Information Has Value

Information Has Value

This current frame seems to be to me the easiest to understand as it deals with things we face in not just libraries but everyday life. The Frame of Information has value reflects on the idea that information in itself possesses various dimensions and among those dimensions are commodity, a tool or means of education, a means to influence, and as a means of negotiating and making sense of the world around us.

How information is accessed is bound by legal, socio-political and economic rules and regulations.

There exist mountainous responsibilities when it comes to either consuming or creating information that is based on other peoples work.

We have to cite the words, ideas and products of other people, we need to acknowledge the time and effort it took for them to do the work they did and try to either add to it or provide alternatives to that but we cannot do any of that without the acknowledgement of the creator of the original work done.

We need to know and understand the difference between copyright, open access and the public domain.


Learning Outcomes:

Learners will be able to identify the common issues surrounding a shortage of access to information sources.

Learners will be able to explain what the purpose and distinguishing characteristics of copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain is about.

Learners will be knowledgeable about the various platforms or markets for various genres of publishing


Activities:

Search for 5 'Open Access' Journals in the Institutional Repository of the University of the Western Cape and give a clear description of what 'Open Access' is and what the need is for it.

Activitiy number 2 I will have hand-outs for each learner and have the symbols on them and learners will have to on a separate piece of paper write down what each symbol means with the assistance of a computer with internet access and write a brief description of it. eg licence, what is its practical reason for being, etc.

For the 3rd activity learners will be paired into groups and each group will have to decide on various platforms of publishing. The groups then take on the role of author and then by means of understanding the relationship between author and eg. article published in journal or newspaper and what it entails. And then the groups will give feedback on that experience, what they had to go through and what the processes were and what the end result is.

Knowledge Practices:

 recognize issues of access or lack of access to information sources;

articulate the purpose and distinguishing characteristics of copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain;

decide where and how their information is published;

http://creativecommons.org/tag/open-licensing

Reflection on Searching as exploration

Searching as Explorating refers to the notion that searching as a process is something that is always in motion reflecting on one searching avenue giving way to a multitude of other possible search strategies. One may look at it as a continuous struggle towards the perfecting of a search in order to reveal the most relevant information. The example I used in my activity was the searching on my topic of social network and school children. In this case one may alter the search strategy from searching for books to that of online sources and also maybe narrowing it a bit so that it may show only from a particular field. The various databases in the Institutional Repository of UWC makes it even more exciting for the various platforms to unveil searches for current and relevant themese of whatever subject one might need to read up on.

This is my idea of what the frame holds.

Searching as Exploration

Searching as Exploration

Task:

Using my research topic of Social Networking and how it affects school children at John Ramsay Senior Secondary School I will be teaching the Frame Searching as Strategic/Searching as Exploration.

Learning Outcomes:

Learners will be able to adapt a search strategy according to the status quo
Learners will be able to ascertain which platforms for which situation
Learners will know about boolean operators and how it affects the search strategy

Activity.

Go back to the beginning when the topic was still fresh and start the search strategy that was enforced. Take  out the keywords of the topic and try to brainstorm alternative words or synonyms to find answers. eg. Instead of Social Network use a specific social network and type in 'Facebook' and 'School Children' or instead of 'School Children' type in 'Learners' etc.



Knowledge Practices:

utilize divergent (e.g., brainstorming) and convergent (e.g., selecting the best source) thinking appropriately when searching;

Information Creation as a Process Blog Homework

Information Creation as a Process Blog Homework

Identify the format of the sources you find for your research topic (see Research as Inquiry) and articulate why the chosen formats are appropriate for the information need.

The Topic that I chose for Research as Inquiry is 'An investigation of the social networking behaviour of grade 9 high school learners at john ramsay senior secondary school'.

For the first activity they will need to listen to interviews which means podcasts may come in handy, they may also go on sites like youtube, an expert knows that no format is absolete. Content translation or from one source to the next therefore listening may help in direct translation of not just what is said but also how it is said. For this purpose podcasts are very valuable.

Books are another format that I used on this topic because I needed to get an overview of the various perspectives on social media, and how the social media effects learners lives especially as young people are very impressionable. This is what books do, they give information on various topics and gives you the certainty that it is well-researched.

How can one mention a topic on social media and not mention the 'Internet' as a source of information that is very much appropriate for this topic especially. One may take a look into this persons social history on 'Whatsapp' and identify on which side of the scale the person belongs to.

Transform the information that you have created in one format to another format, and write a reflection on what you needed to consider as you went through the process.

Various articles I read and placed on a blog. I considered writing an article about it but time is something that I took into consideration and the main idea was for the content to be made available to aid in the development of other people, and if a blog can get the job done in less time then, I felt, it is a bonus. Another thing I considered was the fact that it would have to also first be accepted by an editor and reviewed for errors. A blog is less time consuming and it doesn't ask for degrees and published work of any format can be used depending on the context. It is appropriate because the topic requires one-one-one sessions gaining persons perspectives on a certain topic, podcasts therefore serve a good purpose because one can go on such sites to listen to podcasts as a lot of information is lost in translation or from one source to the next therefore listening may help in direct translation of not just what is said but also how it is said. For this purpose podcasts are very valuable.

A List of the Sources that I used 

Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QWoP6jJG3k)
I chose youtube because it is easily accessible and a lot of iformation is lost in audio, or articles because many times those formats do not account for a persons body language and in many cases a persons body language tells you alot more than what they are actually saying so in this case youtube and other video sources are very reliable and preferred.

Online Articles
Here I chose an online article to explain what is being said about Social Media and School Children just to briefly get an idea what the general feelings are surrounding the topic of Social Media having a bad affect on school children and came across the following article. https://sites.ewu.edu/cmst496-stafford/2012/06/06/the-effects-of-social-media-on-children/

Magazine Article
Why I chose this magazine article in particular is because it pertained to the topic I am investigating and accessing magazine articles are easy to access and can be obtained without the need of intermediary tools such as computers and internet. You can easily go back and forth with a magazine article and do not have to worry about 'Eskom' and 'Loadshedding'.

Blogs
Blogs can be created and accessed by anyone with internet access and a computer so when it comes to ease of access, blogs as a format should be at the top of the list especially seeing that you get many blogs that are what is termed as 'Academic Blogs'. So to the point of relevance, they can be very relevant and sometimes blogs in general can be very opiniated so it is up to the reader to maybe gather these opinions and later on form a personal one.

I transformed the latter two formats; one from magazine to blog and the other from online article to facebook page.

Find a transformed format at the following link;
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4981559880007748403#editor/target=post;postID=7029058265567873040;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname

Here I transformed a magazine article into a blog.

And, secondly, I transformed another article that I found online to a facebook page which can be viewed buy following the following link; https://www.facebook.com/Social-Networking-Affecting-Schoolchildren-940842099329410/timeline/

Information Creation as a Process (Reflection)

Information Creation as a Process in my own words basically refers to the various stages and processes one goes through in order to create information. While the class was going on and Ms Shehaamah spoke about this frame my mind was running on just the various ways it overlaps with various other frames. How it overlaps with Scholarship as a Conversation is by means of taking part of the 'Conversation' one ultimately publish their researched work and add to the conversation and thus create new information.

How it overlaps with 'Research as Inquiry', one of the knowledge practices' of research as inquiry asks one to assess the gap in knowledge and attempt to fill the gap and weaknesses in existing fields and ask new questions which leads to new answers and ultimately more new questions. That is how it relates or overlaps with research as inquiry.

As Shehaamah said in class it is quite straightforward I think sometimes it is too closely linked to a second frame and this is where sometimes it becomes confusing. In the case of Information Creation as a Process it looks at almost everything we did with authority as contextual and constructed.

I think the basic idea behind this frame is to teach us that the process deserves respect and acknowledgment. It is a tedious process which requires accuracy. Information is created based on a need and purpose and researchers will do well to try and understand the purpose behind the information that was created. It is also said that experts know that it isn't the format that counts when one looks for information but rather the content of that information.

The Peer-Review Process used as an example in class on this frame teaches us exactly why we do need to respect the process of information creation. It goes through a group of experts in a field and they give advice and tips on what to change and the researcher need to go back and fix whatever requires fixing. Here it comes back to research as inquiry being iterative.

Authority is Constructed and Contextual Reflection

Whether or not information has authority depends on the context, meaning how is it use and for what purpose and by who. Information that is needed for a brief idea on a subject might require less research or might not require for instance a Peer-Reviewed journal article as opposed to a bit of information one may find using the search engine 'google'. A student busy writing a thesis might require more in-depth and thoroughly reviewed articles and books as opposed to a grade 7 learner asked to present a topic on HIV/Aids.

Authority may not necessarily be the same as expertise. An expert in a certain field may not exactly have authority in that subject. It depends on disciplinary familiarity, prestige, popularity and is a result normally of exposure (contextual). An example I think of while I'm writing this is something that occurred a while back at our church. A religious leader in our community who has a degree in theology and wrote various articles on religion came to our church and asked if he may have a few minutes to address the congregation, he was denied this request because in our Church we believe that one shouldn't go to a University to study the bible but the bible unfolds it's meaning to you by means of the 'Holy Spirit' so whatever authority he migh have in the field of religion isn't recognised by our church.

It is constructed in the sense a researcher may be told that the following sources can't be used in a course or subject based either on a curriculum that was set up or a lecturers personal preference. Up until the first semester of 2015 I didn't know or rather I was told by previous lecturers that using 'Wiki' isn't allowed and they were quite strict on that but then in doing 'ICT' as part of my PGDipLIS I was taught that it is quite fine to use 'Wiki' on occasion and that I must just focus on referencing it properly.

Here are a few links one may follow to learn more about this frame;

http://libraryguides.unh.edu/c.php?g=326931&p=2189833

http://library.albany.edu/infolit/framework

Authority is Constructed and Contextual (Teaching Scenario)

Authority is Constructed and Contextual

Learning Outcomes;

1.)    Students should be able to define different types of authority such as subject expertise (scholarship), society, position (public office or title) or special experience (participating in a historic event.

2.)    Use markers of authority to determine the credibility of sources

3.)    Recognise that authoritative content may be packaged formally or informally and may include audio, visual, and non-print sources.

Activities

1.)    After discussing the different types of authority I will divide the students into groups and then assign a particular type of authority to each group. They will then have to write 2 paragraphs in which they clearly indicate the definitions of the types of authority, and each member of a groups’ example of the type of authority.

2.)    I will hand a list of names to students as well as their biographies and students will need to tell me after a thorough discussion on the various types of authorities, they will have to write on paper which of the people on the list are authority figures, in which field, and why based on the markers of credibility are these authority figures credible.

3.)    Students will be asked to bring with them past assignments in which they fared well and focus on the reference section of essay or assignment and based on research done discuss what made them choose a particular source and the class participate in stating whether or not the sources are credible. They will then in light of the new information I presented to them regarding the manner in which content may be packaged may be formal or informal and add to the assignment. Eg. Youtube, facebook scholarly pages, professional academic blogs and so forth.

Materials

1.)    Computer with internet access.

2.)    Each student to have a pen and paper.

3.)    Past assignments of each student.

How it relates to a Knowledge Practice

1.)    define different types of authority, such as subject expertise (e.g., scholar

ship), society position (e.g., public office or title), or special experience (e.g

Participating in a historic event);

2.)    use research tools and markers of authority to determine the credibility of sources, understanding the elements that might temper this credibility;

3.)    recognize that authoritative content may be packaged formally or informally and may include audio, visual, and other nonprint sources;