INFORMATION COMPETENCY INSTRUCTION PLAN
AT PASADENA CITY COLLEGE
“To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information
is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed
information.” -- American Library Association
Rationale for proposing this plan:
In September 2002 the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges was
very near to imposing the Information Competency Requirement for AA or AS
degrees for students who will start all California community colleges as of fall 2004.
This requirement was put on hold this year due to the state’s budget shortfalls. Many
community colleges, however, placed the Information Competency requirement as part of
the graduation requirements regardless of its failure as a state mandate. Pasadena City
College needs to develop a plan for Information Competency Instruction as part of the
PCC’s Education Master Plan to assist students’ learning and their success in academic
pursuit. This plan will help accelerate implementing the Information Competency
requirement when the Board of Governors does enact this mandate.
All California State University campuses stress the importance of students’ information
competency skills and have implemented plans that fit to each campus’ need. CSU and
UC systems both want all California community colleges to teach information
competency skills before students transfer to upper divisions of UCs & CSUs.
Information competency will not only accelerate the learning success of students in their
academic lives but also facilitate their growth as life-long learners in a democratic
society.
Mission:
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To prepare PCC students with information competency skills by incorporating
information competency instruction and information research into their college
experience.
Goals:
1. To promote awareness of the importance of information competency in academic
settings and daily living.
2. To encourage students to engage in active learning processes by utilizing
information competency skills to make effective use of information for academic
needs as well as for life-long learning.
3. To strengthen students’ ability to think critically and make informed judgments
on retrieved information.
4. To promote the use of the advanced technological equipment and software in
classroom teaching.
5. To infuse information competency skills in all core courses in the general
education requirements and in the critical vocational courses and add information
competency skills in the learning objectives (TMOs: terminal measurable
objectives) of these courses.
Objectives:
Students who are information literate can do the following:
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Recognize and articulate the need for information;
Develop effective search strategies;
Select and use information retrieval tools;
Locate and retrieve information sources;
Analyze and critically evaluate information;
Organize and synthesize information;
Use/apply information utilizing critical thinking/problem solving skills;
Understand the social, legal and ethical issues relating to information and its use
by upholding copyright and intellectual property regulations and by properly
crediting information sources to avoid plagiarism.
(Excerpted from the ACRL Guidelines, College & Research Libraries
News, May 1998)
Information Competency Implementation Plan for PCC:
1. Work with the Academic Senate and the C&I Committee to adopt a workable
Information Competency Instruction Plan for PCC.
2. Conduct a needs assessment to determine where Information Competency has
already been integrated and how.
3. Expand cooperation between library faculty and discipline faculty for course
related instruction sessions.
o Teaching faculty determine information competency goals specific to their
discipline.
o Discipline faculty, in consultation with library faculty, will create
assignments that teach information competency skills.
4. Integrate information competency skills in pilot courses and expand the project
into all GE required or IGETC courses.
o Librarians work with counselors and teaching faculty to select the target
courses for the integration of teaching Information Competency skills.
o Information Competency Ad Hoc Committee recommends the following
courses for Information Competency integration: English 1A, Speech 1,
Speech 10, Philosophy 25, Biology 11, Geology 12, Mathematics 3 & 15,
Statistics 18 & 50, History 7A & B, Psychology 1, Sociology 1, Music 21,
Humanities 1 & 4, Health Ed 2A or 44. (Most of these courses are
present on both the IGETC or CSU Certification paths that students follow
to prepare for transfer.)
o Librarians work with teaching faculty who are involved in the Writing
Across the Curriculum project and design assignments that involve
information competency skills.
5. Expand the information competency skills instruction to all Certificate programs.
o Target courses in each of the vocational areas to develop information
competency modules. (Certificate holders also need to be information
literate in order to succeed in their careers and daily lives. At present Engl
435 – Vocational English and Information Technology is a required
compoent in all of the Automotive Technology Certificate Program.)
6. Encourage more students to enroll in Lib 1 (Basic Library Research Skills) and
Lib 10A (Internet and Web-based Information Resources) offered by the library
faculty to produce more information literate students.
o Lib 1 is a 1-unit course covering all aspects of information search skills
including research strategies.
o The online version of this course will be developed for the 2003-04
academic year.
o Lib 10A is also 1-unit course that teaches the use of the Internet and other
electronic resources for academic research and writing.
7. Expand the currently available information competency tutorials to ESL and other
discipline courses:
o Through Engl 1000x (Writing Center Lab class) all students in Engl 1A,
Engl 100, and Engl 400 classes complete an information literacy tutorial
called TILT-PCC. Time spent for this module may range from 3-4 hours.
(TILT tutorial was designed by the University of Texas librarians and
adapted with permission by PCC librarians. With PFE funding PCC
librarians and the Writing Center faculty modified the UT tutorial to meet
the needs of PCC students in Engl 1A, 100 and 400.)
o Expand the utilization of TILT-PCC in other discipline-based tutorials.
8. Work with teaching faculty to improve the organization of the currently offered
Drop-in information competency workshops for better participation of students.
9. Expand workshops for faculty to integrate the information competency skills into
their teaching.
o Develop workshops for full-time and part-time faculty to create the
information competency assignments. (At Santa Monica College faculty
are gaining two units for these workshops.)
10. Seek the college administration’s commitment to this plan and receive the
approval of this plan from the Board of Trustees.
Information Competency Ad Hoc Committee
Final Draft – 4/18/03