Information Literacy Proposal

Course: Public Finance
Faculty: Robert J. Gitter, Professor of Economics
Librarian: Joy He, Public Services Librarian

Project

Economics is a discipline especially well suited to integrating information literacy into its curriculum. At its heart, economics is a quantitative social science with a wealth of data and other information available in different forms from a multitude of sources. Unfortunately, economists in general and our department in particular have struggled in determining how best expose students to the information that could supplement texts and lectures.

Bob Gitter's Public Finance class provides an opportunity to effectively integrate information literacy into a class and extend the skills developed by the students as well as more effectively teach the material in the course. Public Finance deals with the rationale for government intervention in the economy, the methods of intervention and the effectiveness of this intervention. Among the topics covered are the equality of the income distribution, welfare programs, social security, health care, environmental economics, national defense and the effects of the tax system. The structure of the course is fairly typical with lectures, a text, additional readings and homework assignments. Currently, there is minimal use of primary and secondary sources of information. Given the great wealth of information on the subject matter in the course, it would be of great use to the students if they could learn how to locate, evaluate and use the information themselves. Their learning of course concepts would be facilitated by assignments that would build on the information that has been gathered.

The proposed project would set up a series of assignments that would have the students obtain nformation, usually from on-line sources, perform a structured analysis of the material and write a short paper discussing their findings. A series of such assignments would be given with the requisite number of pages resulting in the potential to offer the course as a Writing Option course. Although the assignments and the topics have yet to be constructed, some potential topics that could be covered would be

• An examination of the distribution of income. Joy He, as a Public Services Librarian, is well versed in the government sites run by the United States Census that shows the distribution of income in the United States. These sites show how the distribution has changed over time and how various tax and transfer payments affect it. Further, Bob Gitter can expose the students to international studies available on-line that compare the equality of the income distribution in other nations. Students would write a paper, drawing on the information gathered and relevant course material focusing on an aspect of the distribution of income.
  
  
• The determinants of health insurance coverage. Government surveys such as the Current Population Survey (CPS) now place survey data on-line. Bob Gitter has used the survey for student assignments in his Labor Economics class and can easily do the same for this course as well. The CPS contains demographic background on individuals as well as information as to whether they are covered by health insurance. Students can perform a statistical analysis on this primary source of data and write up which factors affect the availability of health insurance.
  
  
• The effect of taxes. Taxes have an effect both on the distribution of resources and the economic decisions that are made. The government provides information on the tax system through the IRS site and many private research organizations provide their own analysis. Joy He would guide the students through these sites. Student assignments would focus on the effects and potential changes to aspects of the tax system such as the marriage penalty, the maximum tax rate, the deduction for charitable contributions, etc.

Other topics would lend themselves to similar analyses and it is envisioned that approximately five or such topics would be given out in the course of the semester. The papers would require students to become more familiar with different types of resources and know the differences between primary and secondary sources and would rely heavily on the skills of Joy He here. Students would improve their ability to find information and through the assignments how to assess and effectively use the various sources.

Time Line

Winter Break 2000-2001 - development of course material
Spring 2001 - information literacy instruction and assignments used in Public Finance
Summer 2001 - evaluation.

Faculty Time

Although the faculty time required to do this will be substantial (a week during break and perhaps three hours a week during the semester and some time to wrap up the evaluation in the following summer) much of this would have been done by Bob Gitter anyway in attempting to update the course.

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