Threshold Concepts: Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Scholarship as Conversation

Communities of scholars, researchers, or professionals engage in sustained discourse with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of varied perspectives and interpretations.

-Framework for Informaiton Literacy for Higher Education

Learners who are developing their information literate abilities do the following:

• Cite the contributing work of others in their own information production
• Contribute to scholarly conversation at an appropriate level, such as local online community, guided discussion, undergraduate research journal, conference presentation/poster session
• Identify barriers to entering scholarly conversation via various venues
• Critically evaluate contributions made by others in participatory information environments
• Identify the contribution particular articles, books, and other scholarly pieces make to disciplinary knowledge
• Summarize the changes in scholarly perspective over time on a particular topic within a specific discipline
• Recognize that a given scholarly work may not represent the only or even the majority perspective on the issue

Learners who are developing their information literate abilities do the following:

• Recognize they are often entering into an ongoing scholarly conversation and not a finished conversation
• Seek out conversations taking place in their research area
• See themselves as contributors to scholarship rather than only consumers of it
• Recognize that scholarly conversations take place in various venues
• Suspend judgment on the value of a particular piece of scholarship until the larger context for the scholarly conversation is better understood
• Understand the responsibility that comes with entering the conversation through participatory channels
• Value user-generated content and evaluate contributions made by others
• Recognize that systems privilege authorities and that not having a fluency in the language and process of a discipline disempowers their ability to participate and engage

Scholarship as Conversation (University of Washington)

Finding Peer-Reviewed Journals