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This paper presents a summary of the entire body of research, 2008 to 2022, from Project Information Literacy (PIL) on the strategies students use for finding, using, and creating information for college courses, in everyday life, and the workplace while navigating a vast, ever-changing information landscape. Major findings from 12 reports and seven related research articles are presented. A computational analysis of 2,475 citations from 1,961 sources provides empirical data for interactive information visualizations about the geographic reach and impact of PIL's research on the wider educational context. This retrospective, the final publication produced as part of more than a decade of studying college students, concludes with a discussion of PIL's practical impact on information literacy instruction and suggestions for future research.

While educators believe reading is an investment in learning and knowing, what many are not considering is what reading analytically means to civic life in the digital age when many of the old gatekeepers of traditional publishing are disappearing. As new voices have emerged, and there is an explosion of reading material, there is also less quality control and editorial oversight for accuracy. Nor are faculty re-evaluating their own role in ensuring that students are prepared not just to read critically, but also to discover the contexts and social constructs that shape texts in a variety of ways. For students, these competencies are urgently needed for making sound choices in a fast-paced and often chaotic world. This article explores whether educators are doing enough to prepare students for this new world of reading.

This two-part series explores U.S. media coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak during the first 100 days of 2020. This second report focuses on the visual messaging of the coronavirus story in the early months of 2020. Just as journalists have chosen their words to convey meaning about an emerging global crisis, photojournalists have crafted similar messages using visual techniques. The COVID-19 photos used lighting, angle, composition, and color as rhetorical strategies for telling a story in ways that words alone could not. A content analysis of 532 randomly selected news images from a sample of news articles (N = 74,737) published by the top 12 U.S. news outlets identified in Report 1. Almost all of the images (95%) were photographs, and the majority (53%) were taken in U.S. locations. Five dominant visual themes--(1) fear; (2) hope; (3) loneliness; (4) determination; and (5) grief--emerged from the sample of news images analyzed. [For the first report of the series, "The Shape of the Coronavirus News Story. COVID-19: The First 100 Days of U.S. News Coverage," see ED613497. For "Visual Messaging of the Coronavirus News Story: Learning Resources. COVID-19: The First 100 Days of U.S. News Coverage," see ED613518.]

This document is the first report in a two-part series that explores U.S. media coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak during the first 100 days of 2020. This first report examines the shape and flow of coronavirus coverage across time and digital spaces by using a large sample of stories from a range of news sources. Included in the report are interactive data visualizations showing the results of a computational analysis of 125,696 news articles from 66 widely-read national, metropolitan, and digital-only news websites. Findings indicate the U.S. coronavirus news story gained momentum in three distinct waves of coverage that culminated in a news tsunami in mid-March that spread through every news section from business and politics to health and sports. Certain stories were amplified and re-circulated across news sites and on social media, thus creating a network of diverse contributors to this vast news ecosystem. [For "The Shape of the Coronavirus News Story: Learning Resources. COVID-19: The First 100 Days of U.S. News Coverage," see ED613510. For the second report in this series, "Visual Messaging of the Coronavirus News Story. COVID-19: The First 100 Days of U.S. News Coverage," see ED613518.]

This report presents findings about how college students conceptualize the ever-changing online information landscape, and navigate volatile and popular platforms that increasingly employ algorithms to shape and filter content. Researchers conducted 16 focus groups with 103 undergraduates and interviews with 37 faculty members to collect qualitative data from eight U.S. colleges and universities from across the country. Findings suggest that a majority of students know that popular websites, such as Google, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, use algorithms to collect massive amounts of their personal data, but still find sites too useful to abandon. Many are indignant about websites that mine their clicks to sell them products, but resigned to the powers of an unregulated media environment. Some students, however, used practical strategies to protect their privacy and "confuse algorithms," learned more often from peers than in classes. An abundance of choice for online information left many skeptical and distrustful of news encountered on algorithm-driven platforms. While some students worried about the "creepy" way ads follow them around the internet, others were concerned that automated decision making systems reinforce societal inequalities. Discussions with students and faculty indicated that understanding and managing the torrent of information flowing through search engines and social media is rarely mentioned in the classroom, even in courses emphasizing critical thinking and information literacy. A critical review of a decade of research from Project Information Literacy (PIL) about how students conduct course and everyday life research, and what that means for educators and librarians, provides context to these new findings. Four recommendations are provided for educators, librarians, administrators, and journalists working to promote truth and prepare students for a changing and challenged world. [Additional funding for this report was provided by Electronic Resources & Libraries, a leading library conference, and the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina. For the executive summary of this report, see ED605107.]

This report presents findings about how a sample of U.S. college students gathers information and engages with news in the digital age. Included are results from an online survey of 5,844 respondents and telephone interviews with 37 participants from 11 U.S. colleges and universities selected for their regional, demographic, and red/blue state diversity. A computational analysis was conducted of Twitter data associated with the survey respondents and a larger Twitter panel of more than 135,000 college-age persons. Findings indicated two-thirds of the survey respondents received news from at least five pathways to news during a given week with peers, social media, professors, and online newspapers most commonly used. News was overwhelming for two-thirds of the respondents (68%), so they were selective about what they read or viewed, following topics meeting their immediate needs, i.e., weather and traffic reports, news about national politics, or political memes that appealed to their appreciation of satire. Some 58% shared news on social media during the past week, often to pass on information they thought friends and followers should know. Most students defined news content broadly and no longer see news as a cohesive, authoritative report as prior generations may have defined it. Many invested time and critical thinking to assemble, compare, and interpret news across sources. Social media and the open Web make traditional standards of evaluation increasingly problematic. While most believed in the core principles of journalism, and considered news necessary in a democracy (82%), many students were dissatisfied with the quality of news available today when media and political polarization were particularly acute. Distrust of news stemmed, in part, from the rise of "fast news" -- oversimplified and fragmented news snippets released throughout a day -- and the "fake news" phenomenon; only 14% felt very confident they could tell "fake news" from "real news." Six recommendations are included for educators, journalists, and librarians working to make students effective news consumers. To explore the implications of this study's findings, concise commentaries from leading thinkers in education, libraries, media research, and journalism are included. [For the executive summary, see ED591129.]

This paper identifies approaches, challenges, and best practices related to planning and designing today's academic library learning spaces. As part of the Project Information Literacy (PIL) Practitioner Series, qualitative data is presented from 49 interviews conducted with a sample of academic librarians, architects, and library consultants. These participants were at the forefront of the same 22 recent library learning space projects on college and university campuses in the US and Canada between 2011 and 2016. Most library projects had allocated space for supporting at least one of these four types of academic learning activities: collaborative, individual study, tutoring by campus learning partners, or occasional classes taught by campus instructors. Successful collaboration between the architect and the librarian was fostered by their shared commitment to meeting users' needs, though few stakeholders systematically collected input from users beyond standard usage statistics and gate counts. Most interviewees reported facing some common challenges during their project planning and implementations. One challenge was translating design goals into tangible designs while trying to resolve issues of noise mitigation, shared space allocations, and providing enough electrical power for IT devices. Another challenge was ensuring effective communication practices with planning teams as well as campus-wide constituents throughout projects. Additional challenges included building consensus, compensating for project interruption and inadequate knowledge about both architecture and library IT issues, and having too few a priori evaluation metrics for linking learning outcomes to goals of the library space projects. Taken together, the success of library learning space projects depends upon shared knowledge and understanding of the sweeping learning, pedagogical, and research changes facing the academy. Librarians and architects need to work together to apply that knowledge and understanding to the unique environment and learning and teaching needs of their specific institution. Contains a list of further readings. [Funding from a Strategic Research Grant from the University of Washington Information School helped to make this report possible.]

This executive summary provides a snapshot of the larger report, "How Students Engage with News: Five Takeaways for Educators, Journalists, and Librarians" (ED591128). The report represents perhaps the largest and most comprehensive research effort exploring how U.S. college-age students are accessing, consuming, and engaging with news in the digital era. It seeks to understand how students see the role of news in their lives, in their learning and social communities, and in a democracy at a time when personal beliefs may carry more weight than objective facts, information platforms fuel endless debates, and the authority of traditional media is falling away. Findings are drawn from an online survey administered at a diverse mix of 11 colleges and universities from across the country, yielding a sample of 5,844 students. Follow-up interviews with 37 survey respondents complemented the survey. A computational analysis of Twitter data from survey respondents (N = 731) and a larger Twitter panel of more than 135,000 college-age persons provided observational and external comparative data to help frame the survey results. The findings suggest young adults believe news is valuable to their lives and to society on the whole, and many see themselves as active participants in its dissemination. Yet, the new digital environment and current political reality has made successful navigation extremely difficult. Educational and media institutions need to do far more to help this emerging generation succeed in operating in this confusing, overwhelming, and often misleading online environment. Ultimately, they must educate young adults to understand how to find and engage with credible information and give them the knowledge necessary to fulfill both their personal needs and civic roles. This summary concludes with the five research takeaways presented in the larger report.

This report presents findings about the challenges today's college freshmen face, and the information-seeking strategies they develop, use, and adapt as they make the transition from high school to college and begin to complete college-level research assignments. Included are data from a comparative analysis of library resources in 30 US high school and 6 college and university libraries; interviews with 35 first-term freshmen from 6 US colleges and universities; and an online survey with 1,941 US high school and college student respondents. Findings indicate a majority of freshmen find it difficult to effectively search academic library portals. To a lesser extent, they struggle with reading and comprehending scholarly materials once they are able to find them and have trouble figuring out faculty expectations for course research assignments. Taken together, our findings suggest the Google-centric search skills that freshmen bring from high school only get them so far with finding and using trusted sources they need for fulfilling college research assignments. Moreover, many freshmen appeared to be unfamiliar with how academic libraries-and the vast array of digital resources they provide--can best meet their needs. Included are recommendations for how campus-wide stakeholders--librarians, faculty, and administrators-can work together when instructing freshmen to be better researchers. The following are appended: (1) Methods; and (2) Freshmen Interview Script. [This research also received financial support from the University of Washington's Information School.]

The paper presents findings from 560 interviews with undergraduates on 10 campuses distributed across the US, as part of Project Information Literacy (PIL). Overall, the findings suggest that students use a "less is more" approach to manage and control all of the IT devices and information systems available to them while they are in the library during the final weeks of the term. In the hour before we approached them for an interview, more respondents had checked for messages (e.g., Facebook, email, texts, IMs) more than any other task while they were in the library. A majority of respondents who had checked for messages during the previous hour had also prepared assignments and/or studied for courses. More respondents reported using library equipment, such as computers and printers, more than they had used any other library resource or service. Over half the sample considered their laptop their most essential IT device and most had a Web browser and, to a lesser extent, a word processing application running at the time of the interviews. Most students were using one or two Web sites at the time of the interviews, but there was little overlap among the Web sites they were using. A large majority of the respondents could be classified as "light" technology users, i.e., students who use one or two IT devices to support one or two primary activities (at the time of the interviews). A preliminary theory is introduced that describes how students' technology usage may be influenced by locale (i.e., the campus library) and circumstance (i.e., crunch time). Recommendations are made for how campus-wide stakeholders--faculty, librarians, higher education administrators, and commercial publishers--can work together to improve pedagogies for 21st century undergraduates. Appended are: (1) Methods; and (2) Interview Script. (Contains 23 figures and 51 footnotes.)

A report of findings from a content analysis of 191 course-related research assignment handouts distributed to undergraduates on 28 college campuses across the U.S., as part of Project Information Literacy. A majority of handouts in the sample emphasized standards about the mechanics of compiling college research papers, more so than guiding students to finding and using sources for research. Most frequently, handouts advised students to use their campus library shelves and/or online library sources when conducting research for assignments, though most handouts lacked specific details about which of the library's hundreds of databases to search. Few handouts advised students about using Internet sources, even though many of today's students almost always integrate the Web into their research activities. Very few handouts recommended consulting a librarian about research assignments. Details about evaluating information, plagiarism, and instructor availability appeared in only a minority of the handouts analyzed. The findings suggest that handouts for academic research assignments provide students with more how-to procedures and conventions for preparing a final product for submission, than guidance about conducting research and finding and using information in the digital age. Appended are: (1) Methods; and (2) Coding form. (Contains 15 figures and 36 footnotes.)

A report of findings from 2,318 respondents to a survey carried out among college students on six campuses distributed across the U.S. in the spring of 2009, as part of Project Information Literacy. Respondents, while curious in the beginning stages of research, employed a consistent and predictable research strategy for finding information, whether they were conducting course-related or everyday life research. Almost all of the respondents turned to the same set of tried and true information resources in the initial stages of research, regardless of their information goals. Almost all students used course readings and Google first for course-related research and Google and Wikipedia for everyday life research. Most students used library resources, especially scholarly databases for course-related research and far fewer, in comparison, used library services that required interacting with librarians. The findings suggest that students conceptualize research, especially tasks associated with seeking information, as a competency learned by rote, rather than as an opportunity to learn, develop, or expand upon an information-gathering strategy which leverages the wide range of resources available to them in the digital age. Research Methods and Sampling are appended. (Contains 15 figures and 30 footnotes.) [Funding for this paper was provided by ProQuest.]

A report of preliminary findings and analysis from student discussion groups held on 7 U.S. campuses in Fall 2008, as part of Project Information Literacy. Qualitative data from discussions with higher education students across the country suggest that conducting research is particularly challenging. Students' greatest challenges are related to their perceived inability to find desired materials. Students seek "contexts" as part of the research process. A preliminary typology of the research contexts is developed and introduced. Finding contexts for "backgrounding" topics and for figuring out how to traverse complex information landscapes may be the most difficult part of the research process. Our findings also suggest that students create effective methods for conducting research by using traditional methods, such as libraries, and self-taught, creative workarounds, such as "presearch" and Wikipedia, in different ways. Appended are: (1) Research Methods and Sampling; and (2) Purpose of Discussion Groups, Use of Data. (Contains 4 figures and 8 footnotes.)