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Companion Document to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Instruction for Educators

Information Has Value

In our complicated information environment, information can be made available freely or for profit. Examples of freely available information include those with Creative Commons licenses, open access, and items in the public domain. Examples of information available for profit include scholarly articles in a proprietary database. Teachers have awareness of the variety of legal and ethical structures that enable access to information, such as posts shared online, materials under copyright (e.g. published children's books), open educational resources (OERs), and materials available under public domain. With all of these types of resources, teachers offer guidance on intellectual rights and property belonging to themselves and others, giving credit through attribution and citation, and teaching their students to do the same. Creating and teaching with OERs can be a way to teach education students about how information has value.

Teachers are not just consumers in the information environment but contributors as well, and support their students' participation in the creation and dissemination of information. Teachers have an awareness of publishing systems, the need to protect student privacy, and also examine their own information privilege. 

In an Education Context
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Teacher Preparation and Education

As they prepare for service as educators, teacher education students:

  • develop skills in proper attribution and citation;
  • develop awareness that some individuals or groups of individuals may be underrepresented or systemically marginalized within the systems that produce and disseminate information, and develop understanding of the impact that this may have in schools;
  • are provided opportunities to reflect on their personal biases and to deepen their understanding of cultural, ethnic, gender, and learning differences so that they can create relevant learning experiences for the students that they will teach; 
  • acknowledge that access to information is important for their education and for the students that they will educate; 
  • advocate for the use of open educational resources (OERs) in the courses they take in school, and participate in open pedagogy projects, contributing to the development of resources; and
  • learn to protect their privacy as well as their own intellectual property.
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Teacher Professional Practice

In their professional practice, educators:

  • advocate for equitable access to resources that provide multiple perspectives, ensuring their students have access to the information needed for learning;
  • see themselves as contributors to the information environment rather than only consumers and know the difference between copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain;
  • understand their responsibility for making deliberate and informed choices about their use of materials in their teaching; and
  • may create their own OERs for the classes that they teach, properly attributing work and applying Creative Commons licenses.
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Teacher Pedagogy Practice

In their instructional practice, educators:

  • teach their students to properly cite their work, give credit to others, and recognize the original ideas of others;
  • teach students to use materials in legal and ethical ways;
  • teach digital literacy skills and awareness of privacy issues and personal data in information and online environments; and
  • empower their students to create information and teach them how to protect their intellectual property.
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Additional Key Knowledge Practices and Dispositions
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Social Justice

There are many ways for teachers to incorporate social justice ideals into their classrooms, including: 

  • apply, and modeling legal and ethical practices to protect the intellectual rights and property belonging to themselves and others; and
  • respecting works created by underrepresented individuals and having sensitivity to issues of cultural appropriation when acknowledging authorship.

Incorporating these ideals means that teachers understand:

  • intellectual property is a legal and social construct that varies by culture;
  • how and why some individuals or groups of individuals may be underrepresented or marginalized within information production and management systems; 
  • attribution and citation recognizes the information and ideas created by others; and
  • that the cost of information can create barriers to accessing and creating information. 
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Digital/Media Literacy

As teachers develop their digital and media literacy skills, they:

  • are able to decide where and how their information is published, understand how personal information is commodified, recognize issues of privacy in an online environment, and identify how online interactions affect the information they receive and the information they produce or disseminate online;
  • are able to compare and evaluate the differences between sponsored content and news articles or other materials, as well as OERs;
  • are able to articulate how information can be used for purposes of branding, advertising, and propaganda;
  • can describe how the financial value of information is linked to misinformation; 
  • understand that they can use technology to make societal, personal, and political change;
  • understand digital equity and the digital divide, and the ways this leads to unequal access to information;
  • advocate for equitable access to information resources, including online and offline content and educational technology; and
  • understand copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain.
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Metacognition/Reflection
As teachers assess their information literacy processes, they:
  • consider who is paying to have information published and how that impacts access to information; 
  • reflect upon their own information privilege and how it relates to the materials they select for their classrooms; and
  • recognize that the material they create has value, and that they are contributors to the information environment.
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Example Learning Objectives and Activities

Example Objective 1: Teacher education students will summarize, paraphrase, and quote material from a variety of online and print sources and will properly cite each work.

About the Objective: The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education notes that educators and students should be able to recognize the original ideas of others, as well as the skills, time, and effort needed to produce and publish information. In order to use online and print resources properly students must  learn to distinguish between various types of published materials and to recognize the authority of authorship. It is critical that they learn to summarize, paraphrase, and quote materials correctly in order to use these resources appropriately. 

Related InTasc and ISTE Standards: InTASC 4p, 5k, 9f; ISTE 2.3.b

Suggested Activity:

  • Step 1: Librarian provides an overview of what it means to summarize, to paraphrase information, and to use a direct quotation from a scholarly article. They will provide links to scholarly articles, professional organization websites, and to state education sites.
  • Step 2: Teacher education students work in small groups to paraphrase the findings of an education research article, to summarize and cite two related topic discussion sections, and to quote from an education professional organization website. They will also have access to an APA citation website.
  • Step 3: The paraphrased, summarized, and quoted materials will be placed in a shared document and members of the groups will have an opportunity to discuss their work and their process.

Example Objective 2: Teacher education students will be able to describe the basics of copyright, fair use, and public domain in terms of how it pertains to them as an educator and information creator.

About the Objective: As teacher education students begin to see themselves as valuable contributors to the information marketplace they learn that the information they create has value, and that they should be given credit for their work, and later to the work of the students they teach. An understanding of copyright, fair use, and the public domain contributes to the protection of information and this knowledge can be applied to the ways that they create and disseminate information. 

Related InTASC and ISTE Standards: InTASC 9f; ISTE 2.3.c

Suggested Activity:

  • Step 1: Librarian provides an overview of the basics of fair use (including the TEACH Act), copyright, and public domain.
  • Step 2: Teacher education students examine four different uses of information to determine if they are fair use or not.
    • This can be a group activity. Each group gets a different “case.” They discuss, then come back together as a full class to determine if each is a copyright violation or can be argued as fair use.
    • This can also be done as a digital version, using a tool such as Padlet. All students are given all four “cases” and make their comments on Padlet. Then they come back together to discuss.

Example Objective 3: Teacher education students will be able to describe how the cost of information impacts access to information and the implications that has on our everyday lives.

About the Objective: The recognition of the ways information is produced and published, the commodification of personal information, and the barriers to accessing information are critical to an understanding that information has value. This recognition may contribute to the realization that some individuals or groups of individuals may be marginalized, underrepresented, or lack representation within the formal systems that publish and distribute information.  An understanding of intellectual property laws and the importance of protecting original information helps students to make informed choices about ways to access and contribute to online resources.

Related InTASC and ISTE Standards: InTASC 5k; ISTE 2.2.b, 2.3.c, 2.3.d

Suggested Activity:

  • Step 1: Teacher education students are given a citation to a piece of information that is behind a paywall.
  • Step 2: They are asked to find the full text of the information.
  • Step 3: They are also asked to look in library databases to find that information.
  • Step 4: This is followed by a discussion on how barriers to information impact our lives. 

The sites below can be searched for teaching activities related to Information Has Value:

Relevant InTASC Standards

Relevant ISTE Education for Educators Standards

From Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards and Learning Progressions for Teachers 1.0:

4p. Content Knowledge--Critical Dispositions: The teacher appreciates multiple perspectives within the discipline and facilitates learners' critical analysis of these perspectives.

5k. Application of Content--Essential Knowledge: The teacher understands the demands of accessing and managing information as well as how to evaluate issues of ethics and quality related to information and its use.

9e. Professional Learning and Ethical Practice--Performances: The teacher reflects on his/her personal biases and accesses resources to deepen his/her own understanding of cultural, ethnic, gender, and learning differences to build stronger relationships and create more relevant learning experiences.

9f. Professional Learning and Ethical Practice--Performances: The teacher advocates, models, and teaches safe, legal, and ethical use of information and technology including appropriate documentation of sources and respect for others in the use of social media.

From International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Educators:

2.2.b. Leader: Advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students.

2.3.b. Citizen: Establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency.

2.3.c. Citizen: Mentor students in safe, legal and ethical practices with digital tools and the protection of intellectual rights and property.

2.3.d. Citizen: Model and promote management of personal data and digital identity and protect student data privacy.

Mapping the ACRL Framework to the AAC&U VALUE Rubric

Relevant Articles

For a curated annotated bibliography of scholarship that may be helpful to librarians, teacher education faculty, and teachers who are working with the concept of Information Has Value in the classroom, click here.