Online Learning Guide: Home

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The world is changing fast. Many of the skills necessary to succeed academically and professionally involve navigating a landscape of digital media. The ability to find, evaluate, and effectively utilize information found online is more necessary now than ever.

Check out the following video for a quick look at what the current "information age" might mean:

We all now live in the information age and the amount of information available to each of us to help make decisions is expanding at an astounding rate. According to Computer Sciences Corporation, data production will be forty four times greater in 2020 than it was in 2009. Understanding how to use this data effectively is part of information literacy.

The good news is that each time you undertake a research paper in college you already are developing your information literacy skills. You are learning how to recognize an information need, formulate questions, locate relevant sources, and ultimately evaluate and communicate the information effectively and responsibly.

Today's employers expect recent graduates to possess deep critical thinking and problem-solving skills and information literacy is the foundation for these abilities. The failure to employ these skills can be very serious.

Let's look at three real-world examples that each illustrate the consequences of failing to use information effectively.

1. A consulting firm in California faced litigation in 2013 after a merger it had brokered went back in investigating how they provided faulty advice on the matter. They learned that their employee based his recommendation on basic google searching, nothing more. The lawsuit was due in part to this mistake. The flawed guidance ultimately cost the company an important client and the employee was fired. What can you learn from this example? Whether it is for your university paper or a project at work, how you frame an information need, where you get your information, and how you use it will have academic, personal, and professional consequences.
2. Another example in the years between 2000 and 2007. U.S. home buyers were enticed by no-money-down mortgages loans that did not require income verification and variable interest rate loans with low initial rates. The attractiveness of these terms cause people to ignore potential risks as borrowers blindly trusted in the apparent authority of their mortgage brokers. The result, more than four million home foreclosures were recorded in the United States between January 2007 and December 2011. With a real estate bubble burst, whether you think fault for the real estate crash lies of the banking industry, Wall Street, or with the government, loan applicants also had the opportunity to make more informed financial decisions by using a variety of educational and counseling resources available to them. The importance of this experience to you. Information literacy is a life skill that you must practice and hone to protect your personal interests. Financial meltdowns have occurred throughout history and there will always be people ready to take advantage of others ignorance. Protect and empower yourself by asking questions, challenging the information you are given, and learning how to locate and apply reliable resources whenever you are making important decisions.
3. One final example, in the aftermath of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, President George W Bush made the case that it was necessary to invade Iraq based on Iraq's connection to al-Qaeda and the need to contain weapons of mass destruction. Consequently in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. Fast forward four years to a 2007 interview with 60 minutes when former CIA director George Tenet said we could never verify that there was any Iraqi Authority, direction and control, complicity with al-qaeda for 9/11, or any operational act against America period. In 2010, the former president acknowledged a sinking feeling when he learned that weapons of mass destruction in Iraq did not exist. A Brown University project has broken down the consequences in numbers. Over 18,000 combatants and 120,000 civilians dead at a cost to the United States of 2.2 trillion dollars. We all share a responsibility for these humanitarian and financial outcomes. We all have a moral obligation to remain informed on issues like this.

In summary, information and critical thinking abilities are essential keys to your personal academic and professional success. Start by looking at the world around you with this new mindset, aware that you possess more information in this moment than you did just a few minutes ago and know that you hold the power to open yourself up to new opportunities.