Welcome!

Purpose

To outline the responsibilities and parameters of the Assistant Professor of Information Literacy (InfoLit) position in the Department of Languages and Literatures (DLL), to impart to faculty colleagues within DLL the types of assistance which fall within the InfoLit professor's purview and how to queue for that assistance, and to provide a clearinghouse of existing IT specific resources available to faculty on the ASU campus, and within the infrastructure of CLAS and DLL.

This website will provide you with the information you need about:

• upcoming DLL-specific IT and InfoLit workshops, as well as workshops sponsored by other units on campus
• ideas and suggestions for how best to utilize the InfoLit faculty office hours
• links to information technology resources at ASU and beyond
• occasional links to articles dealing with information literacy
• forms and guides to use in your classes for evaluating information sources
• theoretical and critical approaches to information literacy, knowledge structures, cybercultural studies, and information technology
• background information on the CLAS Assistant Professor positions in information literacy

Information Literacy - A Definition

Information literacy is a concept that carries many facets. These range in scope from developing strategies for finding information appropriate to a specific topic, distinguishing types/degrees/levels of information within primary/secondary | popular/scholarly sources and elaborating and refining research-specific questions to understanding how various media (book, web, journal article, PowerPoint, &c.) embody information, and thinking critically about that information. It plays a role in the work of archivists, and librarians in the search for and discovery of information, as well as in the work of faculty, both as teachers and as researchers.

In the language and literature curriculum this information literacy also means understanding how media operate differently within various national contexts. For example, how does the horror genre function differently in Italian national cinema than it does in Korean national cinema? In this regard, how do the technohistorical threads of film technologies operate differently and how are they perceived differently in varying cultural settings? With the socioeconomic and cultural change potentials of the global market, do these varying degrees of difference still stand a chance, or will they too fall victim to cultural homogenization?

Information Literacy versus Information Technology

Information literacy incorporates both an understanding of how various media (written text, spoken text, broadcast, Internet, newspaper, film, television &c.) embody information, and of how to think critically about that information. It involves a set of evaluative and interpretive skills to discern both short-term and long-term meanings from one or several information sources.

Information technology provides for a set of computer-based skills to work with and combine various pieces of information within a digital setting. For example, the Internet brings together text, sound, static and moving image materials to produce a richer, and, in some cases, educationally valuable perspective on a particular topic or theme.

IT allows us to work with information in new and exciting ways, while information literacy skills allow us to understand how information is conceived and produced, and how to use our IT skills in a more critical fashion.

Position Background

This position is part of the Information Technology Across the Curriculum (ITATC) initiative, funded through the Technology Research Initiative Fund's (TRIF) Access and Workforce Development program. Faculty members hired in traditionally non-technical, academic departments, as part of the ITATC initiative, are charged with ensuring "that all ASU undergraduates, regardless of major, have the opportunity to acquire technical skills that complement their discipline specific knowledge." In addition to being held to the same discipline-specific standards as their departmental colleagues, ITATC faculty are expected to:

• model the use of their technology skills in the design and delivery of their classes
• jump-start or accelerate the pace of technological change within their departments
• assist colleagues in utilizing technology for their classrooms and research

For additional information on the six initiatives supported by TRIF, including ITATC, and the progress made in each, see the Morrison Institute for Public Policy report Seeds of Prosperity. Public Investment in Science and Technology Research (2003) <http://www.asu.edu/copp/morrison/Prop301.pdf>.