Librarians and teaching faculty privilege peer review articles out of ideals rooted in academic culture more then for pedagogical reasons. Undergraduates would find greater benefit in the opportunity to search and critique sources related to their personal and creative interests as well as relevant to academic research projects. Librarians can adopt the role of change-agents by engaging relevant teaching faculty in discussions about the goal of research assignments relative to peer review literature. Framing this discussion is Paulo Freire's theory of banking information discussed in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000).

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to share with the wider academic community an example of one tool developed locally that can be a successful part of any institution's arsenal on the war against plagiarism.Design/methodology/approachOver the course of a year, the committee scripted, filmed, and edited the video portion of the tutorial. The assessment portion of the tutorial (an eight‐question quiz drawn from a pool of 40 questions) was developed and refined in a series of pilot tests.FindingsMore than 80 percent of the 2,097 students who have completed the tutorial have correctly answered the question presented for seven of the eight outcomes.Practical implicationsThis paper presents a method for integrating information literacy into the wider university community. The paper discusses a practical, effective method for teaching students about the ethical use of information.Originality/valueThe value of this paper is the demonstration of one method of educating students on the issue of plagiarism and how information literacy standards can be integrated into the curriculum and centralized through administrative and faculty support.

Librarians and teaching faculty privilege peer review articles out of ideals rooted in academic culture more than for pedagogical reasons. Undergraduates would find greater benefit in the opportunity to search and critique sources related to their personal and creative interests as well as relevant to academic research projects. Faculty are culturally indoctrinated to value the traditional peer reviewed text, while students value more contextually relevant knowledge types. Information literacy librarians can play a role in helping these two groups come together for greater student success. Librarians can adopt the role of change-agents by engaging teaching faculty in discussions about the goal of research assignments relative to peer review literature. Framing this discussion is Paulo Freire's theory of banking information discussed in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000).

The purpose of this focus group study is to explore how students make sense of and respond to messages about information in higher education. This study identifies the messages students in higher education receive about information gathering, conducting research, and credibility and authority of information sources. This research revealed that students are receiving the message from faculty that format is a stand-in for credibility. Research to date focuses on how to steer students to information privileged by the academy: academic, peer reviewed articles and books. The voice of students is often absent. The proposed study employs the critical framework of Paulo Freire to evaluate student perceptions of information.

The purpose of this case study is to explore how students make sense of and respond to messages about information in higher education. This study identifies the messages students in higher education receive about information gathering, conducting research, and the credibility and authority of information sources. This research revealed that students are receiving the message from faculty that format is a stand-in for credibility. Research to date focuses on how to steer students to information privileged by the academy: academic, peer reviewed articles, and books. The voice of students is often absent. This study employs the critical framework of Paulo Freire in order to give voice to student perceptions of information.

Library and cross-disciplinary literature all stress the increasing importance of instructional technology in higher education. However, there is a dearth of articles detailing funding for library instructional technology. The bulk of library literature on funding for these projects focuses on one-time grant opportunities and on the architecture and design of spaces for public computers. This article seeks to examine the financial implications of educational technology funding for libraries and how ultimately libraries can be absorbed into a strategic, campus-wide technology funding cycle. Theoretical models of cyclical funding were analyzed, primarily through EduCause articles, resulting in five key elements of fiscally responsible funding practice: (a) leadership, (b) strategic planning, (c) collaboration, (d) changing organizational structures, and (e) flexibility. Findings generated were used to examine the financial implications of maintenance, rates of return of Instructional Technology, capital and operating budgets, and short- and long-term funding plans on funding models. This article seeks to examine the financial implications of educational technology funding for academic libraries and how ultimately libraries can be absorbed into a strategic, campus-wide technology funding cycle. American colleges and universities were expected to spend $6.94 billion on technology during 2006, a 35% increase compared with the prior year, with hardware representing one-half of the total technology spending. The average technology budgets at private institutions rose by 26%, compared with 20% at public institutions (Market Data Retrieval, 2006, p. 2).

T he national attention on assessment in education is here to stay. Teaching librar­ ians are focusing on assessing student learning both to justify library instruction to stakeholders and to improve student learning by working toward graduating entire classes of information literate students from colleges and universities. Librarians have become increasingly involved in assessment culture while searching for methods to assess information literacy. This column of Internet resources on student learning assess­ ment differs from a list of information literacy assessment Web sites by embracing the paradigm shift away from evaluation and moving toward the assessment of student learning. Librarians are transitioning from skill­based measurements of evaluations to outcomes­based assessment. By reviewing the resources below librarians also open themselves up to research outside of librarianship, cognizant that other disciplines have expertise with measurement and instru­ ments from which we can borrow.

The annual National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) measures undergraduate “participation in programs and activities that institutions provide for their learning and personal development.”1 Each item on the survey correlates to one of five benchmarks of “empirically confirmed ‘good practices’ in undergraduate education.”2 The NSSE is an excellent diagnostic fit with the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education because learning outcomes can be correlated with student engagement. This article presents case studies from the University of Mississippi and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to demonstrate how librarians can apply NSSE results for the purpose of assessment.3

This article describes the use of a conventional grading rubric as an objective tool for assessing educational outcomes in a for-credit Information Resources class. The tool was evaluated in the context of the assessment process at the University of Mississippi. To assure objectivity, two librarians independent of the librarian-instructor scored student reflection papers using a 5-point scale. Rubric items were considered successful if 75 percent of the students received an average score of three or higher. The results showed that weak areas of comprehension are those that require higher level thinking, such as the ability to distinguish between the popular and academic press. The librarian-instructor will place more emphasis on these topics in future classes and reword rubric items of questionable design.