About judging ideas & opinions

Scott Adams riffed on the notion that it is absurd to have an opinion on whether it was a good idea to create a certain movie (or other things for that matter).

Scott Adams Blog: The Value of Ideas 06/04/2010 via kwout

I wonder whether opinions say more about the opinionator than the content of the expressed opinion? e.g., one who says "that's a bad idea" is revealing that they simply cannot imagine an expression / execution of the idea that they would enjoy. Which might lead their listener to wonder about the quality of the opinionator's imagination, or preferences.

Which reminds me about another opinion on opinion:

That, in many situations, while everyone is entitled to their own opinion (supported by Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

)... "not all opinions are equal". While I'm sure she's not the only one to express that truth, 'tis Sandra Dodd of unschooling fame, whose expression of it I always remember... vaguely....

Image by moonflowerdragon via Flickr

Of course, one of the reasons this comes up in relation to Sandra is in the matter of freedom of expression of opinion. If I recall correctly, and I hope someone will point out if I misrepresent it, Sandra expresses the opinion that place may limit freedom of expression. For example, in a Yahoogroup or mailing list, made or owned by an individual - the rules for expression in that place may be declared by the owner and maintained through eviction from the group if necessary. Similarly for private homes, or other privately-owned buildings. I have not investigated whether the law supports private-space-right-to-suppress-speech.

OOOh, but that reminds me of a recent post by Kathryn Greenhill, about the library's role (as a public institution) in the provision of information when there are many opinions on a topic: that of not censoring, no matter whether the available information is, in the librarian's opinion, bad in some way.

I think the following of Kathryn's comments sum her overall view, though I recommend the lively presentation in her whole article:

A library’s role is not to supress ideas – not matter how dangerous or loony I may believe those ideas to be, nor how wrong I think they are. ... A library’s role is to provide access to information and connect people to that information. We seek to provide a balanced and varied collection, but not to judge the information we are providing, nor the people who are seeking it. ... I am not arguing that ideas should be heard without rebuttal, argument, critical thought or judgment. I am arguing that they should be heard and that libraries exist as a vital institution to protect the right for that to happen...

I think an important point to remember is the breadth of material that comes under the label "information". "Information" is not only facts, but also theories with or without reasonable support, opinions of varying quality and fictional representations.

Something students in CULLB602C@UB will be exploring is the library's role in teaching Informacy, ie: educating its patrons in evaluating the sources of information they peruse.

Related articles by Zemanta

• There is no such thing as public opinion (clubtroppo.com.au)
• A Vision for a School Library (123elearning.blogspot.com)
• Court Says Internet Filtering in Public Libraries Not Censorship (readwriteweb.com)

Just a quick mention in relation to Zemanta: I chose (as somewhat related in area of interest) the above articles from those suggested by Zemanta. As I scrolled through the list of suggestions again after my second selection I was disturbed to note that an article was marked "Clicked" (ie selected) that I had *not* chosen. It is possible that I may have mis-moused or mis-clicked in making my selection; and I have no way to be sure - but as the "clicked" item I did not choose was a PROMOTED article, I intend to carefully double-check my selections in future.

Reading critically

The effing.librarian provides an entertaining example of informacy at work as he criticises an article's absurd predictions of 100% of the world's population authoring (via Twitter!) & thus presumably wiping out illiteracy by 2013.  I note that the article he criticises is by a couple of professors, but after his analysis of their study I have to wonder at the quality of the journal.

Go see how he picks apart the premises and arguments - or just enjoy his ire - in:

The Analysis of Bullshit.

Facebook Privacy Setting Scanner

Some people (like David Lee King) aren't concerned about how Facebook handles the personal information we share there.

Those of us who have reason (or delusion) to prefer a little more privacy, might be interested in a tool provided by ReclaimPrivacy.org that scans and tells you the effects of your privacy settings. Thanks Paul Pival, Distant Librarian, for mentioning it.

As I have previously taken a radical approach to improve my Facebook privacy settings my results on using the scanner were not so colourful as Paul's, so I'm kwouting his image:

The Distant Librarian via kwout

If you'd like this kind of perspective on your Facebook privacy settings, see how at:

ReclaimPrivacy.org | Facebook Privacy Scanner via kwout

Hm, and this is still good knowledge for librarians who don't intend to use Facebook, like... ever: This adds to our Informacy 2.0 (oh ick I know, but its the shortest way to refer to informacy in the context of a social networking environment).

Usually when thinking about informacy (a.k.a. "Information literacy") we focus on finding, evaluating, using information. However, Beth Kraemer (2009) (a.k.a Alice Burgess in Second Life) of University of Kentucky referred to libraries who include in their "information literacy" classes instructing students in being responsible producers of information. Particularly protecting their reputation and privacy through responsible Facebook use but also googling themselves and being aware what others put out about them.

"That embarrassing picture you posted on Facebook" Slide 9 Web 2.0 & Information Literacy by Alice Burgess / Beth Kraemer
Originally uploaded by moonflowerdragon.

Non-linkable references

Kraemer, B. (2009, November). Web2.0 & Information Literacy. Presented at Web2.0 Approaches to Information Literacy Panel, ACRL, ALA Island, http://slurl.com/secondlife/ALA%20Island/56/191/29/

Teaching humans how to learn !?!

So, I've been griping, about this topic for a while.

As part of my "fun" I looked at "The Big 6", and included this as one part of my application:
"

It is amusing and confusing to see what I consider to be a perfectly natural (untrained) process labeled, copyrighted and marketed with apparent success. When researching for and writing my April 2007 post “How does one cite a blog post in APA style?” I used the same natural mental processes I recall my school mates and I used in our teens (1981-1986), and that I see my unschooled children using today. My own teen years were before Eisenberg & Berkowitz began touting this “model and curriculum” (copyrighted variously 1987 (Eisenberg, 2004) and 1988 (Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 1997)).

Details of the Big 6 steps to problem solving / information literacy are spelled out when hovering over the numbers in the header of the website http://big6.com/. For the fun of it, see how my process could be hung on the hangers of “the Big 6”:

1. Task Definition
1. I wanted to cite blog posts appropriately for my assignments; (define task)
2. I needed to find instructions, suggestions or examples on how to do so. (identify information needed)
2. Information seeking strategies
1. I could look in the official APA guide; ask teachers or colleagues; search with Google (to start).(Determine all possible sources)
2. I would search those sources in that order. (Select the best)
3. Location and Access
1. I know the Dewey Decimal number for citation guides; talk to teachers in class and colleagues at work and Google is in my browser window. (Locate sources)
2. APA Guide had principles I could use but no specific example, teachers and colleagues refer to the guide, but Google produced results. (Find information within sources)
4. Use of information
1. I read and evaluated a variety of pages from the Google results. (Engage)
2. I kept pages with likely examples open in tabs. (Extract relevant information)
5. Synthesis
1. I tagged (with delicious) the pages that had examples even though they didn’t seem right enough to me, and quoted those examples … (Organise information from multiple sources)
2. In a contemplative blog post of my own in which I compared the examples against the APA referencing style principles.(Present the information)
6. Evaluation
1. Finding and extracting information was very fast, my comparison and making decision took a bit longer. Writing took the longest. My natural thinking processes worked. (Judge the process)
2. I am satisfied with my conclusion and no teachers have quibbled with the way I reference blogs. My writing was not the most fluent, but it was for me as a student, not an audience. Had I been an educator or librarian I would have written more briefly and obtained or hedged against an institutional decision. Even so, at first around 80-90 people a day, and more recently 30-40 people a day visit that blog post from Google or other searches on the topic (statistics obtained from MyBlogLog) so I appear to have created new knowledge. Unfortunately although I asked for comments, few people leave any so I could not tell whether people agreed with my conclusion or not. However I recently discovered that my conclusion matches a style later advised by Judi DeLisle (2007) of Valencia Community College who also cites my post "How does one cite a blog post comment in APA style?”. MyBlogLog also revealed that people arrived at my blog wanting to know how to cite YouTube and Flickr, so I went on to research those problems too. (Judge the product)

"

Sigh. How ever did anyone manage to solve problems before 1987?

Literacy & Informacy: Problems with the term "information literacy skills"

Previously, I explained why I applied for RPL in
CULLB602C Use, evaluate and extend
own information literacy skills.

YAY I have been granted recognition of prior learning :D

I never did get around to publishing the progress of my thoughts while examining conceptions of “information literacy” - probably because I never really resolved the issues to my own satisfaction.

Perhaps instead I will just post a scattering of thoughts without aiming for a conclusion.

First I needed to understand my base point. So I looked at definitions:

From memory: A skill is an ability; but then so is literacy. So "literacy skills" is tautological (ability to read and write abilities).

I checked a dictionary:

From the Concise Oxford Dictionary (Sykes, 1976):

information n. Informing, telling; thing told, knowledge, (desired items of knowledge, news.

literacy n. Ability to read and write.

skill1 n Expertness, practiced ability, facility in an action or in doing or to do something; dexterity, tact.

However: I have observed over the years that the term ‘literacy’ has been used to express a variety of notions beyond that simplest definition, to include whole spans of thinking and communication skills (Callison & Lamb, 2005-2009). Sometimes to the point where reading and writing may be completely irrelevant: “making meaning in a two way flow of communications” (Boyce, 1999, p. 57). In fact Callison & Lamb (2005-2009), among many, declare that “the definition of literacy has evolved” (¶1).

Oh I'd agree that the term has been malleably defined to suit the goals of its users, but considering the breadth encapsulated in its Latin root, evolution is not what has happened.

Online Etymology Dictionary via kwout

I guess I struggle with phrases compounded as "xxxx literacy" because of the way "literacy" itself is loaded.

Comprehension and communication skills seem to me to be independent of the ability to read and write; and need to have been present in order for a person to learn to read and write. Refinement of comprehension (higher order thinking skills) and communication also develop outside a text environment, although most of us don't get to see that as we live and learn within one.

It is easy to see how, in a society in which text is a dominant communication device; people can conflate natural development of human capacity to comprehend and communicate with increasing competence and fluency with text. Could such conflation create an assumption that to learn and function depend particularly on the ability to read and write; then explaining why quite beside the overall education system, literacy programs particularly attract funding? Might this factor into a willingness to wrap up anything at all as literacy?

Back to "xxxx literacy": These days one can find “literacy” being appended to almost any other word to convey something about skills which are required to make sense within context of the first word. Often, these skills do not require literacy at all except when they are to be applied in a text environment. For example:

“Scientific Literacy, Economic Literacy, Technological Literacy, Visual Literacy, Information Literacy, Multicultural Literacy.... communication literacy, productivity literacy, content literacy, critical literacy” (Callison & Lamb, 2005-2009, ¶4,5).

Even the competence to pursue, evaluate and use information does not require literacy (the ability to read and write). Campbell (2008 p. 19, citing Aporta, 2002) describes how the Inuit people in Canada’s High Arctic, when planning a journey across the sea ice which reforms over time with ocean currents and underwater landforms:

• know they need information on the current “ice marks” by which to navigate,
• know whom to approach to get information (the experts with the traditional, oral knowledge on the codes that make such marks predictable),
• evaluate who has the most experience or is the best navigator, and
• use that information to travel through the sea ice territory safely

Campbell (2008) declares this pattern of information seeking, evaluating and using is consistent with the American Library Association (1989, ¶3) definition of being information literate: to recognise when information is needed, to locate, evaluate and use appropriate information effectively.

Such an example demonstrates that the capacity humans have for acquiring and using information does not require literacy (ability to read and write). So to label such capability as "information literacy" perpetuates confusion where there should be distinction between literacy and thinking or whatever skills are of practical interest.

• Precise skills which fall under the label ‘information literacy’ are remarkably diverse depending on the educator and his/her program, and can include:
• Basic computer and internet access skills (Millen & Roberts, 2007) through to information technology fluency (Bundy, 2004 as cited in Andretta 2005, p. 44; Shapiro & Hughes, 1996),
• Library orientation (Slusarczyk, 1996; Gavin, 2008),
• Search engine savvy, or searching the web (Boyce, 1999, ¶2; Gavin, 2008) ,
• Searching OPACs, databases (Gavin, 2008; Andretta, 2005),
• Selecting a research/essay topic and developing a thesis statement (Gavin, 2008),
• Writing skills (Andretta, 2005, p. 176),
• Referencing skills (Andretta, 2005, p. 175; Slusarczyk, 1996 p. 62),
• Evaluating web sources (Gavin, 2008; Andretta, 2005, p. 174),
• Standards and formulae for cognitive skills and metacognitive processes including problem solving and critical thinking (Boyce, 1999, ¶2; Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 2009; Shapiro & Hughes, 1996, Bundy (2004) and Hepworth (2000) as cited in Andretta, 2005, p. 44 and p. 16)
• “Social-structural literacy, or knowing that and how information is socially situated and produced” (Shapiro & Hughes, 1996),
• The ability to self-publish electronically in text or multimedia (Shapiro & Hughes, 1996),
• Values and beliefs about wise, ethical and socially responsible use of information (Bundy (2004) as cited in Andretta, 2005)
• “right through to philosophy of learning how to learn, personal mastery and leadership” (Boyce, 1999, ¶2)

Once again one wonders whether the umbrella use of a term like “information literacy” is motivated by the appeal of the words to garner financial support. Boyce (1999) opines:

“The social and cultural values we associate with each word mediate their connection so that coupled together in a special communications context, at a time of educational and curriculum reform, they are endowed with urgency and extra significance”

I'm tempted, if an umbrella term is needed (for the capabilities to identify a need for, seek, find, evaluate and ethically use information) to use Informacy. Although I imagined the term for myself following the pattern set by literacy and numeracy, I have discovered I am not the first:

Informacy term first used - Google Search via kwout

Not having access to Emerald's holding of Aslib Proceedings from 1984, I cannot check who (if anyone) R Lester appears to have been citing in that article. Nor could I check whether the term was defined as I would use it. (Update 11 April 2011, I've somehow gained access and it appears Lester was citing a "LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES COUNCIL. Working Party on Manpower Education and Training. Discussion Paper on User Education. June 1983" and from his quotes (because I can't find the original) believe they did use the term as I would.  Interestingly, Mr Lester argued against public funding of "user education" programs, and felt the appropriate place for informacy education was in primary schools.)

In one case:

eInclusion@EU : Section 2.2 via kwout

Is there any way of easily discovering whether the term was ever proposed outside of the context of modern technology? In some cases Informacy appears to be used as a compound of information handling and technolacy (another term I'm not the first to conceive):

The Digitisation of Our World - The Digitisation of Our World via kwout

Rise of the knowledge worker - Google Books via kwout

Media access: social and ... - Google Books via kwout

Considering that information is available both outside text and technology, I'd prefer that the term Informacy not automatically incorporate Technolacy:

reinventing-IT: Literacy, Numeracy, and Technolacy? via kwout

But that's enough for today.

References (only those which could not be hyperlinked):

Andretta, S. (2005). Information literacy: a practitioner's guide. Oxford, UK: Chandos.
Boyce, S. (1999). Second thoughts about information literacy. Concept, challenge, conundrum: from library skills to information literacy (pp. 57-65). Adelaide, SA: University of South Australia Library.
Gavin, C. (2008). Teaching information literacy: a conceptual approach. Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press.
Millen, D., & Roberts, H. (2007). Healthy mind, healthy body: digital literacy in the NHS. In J. Secker, D. Boden, & G. Price, The information literacy cookbook: ingredients, recipes and tips for success (pp. 27-43). Oxford, England: Chandos.
Slusarczyk, L. (1996). Finding business information in Curtin University Library: information literacy skills for life-long learning. [Bentley], Western Australia: Glenn Pass.
Sykes, J. B. (Ed.). (1976). The concise Oxford dictionary of current English (6^th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

RPL for CULLB602C & Library2.0

Have you ever applied for RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning)... would you describe it as Fun Fun Fun? Hm, not sure I would either :D

Still, that's what I've been doing for the past few months...and much of the process has been Fun.

Since I began studying for an Advanced Diploma in Library and Information Services I have been avoiding one particular subject: "CULLB602C Use, evaluate and extend own information literacy skills". Why?

Because the major assessment task for the unit appeared to be even worse than the nature of assessment I detested in undergraduate degree courses: not just a trivial essay but a completely irrelevant (to the industry) trivial essay. To be produced just for the sake of demonstrating "conducting research", "communication skill" and "appropriate referencing" - as if none of these attributes have been demonstrated in any of our other unit assessments. Only this was the longest individual piece of writing required in the course. (Other units' assessment tasks often had no number-of-words constraints and depending on the student's extent of research may (in fact for me did) produce longer pieces of writing.)

All this time I have wondered in what way that kind of assessment related to the title & purpose of the unit. So in 2009, facing the prospect of having to do the unit in 2010, I asked a current student of the unit for the elements of competence. The elements and criteria of competence (pdf) of this unit are interesting - they are relevant to the industry and competence in them is I believe important for performance as librarians. (By librarian I mean the Cambridge and Oxford definition not the more recent and questionably-motivated redefinition). Unfortunately I did not and do not believe that the assessment tasks used in recent years appropriately challenged students or allowed them to develop and substantiate even half of the criteria of competence that the unit appeared designed to achieve and which would be valuable for their careers.

Also while I read it occurred to me that as a result of my work and play I could already demonstrate competence in all of those elements and their criteria: I would apply for RPL.

Along the way I would wrestle with a term I have long detested: "information literacy" - I refuse to append the third word often thrown on the end as it is in the name of the unit, because the effect makes me shudder. Naturally it is a fight I am in no position to win, but the attempt involved research, reflection and writing. All of which I felt would be constructive: personally, professionally, and for my application for RPL.

Do you think a series of posts could be good evidence? I wasn't brave enough. Not that I have an audience of whom to be shy, after all I write randomly, and for myself mainly. I did not know who would assess my application so I could not check whether they would be comfortable with that sort of evidence, although I did eventually refer to some of my posts (particularly those on citing online sources). Although it wasn't just the assessor's comfort... the thought of having what I hoped would demonstrate my competence available for anyone to view (and potentially question) was a little too scarey. Now I wish I had tried it because I have come to feel that blogging would be an excellent medium through which students could explore, develop and demonstrate the competencies of the unit.

I'd still like to post some of the thoughts I had during my application, and the assessor has since given approval, but I'm not sure how to or even whether it is worth doing so retrospectively.

Amongst other evidence, I referred to my explorations and subsequent use of web2.0 tools. I kept fantasising how a program somewhat like 23 Things could might help library students to "use, evaluate and extend" their "information literacy".

Excitingly, during my interview, the assessor indicated that my application for RPL and its reasons (ie the poor relevance of the assessment task) had contributed to a review of how the unit is presented at UB. Apparently it will now be restructured and among other changes will involve aspects of ... oh let's call it "Library 2.0 stuff" for want of a better phrase. I hope I get to see how it changes.