How Information Literacy Influences Scholarship, Practice

Higher education is widely recognized for academic excellence; students come from all over to study in U. S. colleges and universities. At the same time colleges and universities are often criticized for their unmanageable administration, organizational incompetence, and a lack of service orientation Ruben, B (2005). To the extent that these circumstances are present within a particular institution, they contribute to the critique of higher education in general, but also more directly undermine the perceived value of faculty and staff work, weaken financial and political support, and create barriers to fulfilling the mission of the institution (Ruben, 2005) College administrations have unmanageable direction because of a generation gap. Different generations have a different way of learning. Teachers have a hard time teaching the Net Generation students how to properly to research information because the Net Gen students depend highly on the Internet and Google scholar to retrieve their information. Students lack an understanding of what constitutes good-quality scholarly information (Badke, 2009) Teachers presently let the students use their search engine for information the students in higher education are making libraries last on their list for resource information simply because they were not taught the old methods of researching in a brick and mortar library. Researchers found that current and future generations are lazy and would rather watch videos or tutorials instead of reading information found in text materials. Why did they become lazy? In the early 1990’s the World Wide Web was born and it made life and researching easier, not thinking that the information could be erroneous ( Badke, 2009). Anyone pursuing higher education will have to obtain to the thought of incorporating scholar practice of information literacy. Students lack an understanding of what constitutes good-quality scholarly information. Students have difficulty evaluating the glut of information available and depend on questionable sources. (Russell, 2009) Information competence is a basis for long-life learning competence. It is necessary in any way of learning, it makes learning needs-oriented, more self-directed. Information competence is a skill to determine the size of the necessary information; to use the necessary information effectively; to evaluate the information and its sources critically; to develop own knowledge base with the information chosen; to effectively use the information for goal achievement Ruben, B (2005). Not less important is the skill to understand, at what time some information is needed, as well as the skill to get, evaluate, and use the information effectively. Information is available at libraries, public resources, special organizations, media, the Internet, but the information received in a non-filtered way, which arouses a question about the material authenticity, validity, and quality. (Turusheva, 2009) Students will hopefully grow stronger in the use of information literacy, and then society can be exposed to higher educational opportunities such as universities, trade colleges, skill centers, or career enhancement programs. Today’s society is experiencing a need for individuals to take an interest to learn (Thrusheva, 2009). Citizens can take control of their own learning by exposing information literacy for the following reasons: students could become open to higher education and technology, students communicate in an educational setting, and students relate to the numerous students. To correct everything for the next generation must first let the Net Generation know that all the information received on the Internet is not accurate and familiarize them with how to research material other ways. Next we must show that the academic libraries will be very comfortable with the new environment. (Badke, 2009) Letting the new generation just use the Internet makes the brick and mortar libraries become more unfamiliar to them. The world is changing before our very eyes. Elementary teachers point to documents, standards, and programs for information literacy as far a few decades in the past. Students tend to trust the beginning of the Google results or lack the skills to evaluate what they have found (Badke, 2009). Secondary school students have hardly any understanding about the library systems. Google dominates the universities with Google Books and scholar. Now is the time to start to educate all students about the Internet and they need to understand it. Teachers should educate the future students about information, and to go beyond Google. Students can benefit from using more sophisticated researching techniques, so that they can go beyond the search engine (Badke, 2009). To understand Scholarship, Practitioner and Leadership Model is essential to guidance in the field of education. Recognizing and classifying strengths and weaknesses within the institutes is essential to survival. Specifically, organizational information literacy can press forward toward the next level. Expanded literacy will provide opportunities for collaboration and feedback, which will grow the organization. The SPL model works interdependently with information literacy, in that one cannot survive without the other.