Attendees will be able to create a definition of "information justice" and find their own examples of information injustice. Attendees will be able to use/model for students a technique for interrogating sources that goes beyond the traditional criteria. Attendees will be able to use/adapt OP assignments that result in positive changes to the information landscape.
In this presentation I will share actual examples, practices, and successes from my experience as a librarian and professor seeking to increase social justice within the information landscapes inside and outside of Academia. I will share how I used OER to supplement or replace dominant narratives in textbooks, as well as actual OP assignments used by Pierce College faculty as alternatives to “throwaway assignments.” The presentation will open with small-group discussions about what attendees imagine “information justice” means to them. After hearing from the groups, I will provide some surprising examples of information injustice prevalent in a college-level resources, including a textbook. I will then describe how in my role as professor I replaced a humanities textbook—problematic because of Western bias and lack of diversity--with an assortment of OER and library-based resources to create a more inclusive, authentic, and engaging curriculum. The audience will then participate in an activity I use to get students to critically evaluate information, which will require attendees to quickly research the credibility of a website. The activity is a chance for them to use the deep evaluation techniques I will model beforehand. These techniques show students how to interrogate sources and expose the hidden biases behind the dominant narratives that proliferate in many academic resources. Finally, I will describe several Open Pedagogy assignments that invite students to contribute positively to a more just information landscape.
