Introductory Framework
Informed Open Pedagogy and Information Literacy Instruction in Student-Authored Open Projects
Cynthia Mari Orozco
Author
- Cynthia Mari Orozco, East Los Angeles College
Project Overview
Institution: East Los Angeles College
Institution Type: public, community college
Project Discipline: Information Literacy
Project Outcome: student-created zines
Tools Used: ACRL Framework
Resources Included in Chapter:
- Class Assignment Template
Open pedagogy has often been touted as empowering, liberating, and revolutionary. While many interpretations of the term open pedagogy exist, this chapter specifically focuses on an open pedagogy in which students are creating openly licensed works in a classroom environment. Open pedagogy affords librarians, instructors, and students a unique way to guide how courses are taught and how students learn. However, while working openly can be empowering, liberating, or even revolutionary, I argue that it is unethical to mandate or strongly encourage students to produce open work without themselves understanding the implications of working openly. I argue that it is only when students understand the political intent behind these types of open projects—speaking to a much broader open education and open access movement—that they might decide for themselves to continue to engage in and support open work. Open practice is only powerful when the students involved understand why they are engaging in this work and deciding for themselves that this is something they are personally and politically invested in. Furthermore, it is only when students understand the concept of open and their own rights as authors that they can ethically engage in this type of open pedagogy.
In other words, if we are using open pedagogy to encourage students to themselves be part of the open education movement, then students must understand what open practice is and how it relates to their own lives. I posit an informed open pedagogy that 1) teaches students about, and brings students into, the greater open education movement, in which 2) students decide individually and negotiate as a whole their preferred individual and collective authorship that lastly, 3) allows students to opt-out at any point in the class, or later can provide a more ethical design to open pedagogical practices. This informed open pedagogy can be elicited through the practices of information literacy instruction.
The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, or Framework, from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) (2015) presents guiding frames in which classroom instructors and librarians can scaffold instruction about open principles within a larger information literacy context. The Framework defines information literacy as:
…the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and