Spring 2005

Volume 45, Number 4

The Big6^TM

by Ron Arner

I recently attended an all-day inservice as part of my job with Denver Public Schools. The inservice was all about the latest and greatest in information literacy, otherwise known as the Big6. I'd heard of the Big6 before, but seeing it presented by one of its original creators shed a new light on a subject I'd previously dismissed as interesting but unimportant to me as a technical communicator.

What is the Big6? If you don't already know, here's a clue:

• Task Definition
• Information Seeking Strategies
• Location and Access
• Use of Information
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

The Big6 was created by Michael Eisenberg and Robert Berkowitz in 1987, then two prefessors at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. In a nutshell, the Big6 is Eisenberg and Berkowitz's solution to the problem of information overload. Instead of overload, what will result from using the Big6 (and one of the hottest buzzwords in educational technology today) is information literacy.

What does information literacy have to do with technical communication? The two are intimately related. One possible way to explain what technical communicators do is that they facilitate information literacy. Whether in print or online, technical communicators make it easier for their audience to separate good information from bad. The Big6 helps shed light on what one's audience will be looking for, and how they will go about looking for it. What's more, it's a lot cheaper than usability testing!

With this in mind, here are the six skills of the Big6 in more detail:

1. Task Definition
   • Define the informaiton problem
   • Identify information needed to complete the task
2. Information Seeking Strategies
   • Determine the range of possible sources (brainstorm)
   • Evaluate the different possible sources to determine priorities
3. Location and Access
   • Locate sources
   • Find informatoin within sources
4. Use of Information
   • Engage the information in a source
   • Extract relevant information from a source
5. Synthesis
   • Organize information from multiple sources
   • Present the information
6. Evaluation
   • Judge the product
   • Judge the information problem-solving program

Sources Cited

1. The Definitive Big6^TM Workshop Handbook
Michael B. Eisenberg and Robert E. Berkowitz. 1999. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, Inc. [ISBN: 1-58683-153-6. 228 pages.] http://www.big6.org
2. ibid