WAAL 2008: Integrating and assessing information literacy

WAAL Information Literacy Award presentation

• Dave Dettman, Coordinator of IL and Outreach, UW-Green Bay
• UW System now looking at student learning assessment tools: iSkills, Project SAILS, ILT
• Assessing learning outcomes is more difficult for IL than subject areas
• How well is IL integrated into the curriculum at your campus?
• "Assessment Loop" - want to complete all steps (goals, measurement, etc.), and close the loop (set new goals) - funders want to see this
• Accreditation agencies starting to look at IL-related skills
• Faculty had been afraid of IL - confusing it with technology literacy - can student use x piece of software/hardware?
• We've been doing "one-shot" instruction sessions for a long time - faculty are used to this
• Needed to document students' poor understanding of IL concepts for faculty who think that students have these skills
• Need to approach library databases differently than the Wild West Web, not in same way that you'd ask one another a question
• Action plan: Make failure visible, in order to move on to more effective approaches
• Beyond one shot: librarian meets with students 2 times in computer labs where they can continue to research topics
• Standardized tests: can be powerful for communicating a need for more integration
• ETS iSkills ICTL test (Scale: 0-300) used at UWGB
• No library instruction = 156.5
• One-shot lecture = 164.4
• Lecture + ICT literacy exercises = 171.2
• National recommendation = at least 162
• What does this score mean? Don't know, but he started to get invited by admin to serve on many instruction committees
• UWGB revived freshman seminar concept, after ~15 years - beyond composition class
• 1st assignment: Watch movie, pick 5 themes, find scholarly article related to each
• Library e-guide - but faculty didn't promote, and complained about predominant website citations
• 1st year (2006) = Failure
• Would like to parse out data to an instructor level, but my data analyst isn't comfortable with that
• Self-assessment of learning: increased on most measures (exception: "how to use" information)
• People upstairs love this: "If the librarian's not doing much teaching right now, imagine the results if librarian was doing a bit more!"
• Unfortunately, some students get to see me multiple times in their classes, others don't see me at all
• Perception of what a librarian is the same, regardless of where they work - think the academic librarian is the same as their old kindergarten librarian
• Really opening doors to faculty, institutional admin
• Successfully advocated to expand freshman seminar in 2008-09 with IL to about 1/2 students
• Planning to integrate more with 8 instructors
• Want to convince 4 more instructors to require a similar assignment with one-shot, so not comparing apples to oranges
• Many librarians find that they aren't able to use the data they collect in the way that they think, because the wind up trying to compare very different experiences
• Now possible to make connections between IL scores (higher-level thinking) and post-grad hiring
• Students finally get something back from assessment - see real-time results = higher motivation
• We promoted campus interest in results, by some staff promising to shave their heads if score was higher than a certain level
• Need to build IL assessment into a course, with class time
• A different campus was offering $25 for students to take IL test - a student said "I'd rather give blood"
• Awarded an IL "Lesson Study" grant - seed money is powerful on campus
• Pre/post surveys, focus groups coordinated by Education students
• Now working on MLLO Project: Assessing mission level student learning objectives
• Faculty development - monetary rewards - make yourself visible there - with data, you'll become more welcome
• LibQual at UWGB in 2004, again in 2008 - can show gains
• UW System-wide assessment interest - we've been working in our own backyards for too long
• Dave: Better to organically roll into an existing class, than to have a stand-alone "library class" for credit
• Audience: Disagreement - our credit class is very popular among everyone

[Image: http://www.uwgb.edu/univcomm/news/insidearchive/04nov1.htm]