INFORMATION LITERACY AND DESIGNING NATIONAL GUIDELINES Margarete Bower Chemistry Library

What is Information Literacy? Middle States Commission on Higher Education In Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education (2006) A set of skills that “relate to a student’s competency in acquiring and processing information in the search for understanding...” (p.42) regardless of the methods by which the information is sought.

Association of College and Research Libraries In Introduction to Information Literacy on the ACRL Information Literacy web site (updated March 20, 2007) “Information literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.”

These skills include the ability to:  Determine the extent of information needed  Access the 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 Information Literacy Competency Standards (ACRL, 2000)

Why now?  Changing information environment  Accrediting agencies  Accountability to funding organizations

Middle States Commission on Higher Education   Accrediting unit of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (PA, NY, NJ, MD, DE, DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands)  Publications  Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education (2006)   Developing Research & Communication Skills: Guidelines for Information Literacy in the Curriculum (link to executive summary of handbook) 

Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL)  A division of the American Libraries Association (ALA)  ACRL web site  Information Literacy web site Under Issues and Advocacy htm

 Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2000)  Under Standards and Guidelines    Standards Toolkit  On the Information Literacy web site  dstoolkit.htm dstoolkit.htm

Subject Specific Guidelines  American Chemical Society  ABET (accrediting agency for engineering programs)  American Society for Engineering Education  Special Libraries Association, Chemistry Division  ACRL Science and Technology Section

American Chemical Society (ACS) Committee on Professional Training (CPT) Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures Draft version of revised document (Feb. 2, 2007)

Chemical Information Retrieval A topical supplement to the ACS CPT Guidelines from Spring ducation\cpt\ts_cheminfo.html ducation\cpt\ts_cheminfo.html or Lists information skills a student graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry should have.

Special Libraries Association (SLA) Chemistry Division Ad Hoc Committee on Information Literacy  Chemistry Division web site  Information Competencies for Chemistry Undergraduates: The Elements of Information Literacy

ACRL Science and Technology Section (STS)  STS web site  Under About ACRL and Sections on the ACRL web site s.htm s.htm  Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology

Information Literacy as a Liberal Art: Enlightenment Proposals for a New Curriculum Shapiro, J. J., Hughes, S. K. in Educom Review, v. 31, no. 2, March/April  The information literacy curriculum includes:  Tool literacy - The ability to use print and electronic resources including software.  Resource literacy - The ability to understand the form, format, location and access methods of information resources.

 Social-structural literacy - Knowledge of how information is socially situated and produced. It includes understanding the scholarly publishing process.  Research literacy - The ability to understand and use information technology tools to carry out research, including discipline-related software.  Publishing literacy - The ability to produce a text or multimedia report of research results. (As summarized on the ACRL Information Literacy for Faculty and Administrators web page)

Assessment  Classes and individuals  Pre- and post-tests  Self-assessment  Assignments  Online quizzes and exercises  Portfolios  Project SAILS  Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

Project SAILS  Developed at Kent State University  Knowledge test that focuses on information literacy skills  Based on the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education  Multiple choice questions  Web-based test

 Measures skills of groups of students  Accounts for the relative difficulty of the questions  Results are reported by major and class level  Benchmarking data for comparison to other institutions  Currently testing discipline specific modules for biology, communication studies, education, and history  University of Pittsburgh has used the test with groups of communications and engineering students

Designing Information Literacy Classes  Chemistry  Organic chemistry laboratory class  Engineering  Information Skills for Engineers

Organic Chemistry Laboratory Class  Second semester of the organic chemistry sequence  Mostly second year students, not all chemistry majors  One week each semester plus some summer classes  Approximately students and classes per year  Assignment has changed over the years to make use of new information resources  Chemical Abstracts in print  Science Citation Index/ Web of Knowledge  Beilstein

 Helps to fill the American Chemical Society requirement for instruction in information retrieval and database searching  Instruction and assignment must meet the needs of chemistry majors and be appropriate for students who will not take more chemistry courses  Mix of broader information and literature concepts and more detailed instruction in a specific chemistry database  Cooperation between the Chemistry Library and department in dividing the instruction responsibilities

 Librarian meets with the professor and teaching assistant to determine the goals of the instruction session  Different types of scientific literature and articles  Parts of a scientific journal article  Peer review  Difference between the library catalog and an indexing/abstracting database  Awareness of Chemical Abstracts/SciFinder Scholar  Instruction in use of Beilstein with hands-on experience  Assignment to practice the skills used in class  Students should come to the library

 Designing the assignment  Use the most common search methods  Structure drawing  Exact search and substructure search  Reaction search  Should relate to topics covered in the laboratory course  Choose a molecule and reaction they will study in another laboratory class  Read a Beilstein record correctly  Interpret a citation to the literature correctly  Use the library catalog and e-journal list to determine if the library owns an article located by a Beilstein search

On class day:  Teaching assistant talks about the scientific literature, types of journal articles, and peer review in the pre-laboratory lecture  Each laboratory section comes to the library for 45 minutes during their laboratory period  Librarian covers:  Indexing databases and catalogs  Importance of Chemical Abstracts/SciFinder Scholar  Choosing an appropriate database  Instruction in use of Beilstein  Students receive assignment to be completed later

 Assessment  Completed assignments are reviewed to identify areas of difficulty  Changes can be made to wording of the assignment questions or areas of emphasis in the instruction sessions  Assignment is used for several semesters and then reviewed for a change in topic

Information Skills for Engineers (ISfE)  Developed by Kate Thomes, ULS Engineering Librarian  Cooperated with two faculty in the Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering Departments of the School of Engineering  Assistance from the offices of Instructional Development and Measurement and E  Based on national standards for information literacy  ACRL – Association of College and Research Libraries  Middle States criteria  ABET

Goals  Identify and teach a set of skills needed by professional engineers for finding and using information  Develop training materials and delivery mechanisms to teach these skills  Assess students’ progress as a result of the training  Use the assessment to modify and improve future training

Training developed for two classes  Foundations of Chemical Engineering  Second year undergraduate students  students  Bioengineering Intramural Internship  Third year undergraduate students  students  Working with faculty in research labs

 Librarian created a set of Objectives for Information Skills for Engineers based on ACRL, ABET, and Middle States  Upon graduation from the School of Engineering students will be able to:  Determine the nature and extent of information needed for a project  Access information effectively and efficiently  Evaluate and understand the information  Use information ethically  Use research to create new knowledge ( This higher level skill was not addressed directly in this pilot program.)  3-5 specific examples were added under each category

Fall 2005  Instruction presented by librarians in the classroom Fall 2006  Instruction presented in a series of modules created using BlackBoard software  Seven modules focused on topics for engineering research and information sources  Librarian made a presentation in the Chem Eng class before each of two lab report assignments  Librarian made one presentation in the Bio Eng class to introduce the modules

Modules for Information Skills for Engineers  Search Tools for Engineering Information  Suggested Library Research Process  Research Databases for Engineering Information  PittCat: The ULS Online Catalog  Types of Engineering Information  Critical Evaluation of Information  Ethical Use of Information

Assessment  Initial Survey  Pre-test before the first instruction session  65 items based on the SAILS survey, but including items specific to engineering  Post-test  Survey was repeated at the end of the course to assess students’ progress in the selected information skills  BlackBoard modules included self-tests for students  Faculty or librarian had to provide feedback

 Assessment results did show improvement in student scores  ChemE Pre-test Mean: 48.3 Post-test Mean:  BioE Pre-test Mean: Post-test Mean:  Number of students scoring >80% also increased  ChemE: 22% to 65%  BioE: 38% to 75%  Questions were added to get feedback from students about the BlaclBoard modules

Future developments  Revise the module quizzes so they don’t need faculty effort to grade them  Revise the modules to be more interactive and challenging  Present additional skills and information through modules  Analyze the pre- and post-test results to reduce the number of items in the test