marked labs	6 Marked Labs (6 due)	36% (Total)
Pass/Fail Hand-in Labs	5 Pass/Fail Labs (4 due)	9% (Total)
Test	November 11 (In Class)	25%
Final Project	December 2 (In Class)	30%

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