Course Description

Intended for all COL 120 students, this course will assist students in developing information literacy and basic research skills to support academic success and life-long learning. Students will develop skills in identifying, locating, retrieving, documenting, and critically evaluating both electronic and print resources that are appropriate for undergraduate research. Completion of this course provides the foundation needed to begin the journey towards meeting the Zayed University Information Literacy outcome.

Instructor

Hoda Al Kobtan LEC Technician	Office:  Dubai Learning Enhancement Centre
	E-mail:  hoda.al-kobtan@zu.ac.ae
	Telephone: (04) 2082-491
	Fax:
	Office Hours:

Course Schedule

This course, COL 120a, runs for 10 weeks, and comprises one hour per week of your total COL 120 schedule.  This means you will meet with your Seminar COL 120 teacher for 3 hours per week and with your Library COL 120 instructor for 1 hour per week.  After the 10 week COL 120a course is completed, you will then take 4 hours per week with your Seminar COL 120 teacher. 

Course Goals

Upon completion of this course, each student will be able to:

• Understand the concept and value of information literacy.
• Examine an academic research topic and develop a focused research question.
• Successfully use print and electronic tools (such as reference tools, article databases, the library catalog and useful Web search engines) to search for and locate specific types of information effectively and efficiently. 
• Critically examine and compare print and electronic information as to its authority, relevance, currency, objectivity, and accuracy.
• Understand how to access and use information ethically and legally.
• Use the APA/MLA style guide to document research  accurately.
• Describe and evaluate information from a variety of sources and integrate into an organized, coherent presentation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Course Calendar

This course has 7 online modules.  Each module has exercises and one assignment.  Students may work at their own pace within the course calendar below:

Read before	Module Readings		Assignment  Title (with Marking Guide)	Due Date	Points (out of 100)
Feb 12	Module 1:  Understanding Information Literacy		1. Topic selection		10
Feb 14			2. Starting your research: Keywords, Search Strings and using the Library Catalog		10
Mar 5	Module 2:  Search Techniques		3. Using databases to find research-quality articles		10
Mar 7	Module 3:  Finding books and Module 7: Using information (only the part dealing with citations)		4. Searching the Internet effectively and evaluating information		10
Mar 12	Module 4:  Finding articles		6. Final Project Peer Review		8
Mar 19	Module 6: Evaluating information		Final Project		40
Mar 26	Module 5:  Searching the Web		Points to be assigned at teacher's discretion		10
Apr 2	Module 7: Using information (remainder of this module)		TOTAL		100
Apr 11
Apr 16

Grading

Each student will complete exercises, assignments and a final project for this course. Each student will receive a final grade based on all of the assignments completed in the Information Literacy course. This grade will be entered into the grade book for COL 120 and will be worth 10% of their final grade for that course. To access your grades, you will need to go to the Blackboard Web site at http://courses.zu.ac.ae/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp

Attendance

Attendance will be taken every day by your Seminar COL 120 teacher. You will not be able to sign the attendance sheet if you arrive late. Do not miss class, absences may impact your final grade in COL 120.

Materials

There is no textbook for this course. All of the readings are on the Web and can be accessed at http://www.zu.ac.ae/infoasis or from the library Web site (click on Information Literacy and you'll see the first link: InfOasis Information Literacy Tutorial).

Writing

Students are expected to write clearly and completely, at a level appropriate for undergraduate course work.  

Ethical Conduct

Any form of academic dishonesty (cheating, plagiarism, etc.) will not be tolerated. Proof of academic dishonesty will result in a failing grade for the course. If you have ANY questions about what constitutes academic dishonesty, PLEASE ASK! This topic will be covered in detail in Module 7 of this course.  Academic dishonesty is prohibited in the University Catalog (p.23) and Student Handbook (p.45)

To Access the Course

The course can be accessed at http://www.zu.ac.ae/infoasis or from the library Web site (click on Information Literacy and you'll see the first link: InfOasis Information Literacy Tutorial).