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Information Literacy: Teaching & Learning: Frame 1: Authority Is Constructed and Contextual

Description

Authority is Constructed and Contextual

Information resources reflect their creators’ expertise and credibility, and are evaluated based on the information need and the context in which the information will be used. Authority is constructed in that various communities may recognize different types of authority. It is contextual in that the information need may help to determine the level of authority required.

Experts understand that authority is a type of influence recognized or exerted within a community. Experts view authority with an attitude of informed skepticism and an openness to new perspectives, additional voices, and changes in schools of thought. Experts understand the need to determine the validity of the information created by different authorities and to acknowledge biases that privilege some sources of authority over others, especially in terms of others’ worldviews, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural orientations. An understanding of this concept enables novice learners to critically examine all evidence—be it a short blog post or a peer-reviewed conference proceeding—and to ask relevant questions about origins, context, and suitability for the current information need. Thus, novice learners come to respect the expertise that authority represents while remaining skeptical of the systems that have elevated that authority and the information created by it. Experts know how to seek authoritative voices but also recognize that unlikely voices can be authoritative, depending on need. Novice learners may need to rely on basic indicators of authority, such as type of publication or author credentials, where experts recognize schools of thought or discipline-specific paradigms.

Some Short Films

Dispositions / Knowledge Practices / Learning Activities

Learners who are developing their information literate abilities

  • develop and maintain an open mind when encountering varied and sometimes conflicting perspectives;
  • motivate themselves to find authoritative sources, recognizing that authority may be conferred or manifested in unexpected ways;
  • develop awareness of the importance of assessing content with a skeptical stance and with a self-awareness of their own biases and worldview;
  • question traditional notions of granting authority and recognize the value of diverse ideas and worldviews;
  • are conscious that maintaining these attitudes and actions requires frequent self-evaluation.

Learners who are developing their information literate abilities

  • define different types of authority, such as subject expertise (e.g., scholarship), societal position (e.g., public office or title), or special experience (e.g., participating in a historic event);
  • use research tools and indicators of authority to determine the credibility of sources, understanding the elements that might temper this credibility;
  • understand that many disciplines have acknowledged authorities in the sense of well-known scholars and publications that are widely considered “standard,” and yet, even in those situations, some scholars would challenge the authority of those sources;
  • recognize that authoritative content may be packaged formally or informally and may include sources of all media types;
  • acknowledge they are developing their own authoritative voices in a particular area and recognize the responsibilities this entails, including seeking accuracy and reliability, respecting intellectual property, and participating in communities of practice;
  • understand the increasingly social nature of the information ecosystem where authorities actively connect with one another and sources develop over time.

Some learning activities:

  1. A One-Pager:  Select any social media (Twitter feed, Facebook group, etc,) you decide to "follow" or "subscribe to".  Why did you select it?   Why do you trust it? Get students thinking about why they "trust" or want to track that information.
     
  2. Have students look at a blog, a video on YouTube, a collection of tweets, or some other type of social media regarding a contemporary event (e.g. demonstrations at Tahrir Square during the "Arab Spring" events, the 2016 presidential campaign, Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment). Ask them to describe how they would analyze and evaluate the authority of the author(s) of the information. Are there ways to determine whether the individual was an actual witness or participant in the events? Are there ways to identify whether the individual or group that developed a collection of information has a particular political bias? Can they determine whether the author(s) has a particular status within the group he or she represents or is the individual reporting as an "average citizen"?
     
  3. Provide students with two different information types (with two different goals) on the same topic by the same unnamed authoritative creator/author (for example, scholarly article and blog post). Use as discussion starter with students about context in relationship to authority. Reveal authorship later in discussion.
     

  4. Ask students to create a citation "web" using a citation analysis database, and conduct a content analysis of the linked authors by affiliation (workplace, academic preparation, geography, subject expertise). Do authors cite each other? Are there some authors who are outliers in the web? How do such connections impact information generation?

Possible Learning Objectives

Some possible learning objectives:

  • Students will be able to determine attributes of authoritative information for different needs, with the understanding that context plays a role in authority-based attributes
  • Students will be able to recognize relevance of subject expertise as a kind of authority in order to gather appropriate articles for assignment
  • Students will be able to distinguish between scholarly and popular sources in order to select appropriate sources for academic research.
  • Students will learn to distinguish a news from an editorial article so they will understand that information is created for a purpose.
  • Students will be able to distinguish between different types of sources in order to find credible sources on their topics.
  • Students will be able to evaluate databases results IOT select relevant and credible sources
  • Students will be able to evaluate a source using specific criteria in order to determine whether it meets their information need.

Recommended Reading

Assessment Ideas

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