About PIL
- Page ID
- 98069
Project Information Literacy (PIL) is a nonprofit research institute in the San Francisco Bay Area that studies what it is like to be a student in the digital age. In a series of 11 groundbreaking scholarly research studies, PIL has investigated how U.S. college students and recent graduates utilize research skills, information competencies, and strategies for completing course work, engaging with news, and solving information problems in their everyday lives and the workplace. Research findings and recommendations from PIL studies have informed and influenced the thinking and practices of diverse constituencies from all over the world from those in higher education, public libraries, newspapers, and the workplace.
@projectinfolit
About the algorithm study
Preferred citation format: Alison J. Head, Barbara Fister, and Margy MacMillan, Information literacy in the age of algorithms: Student experiences with news and information, and the need for change (15 January 2020),
Project Information Research Institute, https://www.projectinfolit.org/uploa...algoreport.pdf
Abstract: 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 decisionmaking 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.
The Algorithm Study Research Report has a Creative Commons (CC) license of “CC BY-NCSA 4.0.” This license allows others to share, copy, adapt, and build upon the survey data noncommercially, as long as the source — Project Information Literacy — is credited and users license their new creations under the identical terms.
Supplementary resources
There is a landing page with additional resources from the PIL algorithm study. All of these materials are open access and can be used without permission from PIL, www.projectinfolit. org/algo_study.html
Image attributions
Cover photo
https://unsplash.com/collections/8467201/people Photo by Jan Kolar (www.kolar.io) on Unsplash
What exactly is information literacy?
https://unsplash.com/photos/iYcuJQaVTvg by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash
When algorithms “get creepy”
US Department of Defense - https://www.jbsa.mil/ News/Photos/igphoto/2001937728/,
Public Domain, commons.wikimedia. org/w/index.php?curid=81108948
Acknowledgements
This study would have never been possible without the students, faculty, and librarians that participated in our research activities and generously gave of their time. We also owe a world of thanks to the incredibly dedicated and skilled PIL Research Team: Alaina Bull (The University of Washington Tacoma), Erica DeFrain (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), and Jessica Yurkofsky (metaLAB (at) Harvard). Throughout the “Algo Study” there were many PIL supporters-at-large lending encouragement, help, and suggestions as this project unfolded: Alex Hodges (Harvard Graduate School of Education and Gutman Library), Nate Hill (Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO), Kirsten Hostetler (Central Oregon Community College), Kei KawashimaGinsberg (Tufts University), Takis Metaxas (Wellesley College), Momin Malik (Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society), Karen Schneider and Rita Premo (Sonoma State University), Ronald Robertson (Northeastern University), Marcie Rothman, Mandy Shannon (Wright State University), Michele Van Hoeck (California State University Maritime Academy), and John Wihbey (Northeastern University). Also, we are grateful to (and amazed by) the 81 PIL research liaisons at U.S. colleges and universities, who signed up for consideration to fill one of the eight openings open in our institutional sample last spring. -Alison J. Head, Barbara Fister, and Margy MacMillan January 15, 2020