Project Information Literacy, Inc. (PIL) is a public benefit 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation registered in the State of California, whose Founder and Executive Director is Alison Head, Ph.D. Alison is also a senior researcher at the metaLAB at Harvard University.
PIL consists of a group of library and information science and new media researchers who conduct national and ongoing research about the information seeking behavior of college students and recent graduates in the digital age. All of the researchers on the PIL Team have undergone CITI training in research ethics and are certified to collect data for PIL studies on campuses where PIL has obtained IRB approval.
Research Studies: PIL is not paid any funds by institutions that participate in our research studies (see the Publications page for a list of OA research reports). Likewise, institutions in our study samples do not receive any compensation for participating in PIL studies. PIL does share data from surveys we have conducted on their campuses and a brief trends report highlighting key findings. PIL pays the cost of any incentives that may be awarded to survey respondents who enter one of our survey contests (e.g., $100 Amazon gift card to one contest winner per campus).
PIL accepts forms of funding to support our ongoing research efforts. To date, PIL’s research has been funded by federal grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, private foundations, i.e., John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, educational institutions, Harvard University, i.e., fellowship stipend and Thinking Leader events at the School of Education, and the University of South Carolina School of Information Science, and professional organizations, i.e., Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), the largest division of the American Library Association (ALA) and Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference. Gifts for supporting research have been provided by ProQuest, Cengage Learning, and Cable in the Classroom.
It is PIL’s policy that funds and compensation for PIL’s research efforts have not influenced, and will never influence, the content, topics, findings, and interpretations of data PIL makes in its research reports or Provocation Series essays. The views expressed in PIL’s research materials are purely those of PIL’s researchers, based on the rigorous research we conduct. As researchers at PIL, if we claim or appear to be experts on certain topics about information literacy, education, or students, we will only make such assertions based on our expertise, research findings, and rigorous data analysis.
We make an active effort and are deeply committed to verifying any trend, quote, statistic, or representation of data we present in PIL materials. We are committed to making all of PIL’s research materials (research reports, “Smart Talk” interviews, videos, and provocation essays) open access and freely available for use and re-use. Our research reports are available on the PIL Web site, ERIC, and SSRN. We have also published research in the open access peer-reviewed journals, including First Monday, College & Research Libraries, Library and Information Research and publications such as Berkman’s Internet Monitor, an annual report of research trends about the Internet.
Provocation Series Essays: Sponsorships are given by educational organizations in support of PIL producing essays for the PIL Provocation Series and developing virtual chats (See the Provocation Series page for a list of OA essays) . As with the case of PIL’s research, sponsorships for Provocation Series essay have not influenced, and will never influence, the content, or opinions of that authors have expressed their essays. The views, opinions, and recommendations expressed in Provocation Series essays are purely the author’s own. These sponsorships are not “marketing sponsorships” or “advertorial content” that is promoting or selling a product or organization in any shape of form. To date, these sponsorships have been provided by the University of Illinois Library for Barbara Fister’s “Lizards in the Library” essay (February 3, 2021) and by the University of Arizona iSchool for Kirsten Hostetler’s “The iSchool Equation” essay (June 9, 2021).
Alison Head, PIL’s Director, received support from the University of Washington’s iSchool as salary where she was employed as a research scientist from 2009-2016 and from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University as a stipend during 2011-2012 when she was a research fellow. Alison Head serves as a advisory board member on the Open Syllabus Project, based at Columbia University, and on WGBH Boston’s PBS KIDS project.
Between 2008 through July 2016, PIL worked in partnership with the University of Washington’s iSchool. The iSchool provided graduate student research assistance, and services for grant administration. Also, the school provided ongoing mentor support from Mike Eisenberg, former PIL Co-Director and current PIL board member and Emeritus Professor and Dean Emeritus in the iSchool.
If you have any questions about these disclosures, please feel free to Contact Us at projectinfolit@pilresearch.org.in
(Originally posted: February 5, 2013, updated: December 16, 2020; updated June 9, 2021)