Information Literacy at CLU

Information Literacy Program

Our Mission

The mission of California Lutheran University is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice. To support this aim, the mission of the CLU Information Literary Program (ILP) is to assist students with acquiring information research, critical thinking, and communication skills for a successful college experience and for achievement in today's global society.

Competency Standards & Learning Outcomes

Our Information Literacy Program (ILP) is built on the national standards of the Association of College & Research Libraries entitled the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education and is designed to support the CLU Student Learning Outcomes, in particular, Liberal Learning:

  • Critical thinking
  • Information literacy
  • Written communication
  • Oral communication
  • Ability to comprehend issues from disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives
  • Understand of culture and global diversity
  • Integration of knowledge with ethical reflection

Our Goals

The goal of our program is to have a seamless blending of information literacy concepts and course content.  See our timeline for more details. Another goal is to develop student skills sequentially an in concert with their course content. Among our program objectives are to:

  • Introduce information competency skills during the freshman experience, e.g., including skill building in core courses such as University Life, English 111 and Religion 101.
  • Support faculty and students building on freshman level skills via information literacy activities and assignments in sophomore and junior level courses.
  • Integrate advanced information literacy skills and concepts to coincide with research-intensive papers in capstone courses.

A matrix for Freshman Year Information Literacy Learning Objectives outlines how we introduce specific information literacy concepts in freshmen classes through our instruction sessions. For example, as freshman English students study literature, they also learn about databases for literary criticism and how to create citations in MLA style.

Services for Faculty

The Pearson Library offers various services revolving around information literacy to support faculty. These include:

Fifty minute instruction sessions

“One-shot” 50-minute instruction sessions are customized instruction sessions focusing on orientations to library resources and using resources for specific assignments.

A goal is to sequence and integrate them more into the curriculum so that instruction sessions build on each other, present unique content, and avoid repetition.

Customized workshops & boot camps

Customized workshops are offered at the start of each semester for new students starting the Adult Evening Program (ADEP), MBA, graduate psychology and School of Education programs.

Half-day workshops are also offered for incoming doctoral cohorts. These focus on CLU online databases, APA format, framing research questions and search queries for advanced online searching.

Faculty-led workshops

Workshops led by faculty for faculty on teaching and learning issues are offered during the academic year and sponsored by the Pearson Library.

Support for Program reviews. 

Librarians are offering assistance in reviewing and ensuring that the library collections and resources support the various academic programs. This collaborative service is very useful in preparation for accreditation and meeting other program evaluation goals.

Information Literacy Tutorials for Students

Try these fun and interactive tutorials courtesy of St. John's University Libraries in New York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and learn about research strategies, finding articles, Internet research, evaluating information, citing sources, and avoiding plagiarism and more. Includes downloadable handouts too! Go ahead and give them a try!

 

Henri Mondschein, in coordination with the other Information Specialists, manages the Information Literacy Program.