Presented at ALA Annual 2015, Mar. 27, 2015. Presentation discusses alternatives to standardized tests. Join us on a do-it-yourself quest to harvest meaningful assessment data from real student work. Learn how librarians are implementing a campus-wide information literacy assessment rubric for senior capstone projects. We’ll share how we aligned our homegrown rubric to institutional and national standards, used free cloud-based tools, and planted the seeds for "slow assessment" across campus.

1. Using Homegrown Rubrics and Capstone Projects for DIY
Information Literacy Assessment
The Slow Assessment Movement:
Darcy Gervasio
Kim Detterbeck
Rebecca Oling
Purchase College, SUNY
ACRL 2015
Portland OR
March 27, 2015

2. Assessment Options We Explored
Verdict:
❖ too costly
❖ time consuming
❖ difficult to administer
❖ not highly customizable

3. What is Authentic Assessment?
“[Students should] use the same competencies, or
combinations of knowledge, skills, and attitudes,
that they need to apply in the criterion situation in
professional life. . .”
Judith T. M. Gulikers, Theo J. Bastiaens, and Paul A. Kirschner,
“A Five-Dimensional Framework for Authentic Assessment”
Educational Technology Research & Development 52, no. 3 (2004): 69.

4. Purchase & the Senior Project
❖ Purchase College's capstone
research project
❖ Graduation requirement for all
seniors
❖ Culmination of liberal arts
education
❖ Takes many forms: original
research thesis, performance,
poetry, film, art show,
choreography, etc.
❖ Housed in print & digital
formats in library archive

5. What are your authentic products?
Brainstorm what
“authentic products” you
have (or could gain)
access to at your
institution.

6. The Slow Movement
❖ Began with Slow Food in 1989 in Italy
❖ Rejects the cult of speed, McDonaldization,
and time-sickness
❖ Applies to travel, work, parenting, design,
technology, reading, and education
“The secret is balance: instead of doing everything faster, do everything
at the right speed...Being Slow means never rushing, never striving to
save time just for the sake of it. It means remaining calm and unflustered
even when circumstances force us to speed up.”
Carl Honoré, In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement
is Challenging the Cult of Speed (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2004): 275.

7. Slow Assessment
❖ Reflect
❖ Choose
❖ Think locally

8. How can you be “Slow”?
What is one project
at your library (or
aspect of your job)
that might benefit
from a “Slow”
approach?

9. Building the Rubric
❖ Chose disciplines
❖ Mapped to ACRL
Standards
❖ Mapped to SUNY student learning
outcomes
❖ Will integrate threshold concepts
➢ see Amanda Hovious’ chart: http://goo.
gl/DBsZRj

10. http://tinyurl.com/SPILSARubric

11. Testing & Norming
❖ Random, redacted sample of 130 projects
❖ Two rounds of testing
❖ Calculated Intraclass Correlation (ICC) to
determine agreement among all three raters
❖ ICC was 0.725 = acceptable level for research
❖ Clarified criteria based on norming results
❖ Edited online scoring form to include benchmarks

12. Next Steps Short term:
❖ Finish norming to unify our
“mental model”
❖ Choose “anchor papers”
❖ Assess set of 100 senior projects
❖ Share results!
Long term:
❖ Compare results across disciplines
❖ Integrate rubric into LMS
❖ Score freshman research papers and
compare to senior theses for
longitudinal view

13. Questions?
darcy.gervasio@purchase.edu
@darcyiris
kimberly.detterbeck@purchase.edu
@kimdetterbeck
rebecca.oling@purchase.edu
@rebeccaoling

14. Photo Credits
❖ Slide 1: “Trio” by hartp, April 29, 2007 https://www.flickr.
com/photos/hartp/478318275/sizes/o/
❖ Slide 4: “Snail Fossil” by Mark Kaletka, October 30, 2012
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markkaletka/8139335656/sizes/o/
❖ Slide 5: “Snail Covered Box” by Wanderin’ Weeta, Dec. 6, 2010 https://www.flickr.
com/photos/wanderin_weeta/5314496110/sizes/l
❖ Slide 6: Slow Food Logo from Slow Food USA. Accessed 2015. http://www.
slowfoodusa.org/
❖ Slide 7: “Snail” by Eli Duke, July 20 2007 https://www.flickr.
com/photos/elisfanclub/860100094/sizes/z/
❖ Slide 8: “Snail Love ” by {Laughing Dog Photograpy}, May 25, 2008 https://www.
flickr.com/photos/pelesfury/2545079494/sizes/l
❖ Slide 9: “Snail [2]” by Eli Duke, July 20 2007 https://www.flickr.
com/photos/elisfanclub/859267617/sizes/l
❖ Slide 11: “The Innocent Snail” by Harry Thomas Photography, June 15, 2013 https:
//www.flickr.com/photos/waffles10/9051439595/sizes/l
❖ Slide 12: “Walking Snails” by Melisande*, May 27 2006 https://www.flickr.
com/photos/melisande-origami/154247306/sizes/l
❖ Slide 13: “Stretchy Snail” by menu4340, August 30, 2012
https://www.flickr.com/photos/specky4eyes/7894047240/sizes/l