All English I and English II classes are required to come to the library for an 80 minute Information Literacy session. This session is included in the Course Outline for both courses, and was approved by the Curriculum Committee, giving the information literacy program a bit of clout.
All transfer and all career programs require English I. All but 1 transfer and all but 4 career programs also require English II. Thus, we see the majority of students who will graduate twice during their time at RVCC.
We have our own Information Literacy Course Outline for IL I and IL II, just as any other class does. Both outlines encompass ACRL Standards 1, 2, 3, & 5. Standard 4 is related to the writing and presentation of assignment, which we don’t cover. The research assignment for Eng I is pretty standard so we cover basics of catalog, databases, website evaluation & plagiarism. Research assignments for Eng II are more varied, so we focus more on subject specific resources, how to identify the kinds of sources that can be used. Most classes have been given an assignment by the time they come in, but this is not required. They will eventually have a research assignment, so we teach to the typical assignment in that case. We try to keep the knowledge broad and demonstrate that the skills can be used in other research situations.
We have also establish Learning Outcomes modeled after ACRL’s Standards, Performance Indicator’s & Outcomes. There are 5 outcomes with 20 performance indicators. The performance indicators are specific tasks the student can complete to demonstrate mastery of the outcome. For example, our second outcome is “Select appropriate sources for a particular task.” The 1 st indicator states that the student can identify the types of sources needed – books, articles, websites, etc. The 2 nd indicator states that the student can select from a list of results the sources that are most appropriate for the research topic.
From Learning Outcomes, we developed an assessment quiz. It is homegrown, 8-questions, and multiple choice. This quiz is given at the end of English II sessions; ideally the culmination of their information literacy experience. 5 correct out of 8 is passing – in Spring 2009 we assessed 66% of English II’s and had an 85% pass rate.
Some benefits to what we’re doing: We touch a majority of students twice. Student comfort level with the library and librarians increases. The course outline and learning outcomes create consistency across 7 teaching librarians. We’ve established a good rapport with the English department – what we’re doing is becoming known and the value of our information literacy efforts seems to be recognized more each year.
Challenges: Increased enrollment = more English classes = more IL classes. How to disseminate the same information to online courses – we have an online tutorial but can’t tell easily how many classes are using it? We have a satellite campus, and it’s getting harder to teach classes there when the number of main campus classes keeps increasing. Students don’t always take English I with us, especially if they’ve transferred. If they skip that class, they don’t get the information. Also, some students will take Eng I then wait several semesters to take English II, and lose a lot of the knowledge in the meantime. Students are also more frequently taking gen-ed’s that include research components before they take English I, which puts them in a position of having to do research without the information literacy background our program provides.
![Megan Dempsey Reference/Instruction Librarian [email_address]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/informationliteracyraritanvalleycommunitycollege2003-111216095948-phpapp02/85/Information-literacy-raritan-valley-community-college-2003-1-320.jpg)
![Information Literacy Program ,[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)