Course Schedule

Day Date Topics Readings for Presentation Assignments
1 8/19
Introduction to the course
Information literacy pre-test
   

 

 Read "A Taxonomy of Information," Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science (1994) before 8/21
2 8/21
Information: What is it? Who produces it? How is it communicated? What does it cost?
Models for the production & communication of scholarly information
Format & function
 

    

 Read "10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library," American Libraries (2001) before 8/26

 

3 8/26 Information: How is it classified? (What types of information are there?)
fact vs. opinion
subjective vs. objective
popular vs. scholarly
primary vs. secondary
"The Life of Print," Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality (1995)
   

 

4 8/28 Systems for accessing information
Libraries & their roles in society
Print and electronic media
Digitization & preservation
Remote/Web access
What are the costs and who pays
Chapters 1 & 3, Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (2001)
"Libraries and Digital Preservation: Who Is Providing Electronic Access for Tomorrow?" Libraries, the Internet, & Scholarship: Tools & Trends Converging (2002)
"Deconstructing Dreams of an All-Electronic Future," Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality (1995)
"Economics of Collection & Access," Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality (1995)
 

   

5 9/2
Standards underlying information access (MARC records, ISO 9706, HTML, EAD, DOI, etc.)
Library of Congress Call Numbers
 		        
6 9/4 Catalogs & Databases
What are they?
How are they constructed?
Why are they created, and by whom?
   

 

 Assignment 1 distributed

Final Project distributed

 

7 9/9
Finding out about a database's structure and using this knowledge to search effectively
   

 

    

 

8 9/11 Search techniques:
How keyword and subject searching differ
Using Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
Limits
Field searching
Truncation & wildcards
Proximity commands
           
9 9/16
More on search techniques
   

 

 Assignment 1 due

 

10 9/18
Finding and using facts and objective information:  Reference sources & statistical data (print & electronic)
   

 

 

 Read "Reference Sources on the Web," Online (2000) before 9/23

 

11 9/23
Finding and using facts and objective information:  Reference sources & statistical data (print & electronic)
Electronic Reference Sources
   

   

    

Assignment 2 distributed

12 9/25
Finding and using media sources (print & electronic): "Media literacy"
Newspapers

 

    

 

  

 

13 9/30
Finding and using media sources (print & electronic): "Media literacy"
Lexis-Nexis

 

    

 

  

 

14 10/2
Finding and using opinion and subjective information: Books & journal articles (print & electronic)
"The Growth of Information on the Title-Page," The Title-Page: Its Early Development 1460-1510 (2000)
   

 

15 10/7
Finding and using opinion and subjective information: Books & journal articles (print & electronic)
   

   

    Assignment 2 due

  Assignment 3 distributed

16 10/9
Finding and using opinion and subjective information: Citation indexing

 

Reminder: Last day to drop with a W is Wednesday, October 10, 2003.

    

 

 Read "Myths for Today, Hopes for Tomorrow," Searcher (2000) before 10/16

Read "Eclipsing the Sunshine of E-Goverment," Online Journalism Review (2002) before 10/16

17 10/14 No Class. Fall Break        
18 10/16
History of the Web
Economic costs of the Web
Why the Web doesn't - and may never - meet all information needs
Web browsers, search engines, metasearch engines, and subject directories
"The Internet and the Visible Web,"  The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See (2001)
"Information Seeking on the Visible Web," The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See (2001)

 

 

 

 

19 10/21
Web browsers, search engines, metasearch engines, and subject directories
Indexing and Abstracting on the World Wide Web: An Examination of Six Databases (1997)
   Assignment 3 due
Assignment 4 distributed
20 10/23
Specialty search engines and vertical portals
The invisible web
"The Invisible Web," The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See (2001)
"Using the Invisible Web," The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See (2001)
"When Image Is Everything," Searcher (2002)
Read "Internet Privacy: Interpreting Key Issues," Ethical Issues of Information Systems (2002) before 10/28
21 10/28
Personalization tools
Spread of consumers' personal information on the Web
Why & how to protect your privacy
Encryption 
"Privacy and the Internet: The Case of DoubleClick, Inc.," Social Responsibility in the Information Age (2002)
"Guerrilla Cryptographers," Net.Wars (1997)
 
22 10/30
Evaluating information
"Faking It: The Internet Revolution Has Nothing to Do with NASDAQ," New York Times on the Web (15 July 2001)
"Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation," Searcher (2000)
   
23 11/4
Citation styles
Why and how to use footnotes, endnotes, and parenthetical references
APA citation style
MLA citation style
    Assignment 4 due
Assignment 5 distributed
24 11/6
Plagiarism: Quoting, paraphrasing and otherwise using others' information
   

 

 Read "The Internet under Siege," Foreign Policy (2001) before 11/11
25 11/11 Copyright & fair use
"Ownership" of information & its implications

Special problems with copyright & the Web:
Deep linking
The DMCA
Peer-to-peer systems
Free software movement
"Hep Cats and Copy Cats: American Music Challenges the Copyright Tradition," Copyrights & Copywrongs (2001)
"Reclaiming the Commons," Boston Review (2002)
Chapters 4 & 5 in Free for All: How Linux and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans (2000)
Read Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia (2002) before 11/13

Read "E-mail Is a Real Revolution: For a Cambodian Opposition Leader, the Net Is a Lifeline," Salon Magazine (1999) before 11/13

 

26 11/13
Censorship & filtering: when is access to information restricted? why? by whom?
"Keeping Out the Internet? Non-Democratic Legitimacy and Access to the Web," First Monday (2002)
"Unsafe Sex in the Red Page District," Net.Wars (1997)
 
27 11/18
Information equity: who has access to what information? 
"The Making of an Underclass: AOL," Net.Wars (1997)
"Universal Site Accessibility: Barrier Free for All," Managing Web Usage in the Workplace (2002)
"Wired World," The Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty & the Internet Worldwide (2001)
"Societal Impact of the World Wide Web - Key Issues for the 21st Century," Ethical Issues of Information Systems (2002)
Assignment 5 due

28 11/20
Information ethics: information warfare, corporate intelligence & autonomous agents/bots
"Cyberspace Ethics and Information Warfare," Ethical Issues of Information Systems (2002)
"The Networking of Terror in the Information Age," Networks & Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (2001)
"Manufacturing Social Responsibility Benchmarks in the Competitive Intelligence Age," Ethical Issues of Information Systems (2002)
   
29 11/25 Final project work period.           
30 11/27 No class. Thanksgiving holiday. Drive safely!        
31 12/2
Information ethics: information warfare, corporate intelligence & autonomous agents/bots
"Agents & Angels," The Social Life of Information (2000)
"Wrong Side of Passwords" Net.Wars (1997)
Final project due
32 12/4
Overview/models of the research process
Review for final examination
       

 

33 12/11 Final Examination
10:30 - 12:30

 

        

 

  

 

You are welcome to use and make a print copy of these materials for educational purposes, but please credit the source as: L SC 311: Information Literacy, New Mexico State University, and cite the individual author of the modules you use. Please do not copy the source code of any of these pages and load them locally. All commercial rights are reserved. Send comments or suggestions to: Susan E. Beck at susabeck@lib.nmsu.edu. 

 

Page last updated on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 .