Information Literacy Modular Tutorials through Blackboard

1. Information Literacy Modular Tutorials through Blackboard Carol Franck SUNY Potsdam SUNYLA 2003

2. Initial Project Motivation • Frustration with the one-shot • Not enough time to cover material • Variability in student’s backgrounds • Repetition for student (and instructor) in most sessions • Challenges for assessment

3. Other Driving Forces • SUNY Potsdam General Education • SUNY Administration • GER (General Education Requirements) • GEAR (General Education Assessment Review) • Middle States • Employer Expectations of Graduates

4. Information Literacy • ACRL (Association of College & Research Libraries) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education • http://www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html

5. Information Literacy • Formulating questions • Knowing what type of resources to look for • Knowing how to look for those resources • Evaluating search results • Interpreting the information found

6. The Past: One-shot library “bibliographic instruction” sessions The Future: A coordinated, programmatic, and developmental approach to Information Literacy.

7. The Project Goal: To provide instruction in basic Information Literacy skills/concepts that is flexible, assessable, and reduces duplication on the part of the student.

8. The Project Objectives: • To determine what constitutes the core set of “basic” skills and concepts • To create an electronic tutorial for each item in the core set • To incorporate interactive assessment measures within each tutorial • To be able to track which students have successfully completed each tutorial

9. The Project The Reality • Existing online tutorials • Significant body of literature on BI • Blackboard

10. Blackboard 5 PROS • Familiar to students • Familiar to faculty • Assessment features built in • Grades/tracking recorded automatically

11. Blackboard 5 CONS • Not designed for content, but for access • Limited flexibility in what you can do • Limited flexibility across courses

12. What do the tutorials look like? Well…….

39. Implementation • General Education – Revision of First Year Experience • Committee work completed Spring 2003 • Approval process Fall 2003 • Implementation planning Spring 2004 • Implement new program Fall 2004

40. First Year General Education • Four required competencies: • Writing (FW) • Speaking (FS) • Mathematics (FM) • Critical Thinking (FC) • Information Literacy requirements explicitly required in FW, FS, and FC.

41. Required Info Lit Components • For each of the three designators (FW, FS, FC), IL learning outcomes are detailed and specific tutorials are required • A required assignment coordinated with the tutorials reinforces skills and concepts • At least one class session must be devoted to IL material, so three sessions in the first year

42. Beyond the Basics • Several departments on campus designing pilot approaches to developmental information literacy extending throughout a major. • Library director committed to supporting this across campus

43. Contact Information This presentation, including screen shots of an actual tutorial, may be downloaded at: www2.potsdam.edu/franckcr/SUNYLA2003 e-mail: franckcr@potsdam.edu