Research Strategies 20 (2007) 322–333

Teaching students about information:Information literacy and cognitive authority

Troy Swanson

Teaching and Learning Librarian, Moraine Valley Community College 9000 W. College Pkwy,Palos Hills, IL 60465, USA

Available online 22 January 2007

Abstract

Scholarship has not undergone a paradigm shift in terms of argument and research with theintroduction of the Web-based information world. Searching, on the other hand, has undergone asignificant shift. In teaching students to find, use, and evaluate information, librarians and instructorsneed a useful model of the information world that enables them to teach students about information. Apractical example of how this may be accomplished is presented. 1

© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. A (not-so-new) view of the research process

One of the realities with the rise of theWorldWideWeb is that theWeb has become the startingpoint when searching for all formats of information. Even when searching for books or printarticles, many people start with the local online library catalog, Amazon.com, subscriptiondatabases, and Google Scholar. Historic research of paper indices (covering dates not included inWeb-based tools) or archival research of primary documents may be two of the few exceptions tothis, but it is hardly a stretch to say that a majority of students, especially undergraduates, willinitiate their searches at a computer terminal using aWeb-based interface. This combined with the“principle of least effort,” the fact that people tend to use information that they know to be of lower

E-mail address: swanson@morainevalley.edu.1 The author gratefully acknowledge the research assistance of Marea Kahn at the Moraine Valley CommunityCollege Library, who greatly aided in the initial literature search in preparation for this article.

0734-3310/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.resstr.2006.12.007

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quality as long as it is easy to get (Bates, 2002), make recent findings that students cite the openWeb more often than online journals, print articles, or books no surprise (Davis, 2002, 2003).

Despite the trends in information usage with the onset of the Web, librarians and instructorshave focused student attention on the “container” or format of the information instead oflooking at the information itself. Librarians have long thought of the research process asZorana Ercegovac (1998) defined it in her book Information Literacy: Search Strategies,Tools, and Resources for High School Students:

• get background information;• narrow your topic;• find books;• find articles; and• decide if more information is needed.

Throughout the 1990s, Carol Collier Kuhlthau (1999) challenged us to rethink the searchprocess. Her studies have produced a model of the information search process that recognizesthe uncertainty and anxiety expressed by searchers. She has defined the following six steps aspart of the information search process:

1. Initiation: a person first becomes aware of lack of knowledge, information, andunderstanding to solve a complex problem.

2. Selection: the task is to identify and select the general area or topic to be investigated.3. Exploration: investigate information on the general problem in order to extend personal

understanding. At this stage an inability to express precisely what information is neededmakes communication awkward between the user and the system.

4. Formulation: form a focus from the information encountered in exploration.5. Collection: gather information pertinent to the focused problem.6. Presentation: complete the search and resolve the problem (pp. 12–17).

Traditional models of research instruction enter the process around the fifth step, collection,and rarely participate in the four preceding steps. Pasty models for searching placed a greatdeal of emphasis on the collection of materials with a polite nod to the very important and oftenpainful early steps to the process. In summarizing her research, Kuhlthau (1999) states that

from the user's perspective forming a focus is a central task of the early stages of the search process. Searching is aprocess over time rather than a single event. Searching is a holistic experience rather than just an intellectual activity.Initially, searching commonly increases uncertainty rather than reducing uncertainty (p. 14).

As argued elsewhere (Tenofsky, 2001; Swanson, 2004), it is time to further evolve infor-mation literacy to meet the needs of current students who face an increasingly complicatedinformation landscape. Librarians should no longer focus on material type and no longer askstudents to evaluate information solely after it is found. Librarians should present a holisticview of the search process and emphasize the importance the first four steps in Kuhlthau'ssearch model by preparing students to deal with the uncertainty of the search process.

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1.1. Teaching students about information

Librarians have the opportunity to place information literacy in the classroom and move itbeyond the mere “look-up skills” workshop that is all too common in academic libraries. AsNancy Dennis (2001) states:

We must shift the focus from librarians postulating what students need to know to librarians supporting students creatingtheir own paths towards information literacy. Instead of simply lecturing about what makes a good Web site, for example,librarians might create inquiry activities that help students construct their own criteria of model sites, through their ownexperimentation (p. 127).

Rebecca Adler (2003) has recognized the role of librarians in causing “a major shift in thenature of undergraduate education” (p. 456). This shift reflects the impact that informationliteracy has had on the curriculum. Librarians are rethinking what they do and how they teach.Instead of simply showing students how to find information and then letting students recognizethe differences between information on their own, librarians need to create situations thatrequire students to think about information.

In order for such an application to be successful, librarians must recognize students'inability to meet expectations stems from their under-preparedness to cope with theoverwhelming nature of the information world. Students cannot be expected to create a searchstrategy, choose research tools, and select useful information if they do not begin to understandthe way information is created and stored. Students must be able to move beyond simpleevaluation of information. They must be able to match their information need to usefulinformation during the initiation, selection, exploration, and formulation steps of Kuhlthau'sinformation search process.

Therefore, librarians and instructors need to have strong models for teaching students aboutinformation. Librarians need to present them with the information landscape and give them theability to make judgments about particular pieces of information and about appropriateinformation tools. This model must reflect the ways in which information is created in society.In order to meet these needs, librarians and instructors need to present students with a model ofthe information world that focuses on the type of information rather than the format (book,Web site, periodical, etc.).

1.2. Cognitive authority and information literacy

Patrick Wilson's (1983) seminal information studies work, Second-Hand Knowledge,lays a solid foundation for a new understanding of the information world. Wilson remindslibrarians that a large portion of what individuals know about the world comes from otherpeople. If individuals had to recreate all of the information used on a daily basis, humankindwould not have generated very much knowledge over the millennia. The fact of the matteris that people grant a range of individuals a level of authority over the knowledgebasefrom which they draw. This cognitive authority is a unique type of authority. If anindividual is referred to as a cognitive authority, then a level of trust is granted in theinformation that this person communicates. If one refers to the level of cognitive authority

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of a particular source, then this is an indication of the level of trust that a particularsource has.

On a daily basis, people do not typically need to turn to the absolute cognitive authority on asubject when gathering information. If one is trying to find the most efficient route to take fromone point to another, that person does not need to consult the foremost cartographic expert.While waiting for a bus, an individual does not need to consult the most publishedmeteorologist on earth to help decide whether or not an umbrella is necessary. On a daily basis,most people can afford to use a less rigorous test of the information they gather. This test is abasic test of credibility.

There are two notions behind credibility: competence and trustworthiness (Wilson, 1983).Does the author present the information in an organized and understandable fashion? Does theauthor indicate the sources of information used to draw conclusions?While cognitive authorityis a test of the level of subject expertise, credibility is a practical test of believability. Someonemay be credible without being a cognitive authority. In fact, someone may be credible with arelatively low level of cognitive authority. A common example of this is the journalist whointerviews sources, gathers background information, and reports on a topic. Recognizing whena credible source is enough or when an absolute authority is needed can be difficult.

For the most part, when people consider using recorded information, they rely on what factscan be gleaned from the information source itself. Information scientist at the NorwegianSchool of Management, Johan Olaisen (1990), provides an initial set of indicators as to thetrustworthiness of an information source: occupational specialization of the author,institutional quality of the author's affiliation, reputation of the publisher, institutionalendorsement, and government information.

While there are no hard and fast rules to universally judge the credibility of an informationsource, we can use Olaisen's (1990) list to make some generalizations. First, there is a matterof reputation. Many authors, publishers, and institutions depend on the quality of their namefor survival. We recognize a difference in the information reported by Science, Newsweek, andThe National Inquirer. Second, this matter of reputation or image usually has economicoutcomes tied to it. The three publications mentioned above use and guard their reputations,even though these reputations vary greatly. If Science started publishing articles that typicallyappeared in The National Inquirer, then the future of Science would become questionable, andvisa versa (Olaisen, 1990). Third, there may be criminal or political repercussions if someinformation is misreported. Journalists may face prosecution under libel laws if theymisrepresent another person, and manipulation of government information may result in areaction by the public. Of course, all of these generalizations have their weaknesses, and anycriteria put forth can be manipulated to meet the needs of less scrupulous creators ofinformation. The Internet provides us with several examples of authors claiming to besomething that they are not (Burbules, 2001).

The expert searcher has several obvious advantages over the novice searcher whenreviewing sources. The expert's prior knowledge on a topic dictates where and how a search isconducted. This knowledge can also act as a benchmark for comparison when new informationis discovered (Fitzgerald, 2000). Additionally, the expert can draw from tacit knowledge builtfrom past experience in developing keywords and search strategies (Fidel, 1991). The novice

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searcher does not enjoy these advantages. Wathen and Burkell (2002) discuss the tendency ofthe novice to fall for “surface credibility,” which happens on the Web when a site is judgedcredible based on site design or attractive graphics. This can be expanded to books withattractive designs or to articles that are less scholarly and therefore “easier” to read. Theinexperienced searcher is subject to further confusion when the same tool provides access to arange of information types. Recognizing the difference among article titles, publication titles,and authors in a results list is not very intuitive (Maughan, 2001).

After students have selected search tools, their results will be displayed as long lists ofmeta-data. Whether search results are bibliographic information about publications or URLsaccompanying descriptions of Web pages, students do not have time to carefully view andevaluate each result of a search individually. Instead, they must be able to successfullypredict the usefulness of the information at hand. Soo Young Rieh (2002) convincinglyargues that scholars make predictive judgments upon viewing results lists. This allows themto evaluate their results, ignore results that do not meet their need, and select results likelyto hold needed information. Obviously, new students will not have the same skills atpredicting results as scholars, but they need to begin growing their predictive skills bylooking at URLs of results retrieved from search engines, reviewing publication titles inresult lists from subscription databases, and evaluating bibliographic data found in localOPACs. “External representations of knowledge help the learner elaborate upon the basicstatement of information, transform its ambiguous status to an explicit condition, constrainunnecessary cognitive work, and create new structures of knowledge” (Lee and Nelson,2004). Thus, instructors and librarians need a representation of the information world thatthey can use to give students as an entry point into the complex relationships we have withauthors and information.

There have been some attempts to create a representation of the information world in termsof the information's purpose. Pat Ensor (1997) has suggested the following “Hierarchy ofCredibility” that views Web-based information by author over format.

1. U.S. Government2. Universities3. Democratic National Government4. Individual Professionals5. Commercial Services Assessing Something Other than Themselves6. Graduate Students7. Undergraduate Students8. Businesses talking about themselves9. Non-democratic national governments10. John Q. Public with no visible credentials11. Young people

By focusing on the author, Ensor is asking us to examine the purpose for which theinformation was created. In this way, information type or utility can be seen as a function ofauthorship.

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Ruszkiewicz, Hairston, and Seward (2002) lay out a rather detailed chart that classifiesinformation and presents it hierarchically by type and format in their writing manual, The SFWriter:

• Scholarly books and articles• Serious trade books and articles• Popular magazines and books• Newspapers and news organizations• Sponsored Web sites• Individual Web and Internet contacts• Listserves and usenet newsgroups

Colleen Bell (2002) and the librarians at the University of Oregon Libraries have proposedan approach to organizing periodicals by type in an online research guide.

• Scholarly and Research Journals• Professional, Trade, and Industry Journals• Journals of Commentary and Opinion• Newspapers• Tabloids

In this guide, they have prepared a chart that lists example publications, values, language,authors, sources, publishers, graphics, and access tools for type. This example and thatexpressed by Ruszkiewicz et al. (2002) is a useful to a degree, but it does not account forinformation that crosses formats. For instance, a single article may exist on a Web site, in print,and in a subscription database.

Table 1 presents a model of information classified by characteristics of author, audience,and purpose. This model draws on the above examples and on Wilson's groundwork. Theseinformation types are independent of source format and therefore, may be found in books, onWeb sites, in printed serials, or subscription databases.

All information sources have their own biases, so this should not be viewed as a way toevaluate bias. This is a way to organize information based on the purpose or utility of thatinformation. Along with this view of utility comes an understanding of rigor in theinformation's creation, time invested in this creation, and the expectation of inclusion ofsupporting evidence or data.

Naturally, there are some sources that do not fit neatly into one of these categories. Forinstance, a publication such as The New Yorker presents a problem. It often has expertswriting non-research-oriented articles that express an opinion on current issues. It reallydoes not fit into news or scholarly categories, but it is not quite the same as special interestand opinion pieces. Additional examples exist which do not fit neatly into this model.However, this model presents us with an entry point to use to bring students into thecomplexities of the information world. It asks students to review the characteristics of aninformation source and make judgments about the type of information. It does not treat

Table 1Types of information

Information type Description Sample sources

Scholarly Author: has some degree of authority in the field,typically has an academic post or is a researcherwith a PhD or other advanced degree.

New England Journal of Medicine

Audience: other experts in a field The Journal of Aesthetic EducationPurpose: to advance a field a study by reportingnew findings or ideas, increase author's authorityand credentials in field

The American Journal of PoliticalScience

Research findings on a Web siteGuns, Germs, and Steel: TheFates of Human Societies byJared Diamond (1997)

Professional/trade Author: member of a profession or trade but notnecessarily a researcher

American Libraries

Audience: members of a particular field or trade Fire CommandPurpose: inform, promote, and generally strengthenthe profession, increase creators' authority inthe fields.

Nursing Times

Government Author: varies (could be government employee,elected official, or expert in a particular field)

Congressional Record

Audience: varies (could be public, elected official,or government agency)

Supreme Court Reporter

Purpose: generally created to run the governmentand inform decision making and carriers a markof “officialness,” which requires some degreeof precision.

Studies conducted by governmentagencies

News Author: non-expert in a field usually with a degreein journalism or training as a writer

New York Times

Audience: general public www.newsweek.comPurpose: report current events in a timely fashionto sell publication or bring people to Web site

TIME

Washington PostEntertainment/popular

Author: non-expert in a field usually with a degreein journalism or training as a writer

Rolling Stone

Audience: general public GlamourPurpose: present information in an interestingmanner that does not necessarily focus on depth ofcoverage

Entertainment Weekly

The Sporting NewsSpecial interest/opinion

Author: typically a non-expert in a field, but couldbe an expert expressing his or her opinion

We're Right, They're Wrong byJames Carville (1996)

Audience: general public/people subscribing to aparticular point of view

National Rifle Association Website; http://www.nra.org

Purpose: to advance a particular point of view orexpress an individual's point of view(the attribution of authority may heavily depend onthe beliefs of the reader)

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Table 1 (continued)

Information type Description Sample sources

Unsubstantiated oruncreditedinformation

Author: unable to substantiate identity of theauthor or author's credentials do not carryauthority

Personal Web sites

Audience: general public or unable todetermine

Handwritten note found on thelibrary table

Purpose: hobby or personal interest

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information as either good nor bad, but instead tries to reflect the realities of howinformation is created by scholars, reporters, government officials, and special interestgroups. Since it is not possible to directly test the information presented to us day to day,this model gives us an opportunity to judge, even if it is a pragmatic judgment, a particularpiece of information.

2. A classroom application

Librarians can take this model of the information world and use it to transform howstudents are taught to research. The application of this model in a first-year collegecomposition course aims to reflect the realities of searching in a Web-based world, toprovide a broader view of the information landscape than provided in the past, and toplace student-directed learning at the center of the process. We have designed four classsessions:

1. Defining information in the information age: Students work in groups with five samplesources. They create a list of characteristics for each source.

2. Defining relevance and credibility: Students are given the same five articles used in classsession one. They are then given a scenario (information need) to use to determine if eachsource is credible.

3. Creating searching strategies and using information tools: We use the ideas of relevance andcredibility along with their information criteria to move to the search tools and beginsearching.

4. Using information tools: We discuss searching on the Web and evaluating sources.Theseclasses are built upon the model of the information world described above. The students areassigned two research papers about a proposed career, which use the same sources. The firstpaper asks students to compare and contrast the sources they gather. They discuss theauthor, type of publication, and general credibility of the sources, which makes the processinvolved with using sources more transparent to us and to the students. The second paperfocuses on the job skills required for the career in which they are interested. Over four classsessions, we prepare students to find and make decisions about the information they will useto write these papers.

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2.1. Session 1: defining information in the information age

In the first class session, students are asked to review five information sources, which arelisted together on a Web page. These sources come from subscription databases and the openWeb and include a government source, a scholarly source, a news source, an unreliable source(from geocities.com with no author listed), and a general magazine source. The class isorganized into groups of four or five the students are asked to compare and contrast thesesample sources while making notes of the similarities and differences between each. The classthen discusses what each group noticed. The instructor and librarian give the students the list ofinformation types outlined above and ask them to apply these types to the sample sources.From this exercise, students begin to mark differences between information sources.

In the first class session of this model, we are asking students to go out, explore andlearn about information as opposed to asking students to learn about finding formats, suchas books, articles, or Web sites. In a 1998 study, Soo Young Rieh and Nicholas J. Belkin(1998) found that scholars judge information in the same manner whether the informationis found online or in print. The quality of information is independent of its format. Thisremains true for bound books or e-books, government documents in print or on the Web,peer-reviewed publications in print or online, and other types of information. In aninterview in Library Journal, Electronic Frontier Foundation cofounder, John Perry Barlowmay have put it best:

I think cyberspace is gradually teaching us that information is a verb, not a noun. This is a very important thing.Information is a relationship. It is something that exists in the space between two minds or many minds. It is notsomething that is merely encapsulated and collected into some physical object (Albanese, 2002, p. 44).

The ability to judge the purpose of information not only allows us to recognize therelationship to which Barlow is referring, but also allows us to judge the information andultimately it's utility. Librarians, instructors, and experienced information users can makethese recognitions and judgments with ease. New students need guidance into the manyoptions that present them, and the first class is intended to initiate a conversation about thedifferences between sources.

2.2. Session 2: defining relevance and credibility

In the second session, the students are again divided into groups and asked to look at thesame sample sources. Each group is given a scenario that represents an information need.Table 2 presents the scenarios that are given out to the groups.

Students are asked to review the same five sources as in the previous session and determinewhich of these sources would meet their scenario's information need. After the groups havehad some time to review the sources, each group takes a turn discussing its scenario and thesources that meet the information need presented. At the end of this discussion, the librarianand instructor discuss the concept of credibility. Drawing on the model of information by type,credibility is described as a function of utility. The view of the information world that ispresented is one of utility. Information is created with a purpose; information is gathered for a

Table 2Scenarios given to student groups

Which of the above sources would you use to for the following information needs?• You are writing an article for the Chicago Tribune.• You are helping your eighth grade cousin write her or his first term paper.• You are working on your master's thesis in sociology.• You have a bet with your uncle Frank.•You are writing a paper for your 200-level sociology class.

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purpose. The ways that information is used result from the purpose for which the informationis created. Naturally, part of this purpose is to inform their audience, but the particularaudience, the timeliness of the information, the degree of research expected, and the economicbenefits to the publication and author all vary. The formula for credibility is given to aid thestudents: relevance (topic) + credibility = good source. If time allows, sample searches onGoogle are used to practice making predictive judgments as to the type of informationpresented in each Web site. Several studies (Lombardo & Miree, 2003; Davis, 2003) haveshown that instruction can influence the types of sources used and the quality of those sources,and this project is intended influence students in this way.

Clearly, students need guidance when they are learning about the expectations of college-level research. Research is performed in a world with ever increasing amounts of informationand a range of tools from which to choose. In the second session of these classes, students wereintroduced to the expectations of scholarship. Students are asked to think about credibility as astandard for the information that they will use.

2.3. Sessions 3 and 4: creating searching strategies and using information tools

After the first two sessions, the third session moves the discussion toward search strategiesand information tools. These classes focus on the two research papers that they will write. In apre-research exercise, students are asked to think about the types of information they will mostlikely need to complete the papers. The librarian and instructor work with students to reviewthe various information tools at their disposal. The fourth class is basically an extension of thethird. If time in the previous class session did not permit, the review of research tools iscompleted. Students are then asked to discuss which tools they would use to meet theirinformation need.

Naturally, the four class sessions do not intend to give students an all-encompassingunderstanding of the information world. Rather, they are intended to provide students with abasic knowledge for viewing this world and enable them to grow in their understanding as theyprogress in their college careers.

Librarians and instructors faced with giving students their first exposure to college-level research are well served to keep Bates' (1989) berrypicking model of research inmind. This model makes an analogy between research and picking berries in a forest.The searcher moves from bush to bush gathering berries where they exist in clusters.The searcher's needs may not change, but the search itself is always changing and

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adapting to the various research tools in use. No single tool will contain all of therelevant information on a topic. It is up to the searcher to be able to move among toolseffectively.

2.4. Demanding more from information literacy

Teaching students about information prepares them to make decisions about their owninformation need linking together searching for, evaluating, and using information. Each ofthese skills is affected by and informed by the information need itself. Without a broadview of information, students are not able to grasp their own needs, and in turn, theybecome limited in selecting tools, evaluating search results, selecting and evaluatingsources, and using information. The four class sessions presented above attempt to organizea model that introduces novice searchers to the complexities of research in a Web-basedworld.

Librarians and instructors can no longer treat the Web as a novel application of technology.It is now pervasive within the scholarly enterprise and has transformed the ways that we findand view information. It has not altered the rhetorical character of scholarship, which is to saythat it has not removed the need for trustworthy information based on research and sound data.Here is the opportunity for librarians to enter the classroom and assist students and facultymembers in managing the ever-expanding information world.

In the end, the true impact that information literacy will have in the long run will bedetermined by the creativity and vision of the librarians and faculty members charged withteaching students to find, use, and evaluate information. If we demand more from informationliteracy by expecting more from ourselves and our students, then we can tap into the truepotential behind information literacy.

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