Proposal: Information Literacy in the Advanced Hispanic Studies Courses: The Creation of an Information Literacy Resource Center for Hispanic Studies (ILRCHS).

Vicente P?rez de Le?n, Hispanic Studies Department, Oberlin College.

Proposal Overview

The members of the Hispanic Studies Department, in the process of evaluating the program agreed that it is essential for our students to acquire Information Literacy skills for their success in the advanced courses of our curriculum.

I propose to develop an Information Literacy Resource Center for Hispanic Studies (ILRCHS) to serve both as a tool to teach Hispanic Studies students the strategies and skills of Information Literacy, and as a bank of Information Literacy resource available for the instructors of the department who need to add an IL component to their courses. The ILRCHS will start as a reference tool for SPAN-306, one of the key courses of the Hispanic Studies Curriculum, but the ILRCHS might be enhanced over the time by any of the faculty members of the department.

The primary objective for the new ILRCHS will be enhancing the Hispanic I nformation Literacy component in SPAN-306 - - a course that functions as a link between Advanced Language and Survey of Literature Courses. SPAN-306 - - taught every Fall semester - - is currently one of the essential courses of the Hispanic Studies curriculum and will very surely be a required course for majors starting Fall 2002. This course will be both an introduction to Hispanic Literature, and a course where students become familiarized - - in many cases, for the first time - - with research skills in the study of Literature, Literary Theory, literary terminology, main literary currents, etc.

The new Information Literacy component for SPAN- 306 would be developed through the creation of a web-based teaching resource center (to include links, power point presentations, lesson plans, etc.) and a web-based course that could be used by any instructor that teaches this course in the department of Hispanic Studies. This ILRCHS could eventually be developed and expanded to create a specific Information Literacy course for Hispanic Majors in the future. The creation of materials will serve both students and instructors. It is therefore important for the ILRCHS to be developed as a team-work with Hispanic literature, library and language lab faculty members, so that everyone who uses the ILHRC benefits from diverse skills and knowledge.

The web-based course of Literacy Information will include different components that could eventually be developed into a distance-learning course - - Winter term or regular semester - - and in a specific one semester traditional course on Information Literacy for Hispanic Majors. The web-based course, as it will be developed, will easily be adaptable as a traditional Winter term course on Information Literacy.

Work Plan

Phase I (Spring - Summer 2001)
Introducing Information Literacy into Hispanic Studies
To include:

• overview of range of resources available in Hispanic Studies
• an introduction to electronic texts
• importance of critical evaluation of resouces (electronic & print)
• importance of being able to formulate a research strategy, and understand the process through which questions are refined in the course of research.

How to research and write a Hispanic Literature paper
To include:

• introduction to effective use of MLA International Bibliography, Humanities Abstracts, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, and other relevant sources
• introduction to MLA style manual
• how to create and handle a bibliography

Information Literacy Use and Ethics: A Humanistic View
To include:

• discussion on why access to the right information is essential in our world, the importance of not being influenced by information from media, Internet, etc.
• discussion of how scholars in the Hispanic Studies discipline generate, control, and use information (published/unpublished sources, electronic & personal communications, etc.).
• importance of awareness of fair use/ plagarism

Phase II (to be developed in the future)

• Lesson plans. Specific lesson plans, instructions for the instructor and PPP computer-assisted classes for a mini-course on Information Literacy.
• Guided research. Students will be able to do their own custom-made research, following a guided research page. Some instructions will be added so that the instructor can assist the student on specific questions or doubts about the topic, help the student to find the information on databases and include it in her or his research paper.
• Syllabi. Some potential syllabi for a one, two and three week Information Literacy course.

Phase III (to be developed in the future)

• Assisted research exercises examples. A series of advanced assisted exercises on specific researches on general topics of research (Ex. Don Juan, ?Magic Realism?, Don Quixote, etc.),
• Creating a HIL Distance Learning course. Potential transformation of the course on HIL proposed into a Distance Learning course.
• Electronic texts. Skills in using electronic texts databases, suggestions of use, practical examples. There will be a series of representative Hispanic texts uploaded for student use with an explanation of the possibilities opened in the use of these texts.
• Bibliography. Developing skills in using bibliography in an advanced level.

Practical use of the ILRCHS

The web-based course and data bank will serve some essential practical needs:

One: An Information Literacy mini-course (two weeks) that could be used as a component to reinforce any Hispanic Studies course when the instructor considered it useful. It will be one of the components of SPAN-306, a course taught every year in the Fall semester at the Hispanic Studies Department.

Two: Open the possibility to keep on working in the course to eventually create a one credit Winter term course on Information Literacy, either traditional or distance.

Three: Open the possibility to expand the ILRCHS into a full semester course to be added to the regular Hispanic Studies curriculum.

Four: Be a reference web-based course page for the Hispanic Studies faculty t o use to insert an IL component into their courses, refer students to for specific research, etc.

Students and instructors will benefit from the ILRCHS:

Students will be able to get into the ILHRC anytime they want and refer to the materials any time they have a question, problem or doubt related to research or information in any of their Hispanic Studies courses. As the use of specific databases will be explained thoroughly and guided web-based tutorials will be included, students will be able to work in a custom-made resource center that will help them to discriminate the information they need and not get lost with a huge amount of information.

Students will be able to look at research models for their papers, and read about the different stages of research that one has to follow through with in order to get to a final result.

Instructors will have a data bank on IL in Hispanic Studies that can be used to refer to when students ask for extra help in any of the advanced courses - - including honors thesis - - of the curriculum of the department. Students will also be able to take self-guided courses in one or some of the skills the instructor thinks the student needs extra help with.

Instructors will be able to incorporate the information on the ILHRC into their regularly taught courses and use the data bank to guide students in any course they teach, including traditional and distance courses, private readings and honors thesis.

Proposed timeline

1. Spring 2001. I will work in collaboration with a librarian to get ideas and directly incorporate them in the course revision work for Spanish 306.
2. If necessary, additional time will be spent at the beginning or end of the summer to complete the project.

The information literacy material will be ready for use in the SPAN-306 course in the Fall '01 semester. There will also be the potential for continued work on Phases II and III in the future.
During the Spring 2001 term I will meet with the assigned librarian on an as-needed basis (to be determined in consultation with the librarian).
I will also work closely with a person from the language lab and Ohio5 technology specialist.

Methodology

The philosophy of the project is to help both students and instructors by offering them a reliable, customized resource center for Hispanic Studies classes. The resource center will guide students into the world of Humanities; educate them; open the doors of knowledge? The mini-course and data bank will ultimately help the students self-guide into the contemporary world of information and learn how to discriminate information and think critically.

Appendix

306 Colloquium: Literary Commentary of Hispanic Texts

This Colloquium is offered exclusively to freshmen and sophomores. In this course you will be able to familiarize yourself with the ideas and literary currents that have contributed to construct the concept of Hispanic Literature through the reading and analysis of the most representative Hispanic texts. Special emphasis will be given to the learning of the mechanisms of literary commentary, library research skills, main ideological trends of Literary Theory and developing strategies to create a research literature paper.

Proposal: Information Literacy in the Advanced Hispanic Studies Courses: The Creation of an Information Literacy Resource Center for Hispanic Studies (ILRCHS).

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