Scholarship, Practice, and Leadership
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Scholarship, Practice, and Leadership Information literacy is the cornerstone of the academic profession and the link between scholarship, practice, and visionary leadership translates into excellence (Badke, 2009). The main product of scholarship, practice and leadership model is the leadership that will be practiced based on the inferences drawn from the information acquired from various sources (Mackey & Jacobson, 2005). Information literacy integrates into academic learning and transforms the student’s knowledge into a lifelong practice. The scholarship component of the model involves a continuous lifelong learning from numerous literacy sources that include both internet searches and libraries ; the Practitioner component of the model involves the workplace practice and social benefits that an individual accrues for the society with an intent of making an enduring change in the community or organization; the Leadership component of the model depicts the ability of impacting positively in the personal life, relationships, academic and professional levels of life. The fuel for this flow of qualities in the SPL model is information literacy that accumulatively defines leadership. Scholarly leadership in academic institutions is demonstrated through the successive academic ranks depicting effectiveness and evidence of community contributions, teaching, professional activities and research.
Information Literacy and Scholarship Scholarship is deep rooted in the information literacy; one requires information literacy to be able to solidly establish their foundation of scholarship. Both information literacy and scholarship are intertwined and scholarship cannot do without information literacy (Badke, 2009). Scholarship could be described as the activities that accumulatively advance the teaching and practice aspect through iterative inquiry. The result of active scholarly research is the creation of knowledge materials that can be documented, peer-reviewed and/or replicated.
A leader with little or no information depends on others to make decisions, and they are viewed as decision software because he or she cannot actively participate in the decision-making process. Scholarly information can be found from both public and private libraries as well as the modern online academic databases. In addition to library sources, Badke (2009) highlights a fascinating and attractive source known as the Internet that has taken over as a major information source and almost all scholars prefer to using it rather than following through the bureaucratic procedures of procuring a book from a library not withstanding costs, time and efficiency. Regardless of the preferred source of information, self-management by students plays a vital role in sourcing academic materials. A strong scholarly base is founded on the premise of accurate information sources; this means that the definition of a sound leadership relies on scholarly sources that are accurate. Mackey & Jacobson, (2005) have recognized that, the universities and colleges are striving to upgrade their education systems to combat the challenges in increasing complex environment of learning.
Practice and Leadership SPL model develops an individual through learning and practice to ultimately produce a scholar leader that can draw inferences from viable and accurate information sources to make pivotal decisions (University of Phoenix, 2010). A practitioner without leadership skills is compared to a book with good information, but the reader cannot understand the gist of the message. For a practitioner to shine and showcase the value of their information, they must possess leadership skills to enable them to confidently influence the world around them. For an individual to make a lasting positive change, they should integrate scholarship by understanding core leadership principles. Information literacy becomes the key to a successful practice where the scholarly sources are easily obtainable and understood by practitioners (Mackey & Jacobson, 2005). It has to be understood that scholarship and practice are goals directly linked to educational goals of teaching and practice.
Access to information Literacy materials
If scholars lack adequate access to information literacy materials, global literacy will be on the downfall (ALA 1989). Access to information literacy materials is the first step towards best practice and leadership. Information access influences the scholarship aspect of the model; scholars today cannot complain about access to literacy information because of the readily available and credible sources from the Internet. University of Phoenix (2010), records that Google is the number one-information literacy source used in consolidating academic research work across learning institutions in the world. Intermediate, high school, and advanced study students turn to the Internet as an appropriate information source. The use of libraries has diminished, however collaboration between libraries and the teaching fraternity will ensure the Internet and libraries are used for quality information literacy. One and half decades ago, the scholars used to get the literacy information entirely from the libraries; with the advancement in technology and now the scholars having smart phones, laptops and tablets; the mode of sourcing information has increasingly shifted to internet sources (University of Phoenix, 2010).
The link between Information Literacy and SPL Model
Information literacy influences the scholarship, practice, and leadership model in a broad way. Literacy information is a very vital ingredient for the scholars seeking to advance their research, education or profession and thus, their knowledge base (ALA, 1989). An informed research background, backed up with substantial quality literacy information, enables leaders to make decisions based on essential data. The integration of learning information literacy aspects ensure practitioners and leaders receive credibility, and the ability to move forward.
Conclusion
Consider a voting decision, illiterate people vote based on what politicians are saying to them. On the contrary, an informed scholar, practitioner, and leader would make voting decisions based on economic, health, education, security, and other social issues they believe a candidate is championing for or shall institute. The access to media and internet sources greatly enables the students to retrieve information during their revision, making studying fun. For the interest of broad scholarly base, colleges and universities need to find a nexus between library use and internet information sourcing to further maximize the scholarship of students. Expanded literacy background provides opportunities for right decisions; thus, it can be concluded that the SPL model and the information literacy work interdependently (University of Phoenix, 2010).
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References
Badke, W. (2009). How we failed the next generation. Online, 33(4), 47-49. Retrieved from EBSCO host
Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2005). Information Literacy. College Teaching, 53(4), 140-144.
American Library Association. (1989). Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential.cfm
University of Phoenix. (2010). Scholar, practitioner, leader model. Retrieved from
http://www.phoenix.edu/colleges_divisions/doctoral/student_experience/splm.html