May 2019 285 C&RL News

The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (Framework) calls 
upon librarians to think of information 
literacy as a concept to be applied beyond 
the one-shot session, suggesting that the 
“Framework…is intended to be develop-
mentally and systematically integrated into 
the student’s academic program at a variety 
of levels.”1 

At the University of North Carolina-
Wilmington (UNCW), information literacy 
is integrated into the undergraduate cur-
riculum through a general education 
requirement at the introductory level and 
in the student’s major.2 However, this re-
quirement, established in 2012, is based 
on the now-rescinded Information Literacy 
Competency Standards for Higher Educa-
tion3 and has heavily relied on the one-shot 
librarian-led model of information literacy 
instruction for implementation. Librarians 
at UNCW viewed the publication of the 
Framework as an opportunity to both up-
date the teaching faculty’s understanding 
of information literacy concepts and to 
re-establish information literacy as a col-
laborative partnership between teaching 
faculty and librarians.

UNCW’s Information Literacy Faculty 
Fellows (ILFF) program, inaugurated in 
the spring 2018 semester, trains faculty 
and instructors from across the university 
in the knowledge practices, dispositions, 
and threshold concepts embedded in the 

Framework. Faculty develop concrete 
plans for integrating one or more of these 
concepts into their courses by working 
with liaison librarians and each other. 
Our hope is to develop a community of 
practice at UNCW surrounding informa-
tion literacy and to embed the Framework 
throughout the curriculum. The program 
encourages librarians and teaching faculty 
to view information literacy as a shared 
responsibility, one that doesn’t end at the 
library door but is integrated throughout 
the academic experience.

Program description
In fall 2017, a small group of Research 
and Instructional Services (RIS) librarians 
at UNCW proposed funding to create a 
program for faculty and instructors who 
were already working with classes that 
included the general studies information 
literacy competency requirement. Our 
goal was for participants to learn enough 
about the Framework to apply its con-
cepts to their own instruction and to be-

Stephanie Crowe is social sciences librarian, email: 
crowes@unc w.edu, Anne Pember ton, associate 
director, research and instructional ser vices and 
library assessment, email: pembertona@uncw.edu, 
and Vonzell Yeager is student success librarian, email: 
yeagerv@uncw.edu, at the University of North Carolina-
Wilmington

© 2019 Stephanie Crowe, Anne Pemberton, and Vonzell Yeager

Stephanie Crowe, Anne Pemberton, and Vonzell Yeager

Information Literacy Faculty 
Fellows program
Building a faculty-librarian framework community of practice

Perspectives on the Framework

mailto:crowes%40uncw.edu?subject=
mailto:pembertona%40uncw.edu?subject=
mailto:yeagerv%40uncw.edu?subject=


C&RL News May 2019 286

come information literacy “ambassadors” 
to their academic departments and else-
where on campus. The program’s learn-
ing outcomes were to:

1. learn about the Framework for In-
formation Literacy for Higher Education,

2. generate practical ideas for applying 
one or more Framework concepts to their 
information literacy classes,

3. gain a cohort of other faculty inter-
ested in these ideas,

4. work closely with their liaison librar-
ian on information literacy concepts, and

5. generate a concrete assignment, les-
son plan, or syllabus that integrates one 
or more of these concepts.

We envisioned the program as a weekly 
series of six workshops, each focused 
on one frame. To increase buy-in, we 
agreed that funding for the program 
would include stipends for faculty who 
completed the workshops and submitted 
a final product based on the Framework. 
We secured internal funding to support 
the stipends, lunches, and materials for 
participants. We marketed the program 
in January 2018 through liaison librarians 
and a widely read email newsletter. Po-
tential Fellows were encouraged to apply 
for the program through an online form. 

The first ILFF cohort included ten 
faculty from English, First-Year Seminar, 
geology, music, nursing, philosophy and 
religion, political science, public health, 
and sociology. Although two colleges 
(education and business) went unrepre-
sented, and the sciences were somewhat 
underrepresented, we met our overall goal 
of including a wide variety of disciplines. 

Prior to the first meeting, held in 
mid-March 2018, each Fellow read the 
Framework document and completed a 
pre-program reflection. Participants were 
asked to describe the information literacy 
concepts with which they were already 
comfortable and their goals for the pro-
gram. At the first meeting, we discussed 

these goals as a group. We also addressed 
the library’s goals for the program and 
provided a general introduction and 
overview of the Framework, including 
the broad ideas inherent to understanding 
the Framework: metaliteracy, threshold 
concepts, knowledge practices, and dis-
positions.

To reinforce the idea of the shared 
responsibility of teaching information 
literacy concepts, different librarians 
facilitated each session. Each workshop 
included a presentation on one frame, a 
combination of guided small-group and 
large-group discussions surrounding ques-
tions that were particularly pertinent to 
the frame, and a brainstorming session on 
how to incorporate that week’s frame into 
instructional practice. We required the 
facilitating librarians to follow the same 
broad format but encouraged creativity 
with the activities. 

For example, during the week on “Re-
search as Inquiry,” the facilitators began 
by handing out index cards. Each Fellow 
was asked to briefly write about their 
research process on one side of the card 
and their students’ research process on 
the other side. Next, each Fellow shared 
their responses. This process led to a small 
group discussion about any differences 
between the approaches and how faculty 
generally guide their students through 
the process of research. Following a brief 
overview of the knowledge practices and 
dispositions within the frame, the Fellows 
watched a short video on topic selection.4 
Finally, faculty did a modified “think-pair-
share” activity in which they reflected on 
the applications of “Research as Inquiry” 
to their own teaching, discussed these 
ideas with a small group, and then had 
a full-group conversation to share ideas 
and offer suggestions to others.

The main outcome at the end of the 
six-week program was to concretize an 
idea for incorporating one or more frames 
into an upcoming course. Fellows were 
given a month after the final workshop 



May 2019 287 C&RL News

to submit their plans, which were made 
available to UNCW faculty through the 
library’s website.5

Assessment 
Assessment was a critical component 
of the program at each stage: the Fel-
lows’ applications, Fellows’ perceptions 
of their and their students’ comfort with 
information literacy concepts prior to 
the program, Fellows’ perceptions of the 
program at its conclusion, the final prod-
ucts, and participating librarians’ percep-
tions of the program at its conclusion. 
In addition, we anticipate conducting a 
longer-term assessment of the impact of 
the program for Fellows, their depart-
ments, and their students at their one- 
year anniversary. This assessment will be 
administered as an online survey asking 
the same questions as the pre-reflection 
questionnaire. 

Fellows’ applications
Our first assessment activity was the 
scoring of applications. Applicants were 
asked the following:

1. What do you hope to gain from be-
ing an IL Faculty Fellow? 

2. Describe what you have previously 
done to integrate information literacy into 
your courses.

3. Describe how you plan to use the 
content from this program to strengthen 
your department’s information literacy 
curriculum.

Each member of the planning group 
scored the responses using a rubric.6 We 
then discussed our scores as a group to 
make a selection of ten Fellows. 

Familiarity and understanding of infor-
mation literacy concepts
We distributed a pre-program reflection7 

to Fellows prior to the initial meeting, 
asking participants to reflect on their 
knowledge and comfort with informa-
tion literacy concepts, as well as their 

students’. Overall, they assessed their 
own familiarity with information literacy 
at 3.5 and their students at 2 on a scale of 1 
(Not at all) to 5 (Very).

One of the most interesting, and yet 
unsurprising, aspects of the reflection 
responses was the variety of information 
literacy definitions. Some definitions were 
lengthy and touched on multiple aspects 
of information literacy, for example, the 
value of information to citizenship and 
civic discourse, the creation of informa-
tion, the connection of information literacy 
to other literacies. Other definitions were 
brief and focused on traditional ways of 
thinking of information literacy—finding 
and using sources. 

Fellows’ perceptions of the program
After the final session, we asked Fellows 
to complete an online post-program re-
flection.8 Feedback was positive. Faculty 
touched upon areas such as format, struc-
ture, focusing future cohorts on specific in-
terest groups (e.g., English composition or 
first-year experience instructors), and con-
tent. 

The final product 
After Fellows submitted their post-program 
reflection, they were asked to submit a de-
scription of their final products through an 
online form. The planning group and each 
Fellow’s liaison librarian reviewed the final 
products. While all Fellows created and sub-
mitted a final project, the quality and depth 
of the project reports varied. We are cre-
ating a rubric that will be provided to the 
next group of Fellows at the beginning of 
the program and again at the time of final 
project submission. Our hope is that the ru-
bric will provide guidance for participants, 
as well as a formal means to assess the proj-
ects. 

Librarians’ perceptions of the program 
RIS librarians evaluated the ILFF pro-
gram through email and through an in-
person meeting with the planning group. 



C&RL News May 2019 288

Feedback from librarians was also posi-
tive, with many expressing that they felt 
more comfortable with the Framework af-
ter participating in the program. 

Next steps
The inaugural program was comprised of 
six sessions over six weeks and focused 
on a different frame per session. On 
reflection, some of the Frames could 
be combined since the subject matter 
overlapped, which may allow for more 
in-depth discussion, exploration of col-
laboration opportunities, and assign-
ment development. 

For example, “Research as Inquiry” 
and “Searching as Strategic Explora-
tion” work hand-in-hand throughout the 
research process. By combining these 
frames into one longer session, we could 
provide more active learning activities 
and a more effective session. Addition-
ally, moving from weekly one-hour 
sessions to two-hour sessions would al-
low for more in-depth contact between 
the faculty and liaison librarians. We 
are also considering putting Fellows in 
small working groups for the duration 
of the program to further assist them in 
developing their final product.

The Framework’s threshold concepts, 
dispositions, and knowledge practices 
were quite useful to faculty, but we 
discovered a need for expanded defini-
tions and more targeted resources, such 
as those found on the ACRL Framework 
for Information Literacy Sandbox web-
site.9 These resources will provide future 
Fellows with concrete examples of ways 
the Framework has been applied, giving 
them more specific ideas for their final 
products and showcasing the flexibility 
of the Framework.

In order to strengthen the liaison-
faculty connection, we also plan to 
provide more time for collaboration on 
assignment creation, information literacy 
instruction session work, and one-on-
one discussion to deepen understanding 

of the Framework. We are also consid-
ering the option of requiring librarian 
involvement in the final project. Lastly, 
we plan to continue efforts to focus on 
students as contributors to the academic 
conversation, not just passive recipients 
of knowledge.

We feel our work to expand UNCW’s 
information literacy community of prac-
tice beyond librarians continues to grow, 
and our Information Literacy Faculty Fel-
lows program has been one successful 
tool in these efforts. 

Notes
1. “Framework for Information Literacy 

for Higher Education” ACRL, www.ala.org 
/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues 
/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf (accessed No-
vember 21, 2018).

2. University Studies Advisory Commit-
tee, “Information Literacy,” University of 
North Carolina-Wilmington, https://uncw.
edu/usac/informationliteracy.html (accessed 
November 21, 2018).

3. “Information Literacy Competency Stan-
dards for Higher Education” ACRL, www.ala.
org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&template 
=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm 
&ContentID=33553 (accessed November 
21, 2018).

4. Anne Burke, et al., “Picking Your Topic 
IS Research!” North Carolina State University 
Libraries, https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials 
/picking_topic/ (accessed January 11, 2019).

5. William Madison Randall Library 
Bridges to Information Literacy, “Information 
Literacy Faculty Fellows Projects,” Univer-
sity of North Carolina-Wilmington, https://
library.uncw.edu/info_lit/il-fellows-projects 
(accessed November 21, 2018).

6. See appendix at https://library.uncw. 
e d u / i n f o _ l i t / s i t e s / d e f a u l t / f i l e s / p d f s 
/crlnewsappendix.pdf. 

7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. “ACRL Framework for Information 

Literacy Sandbox,” ACRL, http://sandbox.
acrl.org/ (accessed January 11, 2019). 

http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf
http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf
http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf
https://uncw.edu/usac/informationliteracy.html
https://uncw.edu/usac/informationliteracy.html
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&template =/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm &ContentID=335
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&template =/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm &ContentID=335
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&template =/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm &ContentID=335
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&template =/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm &ContentID=335
https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/picking_topic/
https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/picking_topic/
https://library.uncw.edu/info_lit/il-fellows-projects 
https://library.uncw.edu/info_lit/il-fellows-projects 
https://library.uncw.edu/info_lit/sites/default/files/pdfs/crlnewsappendix.pdf
https://library.uncw.edu/info_lit/sites/default/files/pdfs/crlnewsappendix.pdf
https://library.uncw.edu/info_lit/sites/default/files/pdfs/crlnewsappendix.pdf
http://sandbox.acrl.org/
http://sandbox.acrl.org/