New open-access articles: Misinformation; Social media literacy; Social bots; Selective belief; Motivations for sharing

The latest volume (no. 15, 2021) of the open-access journal International Journal of Communication https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/issue/view/17 includes
- “One Big Fake News”: Misinformation at the Intersection of User-Based and Legacy Media by Aya Yadlin, Oranit Klein Shagrir. "We show how online mediated spaces that are considered aggressive and counterproductive should also be understood as facilitators of calls against misuse of public resources and manipulations spread in society. We thus suggest that alongside legacy mainstream media, user comments can become part of the solution for the prevalence of disinformation in our current digital media ecosystem."
- Developing a Perceived Social Media Literacy Scale: Evidence from Singapore by Edson C. Tandoc  et al. "Through a series of 4 studies (focus group discussions involving social media users and 3 nationally representative online surveys) conducted in Singapore, we identify 4 types of competencies in which social media literacy can manifest: technical, social, privacy related, and informational. ... based on the qualitative results, we developed and tested a perceived social media literacy (PSML) scale through a series of 3 national online surveys, where we found disparities in PSML based on socioeconomic factors."
and the issue has a special section on Comparative Approaches to Mis/Disinformation
- Electronic Armies or Cyber Knights? The Sources of Pro-Authoritarian Discourse on Middle East Twitter by Alexei Abrahams, Andrew Leber.
- Motivations for Sharing Misinformation: A Comparative Study in Six Sub-Saharan African Countries by Dani Madrid-Morales et al
- When Machine Behavior Targets Future Voters: The Use of Social Bots to Test Narratives for Political Campaigns in Brazil by Rose Marie Santini, Débora Salles, Giulia Tucci
- Fighting Zika With Honey: An Analysis of YouTube’s Video Recommendations on Brazilian YouTube by Jonas Kaiser, Adrian Rauchfleisch, Yasodara Córdova
- Belief in or Identification of False News According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Chi-Ying Chen, Mike Kearney, Shao-Liang Chang. One of their findings from this quantitative study was "information literacy was not a moderator for any informational cue. This reveals the urgency of improvements in literacy education, especially when considering the roles of individuals as media gatekeepers in SM." However, the 3 items used to measure IL were "I can search for online information when I need to; I contribute to online discussion in the form of writing comments when I need help; I verify online information when I am not sure about its authenticity."
- Selective Belief: How Partisanship Drives Belief in Misinformation by Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Burhanuddin Muhtadi
Photo by Sheila Webber: floribunda, June 2021

Information literacy papers from #WLIC2019

These are full-text papers related to information literacy which were presented at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference this week:
- REPANOVICI, Angela and LANDOY, Ane (2019) Methods to implement new information technologies for teaching Information Literacy. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2019 - Athens, Greece - Libraries: dialogue for change in Session 234 - Education and Training. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2529 "The authors ... will share their experience with the introduction of training masterclasses on the use of knowledge and interactive teaching technologies using Kahoot and Hypersay
- BRINDESI, Hara and PAPAZOGLOU, Alexandra (2019) Information literacy efforts addressed to schools in Greece. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2019 - Athens, Greece - Libraries: dialogue for change in Session 207 - Information Literacy with Library Theory and Research. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2579
- COSTA, Margarida (2019) The issue of media literacy in Portuguese school libraries: data inspire action. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2019 - Athens, Greece - Libraries: dialogue for change in Session 190 - School Libraries. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2546
"Launched in 1996, the School Libraries Network Program aims to install and develop libraries, making available to users the necessary resources for reading, accessing, using and producing information in print, electronic and digital media. ... systematic gathering of information led to the identification of a critical issue, because it corresponds to the persistence of a trend: there is an uneven distribution of activities by the three areas of literacy and media literacy is clearly the one that is less addressed. In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the intervention strategies designed by the School Libraries Network have involved raising awareness of teacher librarians and training them for a more consistent and confident approach to media literacy."
- CHANG, Naicheng and HSU, Hsuanyu Sheila (2019) Integrating action learning into information literacy instruction in a cross-disciplinary blended learning environment. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2019 - Athens, Greece - Libraries: dialogue for change in Session 207 - Information Literacy with Library Theory and Research. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2507
- CONNAWAY, Lynn Silipigni et al. (2019) Authority, Context and Containers: Student Perceptions and Judgments When Using Google for School Work. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2019 - Athens, Greece - Libraries: dialogue for change in Session 207 - Information Literacy with Library Theory and Research. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2508

Argument-Driven Inquiry in the Information Literacy Instruction in Taiwan #ecil2015

Next at the European Conference on Information Literacy 2015 for me was Argument-Driven Inquiry in the Information Literacy Instruction in Taiwan , presented by Lin Ching Chen, coauthored with Yaw-Huei Chen. She started by identifying the importance of argument learning (which means meaning making anargument using logical reasoning and relevant evidence to convince and audience whilst condsidering one's own opinion). The speaker felt that there was a lot of similarity between information literacy and argument-driven inquiry. The purpose of her presentation was to examine students' overall argument performance and to get the views of teachers and students.
She used a class of 30 grade 5 (which is towards the end of primary school, I think) learners in Taiwan where IL using the Super 6 and Big 6 were intergrated into the curriculum. The exercise involved groups of students chosing a controversial figure, mindmap the person, identify pros and cons of the person with evidence, write argumentative essays and then present their conclusions to the class.
As a research instrument she had a 13 item instrument (e.g. asking them to give a positive example or argument abpuyt something, or asking about the argumentative process itself), which was used for a pre and post test, and looking at the written answer and using a kind of rubric as analysis framework. There were much better results in the post test. One third of students had difficulty integrating multiple perspectives in one text. 50% could apply what they learned in argumentative texts. Looking at the teachers' opinions; time was a key problem (more time was needed). The speaker recommended teacher librarian and classroom teacher systematically and collaboratively designing argument-driven inquiry projects.

Evaluating the learning effectiveness of an online Information Literacy Class

New article: Taiwanese study evaluating information literacy education using Kirkpatrick's framework. Article is in a priced journal.
Chang, N. and Chen, L. (2014) Evaluating the learning effectiveness of an online Information Literacy Class based on the Kirkpatrick framework. Libri, 64 (3),211–223. http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/libr.2014.64.issue-3/libri-2014-0016/libri-2014-0016.xml?format=INT

"The purpose of this study was to use the Kirkpatrick four-stage framework to evaluate the learning effectiveness of the online general education information literacy materials “Library and Information Utilization,” initiated by the Ministry of Education (MoE) for higher education in Taiwan ... The study population consisted of 206 students at Tatung University and the course evaluation spanned two academic years. ... The study used a mixed-method approach, including a mainly quantitative online questionnaire, followed by ten semi-structured interviews of students ... In general, the results demonstrated that students were more confident in their future study and daily life after learning the online material. Based on the Kirkpatrick model, the results provide favourable evidence for course effectiveness and its value...."
Photo by Sheila Webber: rose, Regent Park College, Oxford, September 2014