Promoting Lifelong Learning in
Engineering via a One-Credit
Information Literacy Course
Edward Eckel, Engineering Librarian
Western Michigan University
GE103 at Aquinas College






“Introduction to Information Literacy”
One-credit, freshman level, general
education
8 weeks long (hour and a quarter/week)
Required of all incoming freshmen
Originated in Fall 2002 by Shellie Jeffries
Mandated by Aquinas administration (topdown)
Skill Set Taught - ACRL




Determine the nature and extent of the
information needed
Access needed information effectively and
efficiently
Evaluate information and its sources critically
Use information effectively to accomplish a
specific purpose
Lifelong Learning
“Half-life of an engineer’s knowledge is less
than five years.”
Leah Jamieson
Measuring the Skill Set
Pre/Post tests
 Weekly homework assignments
 Final project – pathfinder (annotated
bibliography)

Pretest





Freshmen given opportunity to test out
Pretest is given in the summer before
freshman year
45 minute blocks during orientation
activities
Test out score is >75%
Fall 2005: 23 out of 418 tested out
Pretest




25 multiple-choice
15 short answer
Short answer questions include story
problem
Story problem designed to test the ability to
generate keywords and create online search
statements or strategies
You’ve been given the assignment
to write a 7-10 page paper
discussing this thesis statement:
“The federal government should devote more
money to renewable energy research so
society’s dependence on foreign oil is
lessened.”
A.
Write the main keywords for the thesis
statement above, plus some
synonyms/alternatives for those
keywords.
Keyword
Synonym
Synonym
Synonym
A. Write the main keywords for the thesis
statement above, plus some
synonyms/alternatives for those keywords.
Keyword
Synonym
Synonym
Synonym
federal gov’t
President
Congress
Energy policies
Renewable
energy
Alternative /
sustainable
Solar / wind /
geothermal
Fuel cells /
hybrid vehicles
Oil
Petroleum
Gas / natural gas
Fossil fuel(s)
opec
Organization of
Petroleum
Exporting
Countries
Saudi Arabia /
Venezuela
foreign oil
Grading Rubric – Part A
Fair: Identifies keywords (4 pts)
Good: Identifies the most appropriate
keywords and a few synonyms (5 pts)
Excellent: Identifies the most appropriate
keywords and the most relevant synonyms
(6 pts)
B. Write the search statement(s) you
would type in when searching an
online database; incorporate as many
tools in your search statement as
you can to make your search efficient
and effective
Sample answers
Federal AND (oil OR petroleum) AND polic*
(limit by date and to peer-reviewed journals)
“energy policy” AND (oil OR petroleum) AND
federal AND (opec OR foreign)
Grading Rubric – Part B
Fair: Two or more synonyms/alternative keywords,
Boolean operators (3 pts)
Good: Two or more synonyms/alternative keywords,
Boolean operators, phrase searching, parentheses
(5 pts)
Excellent: All of above plus truncation, limiting to
peer-reviewed articles; searching in specific field,
etc. (7 pts)
Posttests
Final Exam, taken in class
 50 multiple-choice questions
 15 short answer
 Research topic sentence is usually
different for each class

Engineering Education

Examples of contexts:
 Senior design projects or other capstone
 Background in scholarly research for
future graduate students
 Writing-intensive courses (such as at
WMU)
 Can be integrated into existing technical
communications courses
Ethical Use of Information
Not covered in GE103 – time
constraints
 Avoiding plagiarism
 Can be integrated into engineering
ethics courses
