2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

During the Fall 2025 semester, 18 students enrolled in a 3 credit First Year Experience (FYE) course for an Honors College titled “Exploring AI Literacy in the Research Process.” At Texas Tech university, this course was also cataloged as a Core Curriculum class for the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Additionally, the course was taught by a STEM Librarian who serves the Whitacre College of Engineering as liaison. This background in librarianship meant that the author aligned the course outcomes to the ACRL Framework, incorporating information literacy concepts related to the authority of certain contexts and constructs, the gathering and evaluating of information, scholarship as conversation, and the iterative nature of the research process. In conjunction with the learning objectives mapped onto the ACRL Framework, the course also utilized data feminism as a guide to develop discussion concepts on a set of intersectional data feminist concepts for conducting ethical, equitable and sustainable AI research. Data feminism allows for the discussion of such issues while centering a student’s own experiences and embodiment in the real world. This paper describes several aspects of importance to AI Literacy and data feminism, and the steps that the librarian took to build the course, as well as course activities and projects, learning outcomes, and anecdotal student evidence on the effectiveness of the course and its activities.