Library Instruction West 2018

UNM librarians consider a source evaluation method that shifts the focus from truth to trust and from content to context, thereby centering the Authority is Constructed and Contextual and Information Creation as a Process frames from the ACRL Framework. The recent proliferation of “fake news” and misinformation prompts us to ask: Can the Framework help us develop a straightforward and substantive approach to source evaluation?

Data collected through UNM’s first year instruction program indicates that students often struggle to make judgments about information content, including language, argument, accuracy, and purpose, which can hinder students’ attempts to determine a source’s relevance and value. Student evaluation of information can also be influenced by emotional predispositions and biases that may lead to less objective source evaluations. Instead of focusing our efforts on the content of a source and attempting to determine whether or not it represents “the truth,” we help students evaluate a source’s context to assess whether to trust the information a source conveys. We concentrate on:

• concrete fact-checking techniques—e.g. lateral and upstream reading/research—to assess authority, and
• a new conceptualization of format, informed by genre theory, to help students assess the purpose of a source and the underlying processes that result in its creation.

Focusing evaluative efforts on the “container” also offers students some distance from potentially inflammatory content. As students adapt fact-checking techniques to quickly scan multiple sources and become more familiar with various information formats, they will be able to more readily understand and effectively use sources.

"Bias" is often invoked in the context of information literacy, namely that something is or is not "biased". This approach does little to communicate to students that bias is a complicated concept and that the factors that determine bias are varied and contextual.

With reference to the ACRL frame "Authority is Constructed and Contextual" this presentation will describe ways in which the common understanding and use of the term bias is problematic and limiting for our students as they seek to navigate a complex information landscape. In particular it will highlight work related to the study of bias from fields beyond librarianship such as philosophy and psychology in order to provide attendees with insight into how other areas of academia have worked to expand our collective understanding of the different dimensions of this topic. In doing so, attendees will have the opportunity to think critically about the ways in which their conceptions of bias compare and contrast with common modes of understanding bias as articulated in other areas of academia.

In this session attendees will consider how a broader, more nuanced approach to teaching the concept of bias could be applied in their instruction sessions. The presentation will include specific strategies for advancing students understanding of various types of bias relevant to information literacy, which include anchoring bias and confirmation bias. This presentation will focus on bias as it applies not just to information sources but also as it relates to the disposition within the "Authority is Constructed and Contextual" frame that references the responsibility that librarians have to support students in gaining "a self-awareness of their own biases and worldview".