In the technological world of the Twenty-first Century, students must be information literate. They must have the skills to access, evaluate, and utilize information needed in their undergraduate experience and in their future endeavors. It is important for Geography majors to acquire these skills as part of their undergraduate education. At one institution of higher learning, information literacy learning is embedded in the Geography curriculum. An online instrument to assess information literacy skills is used to evaluate seniors. In this article, goals for information literacy, the creation of the information literacy assessment instrument and the results of assessment testing are discussed.
A successful one-week short course on Complex Systems Beyond the Metaphor: Your Mathematical Toolset was held in the UNSW School of Mathematics and Statistics on Feb 5-9, 2007. It introduced the mathematical foundations and tools needed for a solid understanding of complex systems, an area often known for purely metaphorical or 'hand-waving' explanations. Aiming at a mathematically literate audience (e.g. engineers, quantitative biologists, computer modellers), leading Australian experts presented intensive introductions to the essential topics of complex systems theory, including self-organization, nonlinear dynamical systems, cellular automata, networks and statistical learning.