For many years I have taught information literacy skills to
students in a course called Introduction to Environmental Engineering. I discuss the various formats of the
literature, the scholarly, communication process and the databases that the
university provides that cover technical disciplines. I always describe in detail the peer review
process and tell how web sites do not undergo a rigorous evaluation before they
are published. Students are assigned to
groups of 3 or 4 and must write a paper on one of these topics:
- BP Oil Spill - Ethics and Safeguards
- Reduction of Greenhouse Gases
- Life Cycle Analysis of Hybrid vs Conventional Batteries
- Bottled Water vs Tap Water
- Landfilling: Municipal and Hazardous Waste
- Arsenic in New Jersey
- Flint Michigan Water Crisis
- Deepwater Horizon Disaster
I asked the professor to give me the papers after the
semester so that I can evaluate the information literacy skills. Only 25% of
the references cited were from peer review journals. I guess the student just prefer to use the
web sites that they find by searching Google.
Also students made comments in the paper and did not substantiate them
with literature references.
It is quite sad that even after getting information literacy
training in freshman courses and in this environmental engineering class,
students’ writing skills are poor. Will
they ever learn to use peer reviewed journal articles?
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