Register today for the upcoming virtual event Developing Metaliteracy to Teach and Learn with Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) presented by Tom Mackey on April 24 (1pm CDT and 2pm EDT) at the Alabama Association of College & Research Libraries (AACRL) Annual Meeting. Registration is free and open so sign up today for this engaging and interactive conversation about metaliteracy in a world of GenAI.
As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) transforms higher education, how do we prepare learners for this rapidly evolving technology? How do librarians, faculty, and learners analyze the ethical dimension of GenAI? What does it mean to be an active producer and participant in these dynamic information environments? How does metaliteracy prepare reflective metaliterate learners to address such revolutionary changes to our learning communities?
Thanks to Jennifer Long, Vice-President of the Alabama Association of College & Research Libraries (AACRL) and the Executive Board of the Alabama ACRL Chapter for the invitation to present!
The newest book by Tom Mackey and Trudi Jacobson Metaliteracy in a Connected World: Developing Learners as Producers was recognized as part of this year’s Divergent Lecture Series for the 2024 divergent honorees. A recording of the “Divergent Conversation” is now available via YouTube. According to Shelbie Witte, Ph.D., from The Initiative for Literacy in a Digital Age: “Our desire for this new type of lecture event is to provide an opportunity for us all to come together and discuss the current state of digital literacies and where the field can go from here.” Tom Mackey participated in this open-ended dialogue with the awardees and explored a wide range of issues from the impact of generative artificial intelligence on literacy frameworks to teaching literacies in the K-12 and higher education environments.
There is an article about metaliteracy on Wikipedia. Actually, there are four. But let’s start at the beginning, with the one that was never officially published. While there are millions of articles on Wikipedia, there are also guidelines about what might appropriately be added to the site.
First, the subject must be notable. In other words, it must have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over time, and secondly, it must fall within Wikipedia’s scope. Notability involves these elements:
Significant coverage in reliable sources suggests it would merit its own Wikipedia article
This significant coverage directly addresses the topic, in some detail, so no original research is needed
Reliable sources “means that sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability”
Sources must be secondary sources, which might be either online or in print, in English or not
Being “independent of the subject” means that “works produced by the article’s subject or someone affiliated with it” cannot be the reliable secondary sources that justify the Wikipedia article.
While there is the perception that anyone can add anything to Wikipedia, this clearly is not the case. It can be an uphill struggle to get new articles approved. Two earlier blog posts document the struggle to get a metaliteracy article added to Wikipedia, one from December 2019 and the second from April 2021. There was also a celebratory post from May 2022 when the Metaliteracy Wikipedia article was accepted. Taking a look at the page that documents the history of edits to the article, there have been a modest number of changes since its publication. It took a while, but the resulting metaliteracy article is excellent.
Let’s return to the title of this blog post. The exciting news is that there are now translations of the metaliteracy article appearing on three additional language versions of Wikipedia: Spanish, Igbo (native to Nigeria), and Čeština (native to the Czech Republic). The revision history page for each of these indicates that the English version was translated as is, rather than new metaliteracy articles being created from scratch. However, a small number of edits have since been made in each article--they have taken on lives of their own.
Wikipedia has a resource page for translating English-language articles into other languages. There are automated tools to help create these translations. But machine translations can’t be relied on without some additional work. As mentioned on the resource page, “Mere machine translations, without substantial modification are highly undesirable. For that reason, you must have a reasonable level of fluency so that you can make appropriate changes to the tool’s automated output.” We would love to see translations appear in additional Wikipedia language versions to make information about metaliteracy available to all who are interested. Would you be able to help, if you are a speaker of languages beyond English? The metaliteracy learning goals and objectives are currently available in 15 different languages. It would be great if the number of metaliteracy Wikipedia articles reached that level!
The new book edited by Dr. Sheila Marie Aird and Dr. Thomas P. Mackey Teaching Digital Storytelling: Inspiring Voices Through Online Narratives has been published by Rowman & Littlefield. The editors worked with an exceptional team of authors from SUNY schools, Temple University, and universities in South Africa to share their narratives about teaching with digital storytelling through the lens of information literacy and metaliteracy. The new book features a Foreword written by futurist and digital storytelling pioneer Dr. Bryan Alexander. This is the newest book to be included in Trudi Jacobson’sInnovations in Information Literacy Series at Rowman & Littlefield.
This book project emerged from the collaborative teaching by the Drs. Aird and Mackey to design a fully online course in Digital Storytelling to unite Empire State University students studying in Prague, Czech Republic and the United States. This course fully integrates the metaliteracy framework and features learning objects available at the metaliteracy.org blog. The editors wrote the framing chapter about this case study Metaliteracy and Global Digital Storytelling: Building Shared Learning Communities.
As noted in the book overview and description:
This book presents the stories of educators who through digital storytelling inspire students from diverse communities to construct their empowering digital narratives. Educators from a wide range of disciplines present innovative case studies of teaching digital storytelling through the lens of personal narratives, metaliteracy, and information literacy. They describe how teaching students to tell their personal digital stories prepares them as learners who are reflective while playing active learner roles such as producer, publisher, and collaborator.
We welcome this guest essay by Dr. Melissa Atkinson, Director of Distance & Online Library Services at Abilene Christian University (ACU) Brown Library.
Metaliteracy, as introduced by Mackey and Jacobson in 2011, has been instrumental in developing metaliterate learners in a variety of contexts. The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, published in 2016, transformed the previous InformationLiteracy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000) into frames that build upon each other and were not prescriptive in how to assess students’ learning. Many librarians turn to the Framework as a guideline for developing information literacy courses, tutorials, guided studies, and assessments. Libraries and librarians create assessments of the Framework that are varied and individualized.
Using the Framework in conjunction with metaliteracy goals and learning objectives can enhance the student experience as well as give librarians a standard to follow that ensures development of skills needed in a participatory, connected environment (Mackey & Jacobson, 2011). Notes that reference metaliteracy and metacognition can be found in the Framework (2016). The Framework does have its strengths, but incorporating metaliteracy goals and learning objectives into the frames can aid in assessment and add to the knowledge and skills students should develop throughout their lifetime, not just when they are participating in higher education.
Using the original set of metaliteracy goals and learning objectives found on metaliteracy.org (Forte, et al, 2014), a metaliteracy course was developed in the Learning Management System (LMS) Canvas, specifically for fully online Ed.D. students, preparing them for research-related content encountered in their courses (Atkinson, 2019). The original course by Atkinson (2019) compared pretest, posttest, and metacognitive skills, using the Metacognitive Strategies for Library Research Skills Scale (MS-LRSS) developed by Catalano (2017).
The course was designed using backward design methods (Wiggins & McTighe, 2006) to introduce online doctoral students to common library terminology, metaliteracy, and metacognitive concepts. The metaliteracy course was not intended to take the place of library tutorials, individualized instruction, or research consultations–all of which are critical to meet the needs of doctoral students in an online environment.
The metaliteracy course consists of five modules, four of which are directly related to the metaliteracy goals and learning objectives from 2014 (Forte, et. al., 2014). The fifth module relates to specific skills students need to be successful, particularly in the Ed.D. program such as requesting materials through InterLibrary Loan, identifying research methods, and recognizing specific library databases. Each module consists of a pretest, an overview and videos (most of which are three minutes or less), and a posttest. Each module name, the video titles, and learning objectives are listed below.
Objective: Metaliterate learners evaluate information critically by determining authority, relevancy, accuracy, and validity of each source regardless of the information’s delivery method.
By the end of this module, learners will be able to:
1) Recognize the criteria for evaluating authority, relevancy, accuracy, and validity of information sources
2) Determine context of an information source by considering purpose and format
3) Distinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly sources
4) Understand the process of peer review and its purpose in scholarly research
Module 2: Information Ethics
Two Videos: Academic Integrity, Copyright, and Plagiarism; APA Style
Objective: Metaliterate learners understand and differentiate between their own intellectual property and others’ intellectual property, and give credit to others’ work using proper citation style methods.
By the end of this module, learners will be able to:
1) Understand the concepts of academic integrity, copyright, and plagiarism
2) Differentiate between various forms of attribution
3) Identify parts of a citation in APA style
4) Recognize elements of APA style in context
Module 3: Information Creation, Sharing, and Collaboration
Three videos: Social Media; Digital and Visual Literacy; Creating Original Content
Objective: Metaliterate learners are aware of their online environments, participate collaboratively, transfer information from one format to another, and produce and share original content.
By the end of this module, learners will be able to:
1) Understand the various ways of sharing original content
2) Consciously participate in social media environments
3) Describe digital and visual literacy and their importance to metaliterate learning
4) Identify digital and media formats and the uses and purposes of each
Module 4: Lifelong Learning Research Strategies
Two videos: Information Needs; Metacognition
Objective: Metaliterate learners connect learning with personal, professional, and lifelong goals using their experiences. Metaliterate learners recognize metacognitive principles of learning by acknowledging that learning is a process and can reflect on research difficulties to improve strategies.
By the end of this module, learners will be able to:
1) Know which search strategies are appropriate for the information needs
2) Determine tasks involved to develop research questions
3) Reflect on one’s own knowledge and determine ways to increase metacognition skills
4) Recognize the process of critical thinking that leads to metaliterate learning
Module 5: Research Skills Proficiency
Three videos: Types of Sources; Requesting Materials and ILL; Research Methods
Objective: Metaliterate learners are proficient in distinguishing between types of sources, describing research methods, and understanding how to request materials to find relevant, scholarly, and authoritative information sources.
By the end of this module, learners will be able to:
1) Describe research methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods
2) Distinguish between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources
3) Recognize ACU library’s databases, authentication process, and InterLibrary Loan procedures
4) Understand how to request physical materials
The original course has been modified to reach other fully online student audiences such as undergraduate students and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students. The undergraduate metaliteracy course is embedded in a critical thinking course that is taken by all online undergraduates. The program directors for the Ed.D. and DNP programs encourage students to self-enroll in the Canvas metaliteracy course specifically designed for those students in each program. Currently, a LibGuide is being developed to bring the metaliteracy course to a wider audience than is currently reached in Canvas. The full metaliteracy course will be available at this link (forthcoming), https://guides.acu.edu/metaliteracy, and currently includes all of the learning objectives and videos for each module.
A mapping of the ACRL Framework to the metaliteracy course objectives can help expand the knowledge and skills students need to succeed in their courses and beyond. The concept of metaliteracy is important for either an introduction for undergraduate students to library and research terminology or for graduate and doctoral students who already have these concepts developed as well as students who have not been to school for a long time and need a refresher on these concepts. Future plans include updating the metaliteracy course to incorporate the updated metaliteracy goals and learning objectives from 2018 (Jacobson, et al, 2018) as well as an update to the mapping of the Framework.
References
Association of College and Research Libraries. (2000). Information literacy competency standards for higher education. Retrieved September 29, 2023, from https://alair.ala.org/handle/11213/7668
Association of College and Research Libraries. (2016). Framework for information literacy for higher education. Retrieved September 29, 2023, from https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
Atkinson, M. D. (2019). The relationship between metaliteracy pretest, posttest, and Metacognitive Strategies for Library Research Skills Scale: Creating a metaliteracy course for online Ed.D. students [Doctoral dissertation, Regent University]. https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/library_pub/32
Catalano, A. A. (2017). Development and validation of the Metacognitive Strategies for Library Research Skills Scale (MS-LRSS). Journal of Academic Librarianship, 43(3), 178–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.02.017
Fulkerson, D. M., Ariew, S. A., & Jacobson, T. E. (2017). Revisiting metacognition and metaliteracy in the ACRL Framework. Communications in Information Literacy, 11(1), 21-41. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2017.11.1.45
Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2011). Reframing information literacy as a metaliteracy. College & Research Libraries, 72(1), 62–78. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-76r1
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2006). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Pearson.
Dr. Melissa Atkinson is the Director of Distance & Online Library Services at Abilene Christian University (ACU) Brown Library. In her 23-year career as a librarian at ACU, she has served as Online Learning Librarian, E-Collections & Web Services Librarian, Serials & Assessment Librarian, Electronic Services & Serials Librarian, and Reference Librarian. She is currently a dissertation chair for five dissertation students, one of whom recently successfully defended their prospectus. She earned a Ph.D. from Regent University in Education (Distance Education concentration) in May 2019. Her research interests include metaliteracy, information literacy, online pedagogy, andragogy, and instructional design methods for library instruction. Her dissertation titled, “The Relationship Between Metaliteracy Pretest, Posttest, and Metacognitive Strategies for Library Research Skills Scale: Creating a Metaliteracy Course for Online Ed.D. Students,” is available in Proquest and ACU’s institutional repository (Digital Commons). In 2020, an article based on her dissertation was published called, “To Frame or Not to Frame: Creating a Metaliteracy Course for Online Ed.D. Students” in Library Hi Tech News (https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/library_pub/41/).
Recently, Caitlin Manner, an author for the publication 55+ Life, interviewed Trudi Jacobson for her article, “Learning Curve,” on the value of MOOCs for those who fit the magazine’s age demographic. (The article is in the Fall 2023 issue, pages 38-39). During that interview, Trudi introduced Caitlin to the concept of metaliteracy. Caitlin included information on the Coursera MOOC Metaliteracy: Empowering Yourself in a Connected World in the “Learning Curve” article, but then delved more deeply into the meaning and value of metaliteracy. She went on to write an article on it for the 55+ Life website entitled The Importance of Metaliteracy for People 55+.
As she noted in the essay:
It is increasingly critical for everyone to assess their own metaliteracy and continuously work to improve it. This will not only prevent you from falling prey to “fake news,” but it can impact your hireability, your mindset, and your ability to navigate an increasingly online society.
Caitlin wrote in an email to Trudi, “[O]ur conversation has made me tell just about everyone I know about the importance of metaliteracy…I’m fascinated by it.” We are delighted that this is the case, and that she wrote such an accessible article about metaliteracy for the magazine’s online readers. She highlights the evaluative, reflective, and societal benefits of metaliteracy, and notes the important factor that we are, each of us, creators of information. The article posits three main reasons that metaliteracy is critical for those 55 years old and older:
Protecting yourself and others from inaccurate information
Enhancing your employability in the gig economy
Providing a means for social justice
The article ends, “If you’re at all interested in maintaining your elasticity of thought and staying open-minded, metaliteracy is one way to do so.”
We would love to hear your feedback about the article and this application of the metaliteracy model. Feel free to reach out to us with your feedback.
Trudi Jacobson and Tom Mackey co-authored the chapter Designing Interactive Pedagogies of Play Through Metaliteracy for a new book edited by Marietjie Havenga, Jako Olivier, and Byron J Bunt. The open access volume entitled Problem-based Learning and Pedagogies of Play: Active Approaches Towards Self-Directed Learning is published by AOSIS Scholarly Books. As noted in the synopsis: “The focus of this book is original research regarding the implementation of problem-based learning and pedagogies of play as active approaches to foster self-directed learning” (https://books.aosis.co.za/index.php/ob/catalog/book/409).
According to the abstract for Trudi and Tom’s chapter:
This chapter explores interactive pedagogies of play (PoPs) through the theory and practice of metaliteracy. As a holistic pedagogical framework for developing reflective and self-directed learners in collaborative social environments, metaliteracy supports individuals to become active knowledge producers. The structure of the metaliteracy model includes interrelated roles, domains and characteristics that reinforce the scaffolding of play- and problem-based learning in multimodal contexts. The core components of metaliteracy are applied in practice through a set of flexible and adaptable goals and learning objectives. Through this analysis of metaliteracy concerning PoPs, we will describe interactive meaning-making in pedagogical situations involving collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) in four courses at both foundational and advanced levels of the college experience.
We are thrilled to be a part of this exciting new open access book with such excellent editors and authors. It was a great experience to apply metaliteracy to this new context of pedagogies of play. The examples we provide from our own teaching in the Writing and Critical Inquiry course at The University at Albany and in the Digital Media Arts courses at Empire State University demonstrate how applicable these ideas are to a wide range of pedagogical contexts. Let us know what you think about this new application of the metaliteracy model and feel free to try it out in your own teaching!
-Trudi and Tom
Jacobson, TE & Mackey, TP 2023, ‘Designing interactive pedagogies of play through metaliteracy’, in M Havenga, J Olivier & BJ Bunt (eds.), Problem-based learning and pedagogies of play: Active approaches towards Self-Directed Learning, NWU Self-Directed Learning Series, vol. 11, AOSIS Books, Cape Town, pp. 43–70. https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2023.BK409.03
If you are interested developing workshop ideas about metaliteracy or would like to participate in a metaliteracy workshop asynchronously, check out this latest presentation! On Tuesday, September 5, Trudi Jacobson and Tom Mackey facilitated an interactive workshop entitled Adapting Metaliteracy OER to Multimodal Teaching and Learning Practices as part of their honorary appointments as Extraordinary Professors at North-West University (NWU). This virtual event was recorded and is now available to watch at your own pace. The ideas presented in the slideshow are easily adaptable to different learning scenarios and it is fine to follow along with the video as an asynchronous workshop participant! Feel free to apply the slides to your own setting (as long as you cite the source) and be sure to let us know if you have any questions! We would love to hear your feedback! -Trudi and Tom
As a follow-up to their recent Prestige Lecture at North-West University (NWU), Prof. Trudi Jacobson and Prof. Tom Mackey will facilitate an interactive workshop entitled Adapting Metaliteracy OER to Multimodal Teaching and Learning Practices. This virtual event will take place on Tuesday, September 5 at 9am EDT and registration is now open: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwudemqqD8vGtdb__JGCZUM5hP1GKECrIaN.
Look for Trudi and Tom’s follow-up workshop entitled Adapting Metaliteracy OER to Multimodal Teaching and Learning Practices on September 5 at 9am EDT.
Metaliteracy.org 
