Librarians' Forum

I would like to thank everybody who attended last week’s discussion on information literacy instruction. I was gratified to learn that a branch campus of the University of Michigan recently included information literacy as part of their general education requirements. Whether they are defined or not, many parts of information literacy are already part of the general education requirements, especially so if the requirements include critical thinking. As we saw from the literature, information literacy is integral to critical thinking.

The Librarians’ Forum has provided this space to continue the discussion on the way forward for UM Libraries in as far as formulating a library-wide program of information literacy. Perhaps a good place to start would be continuing on two important issues that were raised in the discussion:

1)How do we assess information literacy, and

2)What role can UM Libraries play in helping to create a learning environment whereby critical thinking is valued?

1)How do we assess information literacy

At the Social Work Library I use UM-Lessons to create quizzes for our online tutorials. Quizzes can be taken as many times as needed until an 80% proficiency is achieved, making these quizzes a learning as well as an assessment tool. I ask in the last question on our Policy Researcher quiz, "Did the class web page at http://www.lib.umich.edu/socwork/rescue/pgtc.html assist you in your learning about policy and historical research as highlighted in this quiz?". The feedback we get provides a lot of information for improving this class assignment, required of students in all sections of SW 530. This fall faculty handed out certificates I made to reinforce the policy researcher competencies to 223 students who passed the quiz.

The buy-in from the faculty who did not want to use class time for library instruction became 100% once I went to the online tutorial, quiz, and certificate program. When students come to the desk with questions, they are quite sophisticated and well into their research projects, because of this tutorial. The quiz, which is a for-credit assignment, helps the students take the tutorial seriously, and they can use it as guide throughout the semester.

Assessment

Sally Lawler’s tutorial for Policy Researcher (SW 530) is a great example of a tool that generates valuable statistics. Similar on-line tools can also generate data on how long students spent on the tutorial and how many times each candidate attempted the test. Moreover, such modules can be developed for various academic levels.

Does anyone have program-wide assessment examples they can share? Say, for example, the School of Social Work decided that students should understand the importance of proper citation of sources at the senior level. How would they go about making sure that every student receives instruction on it and assess the outcome?