The Information Literacy Game
Students Want to Play
Project Team: Karen Markey, Chris Leeder, Fritz Swanson, Gregory R. Peters, Jr.,
Michele Wong, Victor Rosenberg, Soo Young Rieh, Andrew Calvetti, Beth St. Jean
Project Liaisons: Alyssa Martin, Catherine Johnson
OVERVIEW
• BiblioBouts is an online social game made up of a series of mini-games or “bouts,” each of which gives students practice with a specific subset of information literacy skills
within the overall research process
• Game play results in a bibliography of high-quality sources for their papers or projects
• Social gaming reinforces principles of good learning: results by trial and error, self-discovery, repetition and practice, and the satisfaction of getting it right
• Rewards (points and leveling up) stimulate motivation, as players compete to gain the most points and win the game
CLOSER BOUT
TAGGING & RATING BOUT
BEST BIBLIOGRAPHY BOUT
POST-GAME LIBRARY
GAME GOALS: Players choose their best
sources, confirm full texts are attached, and put
them into play.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Searching
scholarly databases, using Zotero to save and
manage sources, correcting citations,
assessing relevance
GAME GOALS: Players tag other players’
sources with keywords and rate their credibility
and relevance.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Assessing
relevance and credibility, tagging sources for
subject content, editorial process, and
publication type
GAME GOALS: Players build their final
bibliography using each source’s tags and ratings
as a guide.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Assessing relevance,
being exposed to more sources than one would
find on one's own, compiling an annotated
bibliography of sources linked to full texts
GAME GOALS: After game play ends, all
players can access everyone’s sources,
including tags and ratings.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Reassessing
one's chosen sources after outlining and
drafting one's paper, being exposed to more
sources than one would find on one's own
EVALUATION
BENEFITS IN A STUDENT’S OWN WORDS
To date, BiblioBouts has been tested in 25 classes at 4 universities, using a
multi-methodological evaluation:
 Pre- and post-game surveys (students)
 Focus group interviews (students)
 Online diary forms (students)
 Pre- and post-game personal interviews (instructors)and librarians)
“I think [the game] is good because you’re not realizing at the time
that you’re learning about research. Like, you might not want to think,
‘Oh, I want to go learn about library research today.’ You’re playing
the game and you’re learning about it without doing that.”
Based on results of the evaluation, changes and improvements are made to the
game. Examples are: more feedback, game-like features, and a post-game library
[email protected]
Supported by an IMLS
National Leadership Grant