Library Instruction Services: Moreland Information Literacy Grants

The University of Denver Libraries’ Joseph I. Moreland Fund for Information Literacy Programs is designed to support the Libraries’ goal of integrating research education into all undergraduate majors.  The program awards instructional development grants to instructors who would like to design or revise an undergraduate major course in order to infuse an entire course with information literacy and research skills. Research strategies should be integrated with academic content and sequenced throughout the quarter to allow students to learn, reinforce, and master these important skills.  Throughout the course design process, the instructor collaborates closely with a librarian to integrate information literacy concepts. The grant is limited to undergraduate major courses, as described below.

Grants Purpose

DU undergraduate students are introduced to information literacy concepts in their first year at the University, but students need additional and repeated opportunities to find and evaluate information, to learn how information is disseminated and gathered in a disciplinary field, to examine their own methods and skills in seeking and using information, and to explore the economic, social, legal, and ethical issues that arise from new methods of producing and distributing information.

The purpose of these grants is to support course instructors and librarians in applying their disciplinary expertise to creating and reenergizing courses within the majors that foster critical engagement in research and information use. These courses will present students with opportunities to engage critically with sources in order to accomplish specific purposes within or beyond a given discipline. It is our assumption that proposed courses will not focus exclusively on information literacy, but rather will incorporate it into the examination of discipline-specific subject matter. Such courses, whatever their subject matter, will teach students to select, evaluate, acknowledge, and challenge sources; to identify and articulate those sources’ arguments; to determine effective ways to use those sources for their own purposes; and to build upon and respond to the research of others. The larger purpose of these projects is to support students in strengthening their research and critical thinking skills within their major. Although courses that have a strong writing component are well-suited to teaching the research process, information literacy can be appropriately taught through coursework in any discipline and at any level.

The Association of College and Research Libraries broadly 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 participating ethically in communities of learning.” University Libraries especially welcomes proposals from faculty who are interested in exploring new methods for teaching a range of literacies (data literacy, visual literacy, media literacy, etc.) within the majors.

Elgibility and Selection Criteria
Full-time faculty, instructors, and librarians are encouraged to apply. Adjunct faculty may also apply as long as they can show a history of teaching for a particular course/program. Criteria for selection includes the depth of information literacy integration into the course, potential for partnership building/co-teaching, use of innovative pedagogy, and the feasibility of the curricular design. 

Courses must be undergraduate courses within a major, such as:

• Introductory or large lecture courses required for majors
• Undergraduate major courses that introduce research methods
• Seminars and senior capstone courses where students conduct extensive research
• Core courses for a major where students need to learn disciplinary databases and tools

We strongly encourage applications for multiple courses within the same department so that faculty can build a sequenced information literacy program within a major.

Course Design Requirements

Each instructor who receives a grant in this program is expected to revise their course, in collaboration with their subject librarian, to include the following:

1. Innovative assignments where students are required to select, critically evaluate, and apply relevant library sources as evidence in their research.
2. In-class time designated for research workshops by or in collaboration with a subject librarian or archivist.  For online courses, the library instruction requirement may be met through the development of asynchronous learning opportunities.
3. An online research module or modules embedded into the course content (tutorial, online research guide, etc.)

Stipend Structure

• $2,000 to a faculty member for a course (first time funding)
• $1,000 to a faculty member for the revision of a course (applicant has previously received Moreland funding for the same course)
• Up to $3,000 for a group of faculty working on the same course (multiple sections; faculty will decide how to divide the funding)
• Up to $5,000 for a department to revise a series of courses (at least 3 courses; faculty will decide how to divide the funding)
• Extra $500 for faculty applying for large courses (more than 50 students), courses with multiple sections being taught by the same instructor, or for faculty applying the information literacy assignments to more than one course.
• $500 will also be awarded to the collaborating subject librarian or archivist for travel to teaching and learning conferences.

An individual faculty member may not receive more than one Moreland grant per academic year. Departments may not receive more than $5,000 total per academic year (includes all levels of funding). The stipend will be awarded during the quarter in which the class is being taught.

The Moreland Information Literacy Grants began in Fall 2015 and are supported by the generous funding of Joseph I. Moreland (DU alum,1971).

Over the past three years, we have awarded 26 grants, 8 in 2015-2016, 9 in 2016-2017, and 9 in 2017-2018. These grants have been for research-intensive classes across the undergraduate curriculum in Business Information & Analytics, Chemistry, Economics, Gender and Women’s Studies, Geography, History, Management, Marketing, Media, Film, & Journalism Studies, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, and Sociology/Criminology.

The following faculty members have been recipients of the Moreland Grants:

Deadline 

Project proposals for Fall 2021 courses are due by August 2, 2021 and proposals for Winter, Spring, or Summer 2022 courses are due by October 8, 2021.

Submission Process
A single application developed by the course instructor and the librarian who intend to work together should be submitted via email to Carrie Forbes, Associate Dean, at Carrie.Forbes@du.edu.

If you are considering applying for a Moreland Information Literacy Grant, please take a look at the sources listed below which provide additional details on information literacy and course design.