Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery

The results of the Information Literacy Survey include no personal identifying information. However, results may be reported based on other demographic elements such as academic department.

• The complete survey results (raw data) are available.
• An executive summary has been prepared for the entire population, organized by the five ACRL Standards and other major areas of data collection. The summary includes key principles of the Standards which will then be mapped to indicators/results.
• Reports of the results (based on data from participating students enrolled in departmental courses) were made for the following academic departments:
  • English
  • Biology
• Participating teaching faculty will be able to request additional data about their individual classes upon request at the end of the semester.
• The sections written by the Task Force are:
  • Standard I - The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.
    
    • The survey includes questions about the types of sources that exist for doing research and asks students to select those sources with which they are familiar. For example, one question has a list of sources that include some commonly used materials, such as magazine and journal articles, and some less commonly used, such as conference proceedings, dissertations, and manuscripts.
  • Standard II - The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently.
    
    • Included in the survey are questions that investigate students' abilities to select appropriate resource tools, develop successful search strategies, and extract needed information from their results. For example, one survey question asks students to specify how frequently they use search strategies such as Boolean operators, truncation, and proximity operators.
  • Standard III - The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.
    
    • The survey includes questions about students' capabilities in evaluating materials and selecting those most appropriate for a specific purpose. For example, one question asks students to specify how they select the best articles from a list of results in an article database.
  • Standard IV - The information literate student uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
    
    • Included in the survey are questions that will gather data regarding students' abilities to synthesize gathered information to produce a final product, such as a research paper. For example, a series of questions in the survey asks students to specify whether or not they've had the opportunity to present their research using various methods such as PowerPoint, visual projects, personal Web pages, etc.
  • Standard V - The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.
    
    • Questions in the survey regarding this Standard examine students' views and understanding of issues of copyright, plagiarism, and fair use. For example, one question offers specific writing scenarios (such as re-wording someone else's information and using it without giving credit to the author) and asks students to indicate whether or not they consider it plagiarism.
  • Relationship with Faculty - A very important element of information literacy involves students' relationships with their instructors. The survey contains a number of questions that investigate student/faculty relationships - whether or not a student is comfortable asking his or her instructor for assistance, whether or not a student has participated in directed research with a faculty member, among others.
  • Attitudinal Responses - A number of questions on the survey gather information regarding students' attitudes about doing research. Students are asked to indicate their comfort levels with working with various types of resources, and seeking information from a variety of sources, such as the Library homepage.
  • Demographics - The survey gathered a great deal of demographic data regarding the participants. Participants are asked to specify: gender, age, race, academic status, ethnic heritage, country of citizenship, native language, and academic history.
• The Task Force will host two Brown Bag(s) during the month of November. They will take place Tuesday, November 18th from 12-1, and Monday, November 24th from 1-2, in the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, 3rd floor, Administration Suite, conference room. The focus of these sessions will be:
  • Creating solutions to provide students with information literacy skills instruction;
  • The role of the faculty in participating and supporting this effort;
  • Obtaining meaningful feedback from students on information literacy efforts.