Planning an Information Skills program

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Planning an Information Skills program _at_ North
Carolina Wesleyan College
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• North Carolina Wesleyan College is currently
• undergoing a centennial SACS accreditation review
• Last reviewed in 1998
• New component to accrediting process Quality
  Enhancement Plan (QEP)

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• QEPs generally use Student Learning
• Outcomes (SLOs) to enhance student
• learning

• Edgecombe Community College, Tarboro, NC
• "Reading Excellence"
• Lon Morris College, Jacksonville, TX
• "Improving Oral Communication"
• Cape Fear Community College, Wilmington, NC
• "Critical Thinking
• Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Wesson, MS
• Ensuring Math Success
• Clayton College and State University, Atlanta, GA
• Student Performance through Faculty/Staff
  Development

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QEPs may have different themes and agendas, but
they are really about how well people can work
together.
Nancy Floyd Associate Professor of Computer
Information Systems Jeff Kuglitsch Assistant
Professor of Geology Kathy Winslow, Director of
the Library Associate Professor Cameron
Matthews,Assistant Professor of Political
Science Stephen M. Bahnaman, Reference
Electronic Services Librarian John Dismukes,
Admissions Counselor Triangle Campus
Jon L. Wiggs, Director of Institutional Research
Vivienne M. Anderson, Professor of English
Fred W. SanbornAssistant Professor of
Psychology John TempleAssociate Professor of
Biology Erica Kosal, Division ChairAssociate
Professor of Biology Ed ShearinDirector, NCWC
Triangle Campus
Others.
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• NC Wesleyan Colleges QEP focuses on
• Information Literacy

Information Skills refer to the set of skills
needed to find, retrieve, critically evaluate,
and ethically use information.
-Association of College and Research Libraries
(ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards
for Higher Education
Our Student Government Association helped to
name NC Wesleyans QEP GIST Getting Information
Skills Today
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• Impetus behind NC Wesleyans QEP
• Echo from the 1990s College-wide
• information literacy competencies!

2004-2007 3 Librarians collaborated with
individual instructors to create a program of
library assignments that were meant build
information literacy into courses.
The program started in the General Education
curriculum. Librarians intended to develop into
an across the curriculum program eventually
extending to the upper divisions.
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• The librarians observed at least three drawbacks
• with the program model
• Maintenance Instructors often forgot to update
  or ASSIGN the projects the following semester
  and/or year.
• High-maintenance also made it exceedingly
  difficult to extend the program college-wide to
  the upper divisions
• Difficulty in extending the program to upper
  divisions also implied equal if not more
  difficulty in extending the program to Adult
  Degree courses, many of which are taught by
  adjuncts.

The QEP committee considered the librarians
experience at the outset of our process
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Information Literacy

• A national educational agenda since the early
  1990s. Recognized by accrediting bodies
  nationwide.
• Public Education In 2005, North Carolina became
  the first state to form a Center for 21st Century
  Skills.
• Foundational goal for the Centers K-12
  education framework is to help both students and
  staff to become information literate

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• Assessment in Higher Education
• Interest in assessing student learning at
  institutions of
• higher educationand the need to learn how to do
  it
• skyrocketed in the last two decades of the 20th
  Century and
• continues to grow in the 21st century.
• All regional accrediting organizations and a
  growing number
• of specialized accrediting organizations have
  increasingly
• rigorous requirements that institutions and
  programs assess
• how well they are achieving their goals for
  student learning.
• Linda Suskie, Assessing Student Learning a
  common sense guide. MA Anker. 2004.

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Information Literacy, continued

• Assessment and Information Literacy in Higher
  Education
• We are gaining a much clearer picture of the
  activities associated with student learning
  through the National Survey of Student Engagement
  (NSSE) at the same time we are realizing the
  richness of the expanding array of abilities
  known as information literacy Our earlier
  (and limited) conception of information literacy
  as a set of skills or abilities is now evolving
  into a deepened re-conception of information
  literacy as a way of thinking, a dispositional
  habit, and a cultural practice. (Gibson 2004)

Student Engagement and Information Literacy.
Craig Gibson, ed. ACRL Chicago. 2004.
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IL goes beyond skill sets, abilities.
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Walvoord, Barbara E. Assessment Clear and Simple
A practical guide for institutions, departments,
and general education. CA Wiley Sons. 2004.

• Articulate your goals for student learning (When
  they complete our program, students will be able
  to)
• Gather evidence about how well students are
  meeting the goals.
• 3. Use the information for improvement.

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• (Walvoord) Step One Articulate your goals for
• student learning

• NC Wesleyan adapted competencies from the
  Information
• Literacy Standards for Higher Education outlined
  by the
• Association of College and Research Libraries
  (ACRL)
• Understand the nature and extent of the
  information needed
• Find and use search tools effectively
• Locate and obtain the information regardless of
  format
• Critically evaluate the information retrieved
  before applying it
• Use information ethically

Competencies supplemented by performance
indicators Further influenced by Blooms
Taxonomy Competencies were updated during 30
faculty interviews
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We have articulated our goals we know what we
want students to learn.How can we guarantee
that the learning experience happens for every
student?
(Walvoord)

• Step two Gather evidence? Not quite yet

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QEP program development

• Initial QEP development focused on
• effective delivery of Student Learning Outcomes.
• What do we want students to learn?
• We considered assessment after developing
• most of the program.

From Walvoords Assessment Clear and Simple

• Articulate your goals for student learning.

1.5? Develop the means to foster learning
(programming).
2. Gather evidence about how well students are
meeting the goals.
3. Use data to enhance program effectiveness.
Program
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Talk to your faculty. They want what is best for
students.

• Create dialogues to discover how folks feel about
  developing and evaluating academic programs
• Questionnaires
• Focus Group Discussions
• One-on-one Interviews

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Carter, M. (2003). A Process for establishing
outcomes-based assessment plans for writing and
speaking in the disciplines. Language and
Learning Across the Disciplines, 6.1, 4-29.
Sometimes there are faculty . . . who will
cloud the issue by raising abstruse issues of
research methodology. We assure them that for
this kind of assessment it may not be necessary
to meet rigorous research standards. Rather,
the point is to gather data that will enable them
to make judgments about their program and to use
those judgments to guide decisions for improving
it. (19)
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Carter, M. (2003). A Process for establishing
outcomes-based assessment plans for writing and
speaking in the disciplines. Language and
Learning Across the Disciplines, 6.1, 4-29.
According to Carter, Embedded assessment (and
program assessment)

• Is not assessing students, though it is likely
  to incorporate some materials produced by
  students.
• It is also not assessing professors even though
  the assessment is professor-driven.
• Embedded assessment is assessment that takes a
  programmatic perspective its central question
  is, to what extent is the full program enabling
  students to attain the outcomes designed by the
  program faculty? (p.7)

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Graduation
Advanced Information Skills (majors)
Basic Information Skills (General Education)
Freshmen
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Graduation
Business ACCT 482, BUS 481, CIS 410 Math and
Science BIO/CHM 321, BIO 402, BIO 412, CHM 412,
JUS/POL/SOC 308, EXS 450 Social Sciences PSY
410, SOC 410, JUS 410, HIS 427, POL 308, EDU 310,
SPE, 326, 327 Humanities ENG 427, ENT, 492, REL
309
Advanced Information Skills (majors)
To pare down the 60 course program, we
selected a final list of courses based on
several criteria

• One course devoted to advanced info skills in
  every major
• Senior Capstone course
• Writing Intensive course
• Research or information-oriented course

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Graduation
Business ACCT 482, BUS 481, CIS 410 Math and
Science BIO/CHM 321, BIO 402, BIO 412, CHM 412,
JUS/POL/SOC 308, EXS 450 Social Sciences PSY
410, SOC 410, JUS 410, HIS 427, POL 308, EDU 310,
SPE, 326, 327 Humanities ENG 427, ENT, 492, REL
309
Advanced Information Skills (majors)
Basic Information Skills (General Education)
Library Assignment Program
Freshmen
GIST builds on basic information literacy skills
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Teaching and learning implications
Lower-level tasks
Library

• Understand the nature and extent of the
  information needed
• Find and use search tools effectively
• Locate and obtain the information regardless of
  format

Higher-level cognitive skills - more complex and
abstract
Faculty-driven

• Critically evaluate the information retrieved
  before applying it
• Use information ethically

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Step two (Walvoord)
Gather evidence about how well students are
meeting the goals.
SACS Has the institution developed means for
assessing the success of its QEP? Assessment/ev
aluation must be done for accrediting review
purposes. But it should be done to find out if
students are truly pickin up what we are
puttin down. NCWC student
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SACS requires multiple measurements of all QEPS
Standardized tool RRSA
(Research Readiness Self Assessment)
College
Embedded Assessment
Classroom
QEP Committee
Aggregate, summarize, report data
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Standardized Tool RRSA
College

• Selection of Standardized tool criteria
• Face Validity
• Scientific Validity
• Testing-taking format
• Sustainability
• Also reviewed SAILS (Kent State U), ETS ISkills,
  Research Readiness Self
• Assessment
• RRSA is not only an instrument for gathering
  assessment data, it is also an educational tool.
  Students take the test, see their scores, and
  receive feedback for self study. No other
  standardized information literacy instrument does
  this.

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Classroom
Professional Development Workshops Faculty
create Course Packets containing
research-oriented activities and projects that
represent a synthesis between course objectives
and Information Competencies
Authentic student work
Professor scores with rubric
Scores sent to QEP committee
report
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Embedded Assessment
Classroom
Information literacy rubric data sources

• Student Journals
• Reaction papers
• Literature Reviews
• Oral Presentations
• Student reflections
• on projects

• Homework assignments
• Essay tests
• Research reports/papers
• Capstone projects
• Project proposals

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A Course Packet is an orderly collection of
materials assembled by an authority in the
department for use by all future teachers of the
course (including ADP instructors). It is a
versatile tool that is strict enough to institute
program objectives, but versatile enough to allow
the instructor freedoms in teaching style and
supporting source materials.
Some benefits of developing Course Packets
Creates a benchmark for instruction delivery that
is developed by senior department faculty who are
particularly devoted to the content.
For institutions without course-instructor
rotation schedules, the Course Packet provides
exceptional guidance for future instructors.
Extendable to adjuncts Department? Division?
Administration assurance
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QEP Committee
Aggregate, summarize, report data
Aggregates measures from RRSA - (300) freshmen
in COL 101 senior exit test GIST embedded
assessment rubric scores CSEQ, College Self
Evaluation Questionnaire experiential responses

• Course Packet repository for all departments
• Sets the stage for a new era of embedded
  assessment at NC Wesleyan College (goodbye
  institutional assessment day)
• The group also wants to act as a coordinator of
  professional development and student research
  initiatives

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We can only go so far with QEP development
pre-approval, but some tangible successes are
already happening!
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Sources
www.ncwc.edu ? Click Quality Enhancement Plan
Carter, M. (2003). A Process for establishing
outcomes-based assessment plans for writing and
speaking in the disciplines. Language and
Learning Across the Disciplines, 6.1, 4-29.
Handbook of organizational change and innovation,
Poole Van de Ven, eds., 2004.
Suskie, L. (2004). Assessing Student Learning a
common sense guide. MA Anker.
Walvoord, Barbara E. Assessment Clear and Simple
A practical guide for institutions, departments,
and general education. CA Wiley Sons. 2004.