Alison Hicks

University of Colorado Boulder | CUB · University Libraries

This study explores student responses to a research assignment handout that was redesigned in light of the recommendations from a 2010 Project Information Literacy report. Framed through Lea and Street’s Academic Literacies model, which positions information literacy as a social and situated practice rather than as a generic skill set or a process...

Personal learning environments (PLEs) and critical information literacies (CILs) are two concepts that have been presented as responses to the challenges of the rich and complex information landscape. While both approaches support learners’ critical engagement with new information environments, each was developed within a different field. This pape...

abstract: Researchers have widely adopted computer programs for reference management, such as Mendeley, due to their ability to support a variety of research practices, including organization and storage of pdfs. These programs also afford participation and networking within new scholarly information landscapes. This paper uses a survey and semi-st...

This paper explores how a foreign language librarian investigated workplace information environments of bilingual (Spanish/English) professionals in the United States in order to design more relevant information literacy (IL) instruction. Drawing from interviews and participant observations of professionals whose careers correspond with Spanish lan...

Academic 15 (A15), an interview–based research project, explores the perceptions of university library and information technology (IT) staff related to the challenges impacting higher education as a result of technological advances. Faced with disruption on many fronts, academic library and IT staff have adapted and adopted a number of tools and pr...

This paper uses the example of foreign languages to explore the integration of critical information literacy into the curriculum of various disciplines. By closely examining the practices and values inherent in the foreign language information environment, the paper suggests that a critical vision of information literacy provides the most approp...

This assignment is designed to leverage the social bookmarking site, Diigo, to capture the social, collaborative, and participatory nature of research. Over the course of the semester students collaboratively bookmark a variety of research sources (experts, organizations, reports, and other formal/ informal sources) in the class library before crit...

Foreign language research is broad, dynamic, and complex. Encompassing the critical examination of regional and national traditions, cultures, and languages, scholars engage with a wide range of research methods and tools that often cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. The ultimate goal is to understand foreign societies, as well as helping u...

This paper uses the example of foreign languages to explore the integration of critical information literacy into the curriculum of various disciplines. By closely examining the practices and values inherent in the foreign language information environment, the paper suggests that a critical vision of information literacy provides the most appropria...

This article details an open card sort study administered to undergraduate students, graduate students, and librarians at the University of Colorado at Boulder in order to reveal perceptions of library research guides. The study identifies user group preferences for organization and content of research guides, as well as themes emerging from the co...

This case study explores the implementation of La Cuna, an online mentoring forum in a small, subject-based professional association, the Seminar for the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM). Designed using the social network software Ning, the forum functioned as an informal learn-ing community for 38 members and was an innovat...

Purpose This paper seeks to re-conceptualize Web 2.0 tools within the intellectual and theoretical frameworks currently driving changes in academic learning communities and to explore the effect of this paradigm shift on academic libraries. Design/methodology/approach The paper explores an intellectually rather than technologically driven definitio...