"Research indicates that students who are information competent will have greater success rates in earning their degrees and are more likely to be successful in their future careers and with their personal lives," said Anne Kenney, Cornell's Carl A. Kroch University Librarian, June 16, explaining why she and others were sponsoring Cornell's first Summer Institute of the Undergraduate Information Competency Initiative.

Speaking to about 30 Cornell faculty members and library staff in the ILR Conference Center, Kenney said that efforts being made by the Undergraduate Information Competency Committee could result in restructuring classroom assignments. The curriculum will evolve so that research projects help develop information competency with the aid of librarians and professors. "Core information competencies are critical to academic success," she said.

Co-sponsored by the University Library and the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the weeklong institute, June 16-20, is intended to explore information avenues available at the campus libraries and to integrate these into Cornell's education. Ultimately, the initiative strives for faculty members and librarians to join in training undergraduates to be information fluent or competent.

Information competency, explained Camille Andrews, committee co-chair and instruction coordinator at Mann Library, is "an ability to find, manage and evaluate information." At Monday's introductory session, she emphasized that students' information competency is best achieved through integrated efforts of faculty and staff.

Michele Moody-Adams, Cornell's vice provost for undergraduate education, drew the group's attention to the vast quantity of information available to students, which is further complicated by the plethora of methods available to access that information. This technological reality was not the case a few years ago. Paired with this sea of knowledge is a sea of unreliable sources, she said, and it can be difficult to sift through falsities to find truth. Her aim is that students become "discerning consumers of information who appreciate the quality as they work through the quantity."

Work on the Undergraduate Information Competency Initiative began in March 2005, when the Library Management Team allied with other community members to assess modes of scholarly research and literature accessible to both faculty and students. Specifically, the team examined means of gathering and evaluating information on campus. The team used the Mellon Institute at University of California-Berkeley as a model, due to similarities between the Berkeley and Cornell campuses.

The institute's program also includes facilitated presentations and group discussions, with each day concluding in take-away ideas and thoughts for looking ahead. Topics include implications of technological and digital literacy, research strategies for undergraduate students and implementation of effective and fruitful written assignments. The group will work in smaller clusters of two faculty members paired with two librarians to allow ideas to flow freely between the communities.

Highlighting the importance of the library staff and faculty members to work together, Moody-Adams also spoke about the crucial need of engaging and involving students early in their academic careers. Teaching students who are academically engaged and inquisitive cultivates greater satisfaction for faculty as well as students, she noted. She hopes that the work of the Undergraduate Information Competency Initiative during the summer institute and the upcoming school year will not only foster stronger research students but "life-long learners."

Laura Janka '09 is a writer intern at the Cornell Chronicle.