DE Oracle @ UMUC

Information Literacy Skills Critical to Student Success: Developing Assessments to Promote Positive Student Outcomes

Debora McLaughlin

Assistant Director, Science

School of Undergraduate Studies

Published: January-February 2007

Category: » Online-pedagogy » Assessment-feedback-rubrics

How do we help our students to become information-literate, life-long learners?  A life-long learner is an individual who can recognize when information is needed and has the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.  One approach to achieving these skills is to ensure that assignments and projects for our students are designed with the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education in mind.  According to the standards, a student who has developed the essential information literacy skills is able to:

• Determine the nature and extent of the information needed
• Acquire needed information effectively and efficiently
• Evaluate information and its sources critically
• Incorporate selected information into one's knowledge base
• Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
• Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally

In Fall 2006, UMUC librarian Robert Miller and Rick Martin, UMUC-Asia Academic Director for Science, collaborated to bring a workshop on information literacy to stateside faculty.  Professor Martin originally conceived of the workshop for his faculty in Asia. Using Professor Martins' workshop as a model, Barb Mann, UMUC's Instruction and Information Literacy Librarian, developed an excellent, subject-specific workshop tailored to the stateside faculty needs. The workshop was moderated by Professor Martin and Mr. Miller and included 26 stateside faculty.

Early in the workshop, Professor Martin asked the participants to identify certain skills that are challenge for students. In completing this task, participants highlighted that a major problem they saw with students was critical thinking, but there were also concerns about limited capacities for information synthesis and integration, errors in logic flow, and trouble with recognition of appropriate resources.

For the remainder of the workshop, the participants were asked to create information literacy-rich science assignments. The participants were able obtain assistance with developing such assignments by contacting the librarians directly or by using the Tutorial for Developing and Evaluating Assignments.

A particularly gnawing agitation for the participants is the inability of students to recognize appropriate resources for research papers and projects. A tendency for students to place undue emphasis on "free-web" Internet resources was a principal concern. To rectify this shortcoming, the ILS has developed a criteria for resource evaluation that both faculty and students have at their disposal and are encouraged to use.

Using the evaluative questions, each participant completed an assignment related to evaluation of a web resource by answering the series of questions for a selected, course-related web site. It was acknowledged that web sites could successfully pass the criteria, but a degree of critical thinking was still necessary to determine how, and whether, to integrate the information. For example, it was noted that the content of federal web sites is subject to the political climate of the presidential administration. A second major concern was the failure of students to determine whether an information source is appropriate or adequate to meet the needs of the assignment. To surmount the tendency for students to incorporate content from inappropriate journals, magazines, news articles, and other print resources, ILS has developed an excellent tool for students to learn to access, identify, and assess (to some degree) scholarly and peer-reviewed resources.

Many workshop participants found this latter skill to be rather difficult to instill and proposed that UMUC faculty create a mechanism to facilitate student attainment of science-specific, resource-assessment skills. A mechanism along the lines of the Science Learning Center in Course Content was recommended. Dr. Warner, academic director of Science and Biology, however, advised that such an enterprise requires the engagement of course development personnel and suggested that we might work to develop this teaching tool first in the departmental 999 classrooms.

The information literacy criteria listed at the outset of this article are general skill sets that identify students who achieve the status of information-literate. To specifically address student acquisition of science and technology-related skills, a recent (June 2006) task force composed of the American Library Association (ALA) and Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and the Science and Technology committee (STS) built upon the general information literacy standards and drafted 25 performance indicators to be achieved by science students. Science-specific outcomes include assignments related to forming hypotheses, experimentation, use of data to formulate testable questions, creation of data tracking mechanisms, application of understanding of the structure of a scientific paper, utilization of computer and other technologies to study interactions of phenomena, and use of a variety of methods and emerging technologies to keep current in the field.

Ultimately, well-designed assignments should provide the foundation for developing information literate students and life-long learners. These students will be able to demonstrate proficiency in (1) effective and efficient use of information and library resources, (2) selection of the best resources to meet the need, (3) critical evaluation of synthesized selected resources, and (4) appropriate citation of sources. The outcome is an empowered student and contributing citizen who is capable of deciding whether to modify initial queries and/or seek additional sources. Equipped with these skills, the information literate student comes to understand that information literacy is an ongoing process and an important component of lifelong learning.