Information Literacy Tutorial for the First Time in College Student

1. Information Literacy Tutorialfor the First Time in College Student St. Philip’s College LRC San Antonio, Texas Dr. Adele S. Dendy, Dean of Learning Resources Jill Zimmerman, Assistant Professor/ Automation Librarian

2. Quick Facts from theDept. of Planning, Research and Effectiveness • Student enrollment 10,187 (Fall, 2005) • Ethnicity • Black…………1,640 (16%) • White…………3,264 (32%) • Hispanic……..4,967 (49%) • Other …………….316 (3%)

3. SPECIAL POPULATIONS • Academically Disadvantaged3,767 (37%) • Financially Disadvantaged6,700 (66%) • Physically Disabled 366 (4%) • Students Registered as First Time in College 1,922 (20%)

4. College Strategic Plan2003-2008 • Goal 3Create Culture Of Student Success Through Excellence In Teaching and Learning • Student-Centered Learning.Theclassroom of the future will fosterlearning, not merely informationacquisition. Learners will decidewhat is important and worth pursuing.

5. Literature Search • First Time in College (FTIC) Students • No articles found on information seeking behavior of FTIC students – how do these students find and use information? • Information Literacy • Focus on higher education issues or look at larger issues? • Online Tutorials • Use Texas Information Literacy Tutorial (TILT) or create our own tutorial?

6. Tutorial Goals & Objectives Base Goals on the documents: • ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. (2000) • ACRL Objectives for Information Literacy Instruction: A model statement for academic librarians. (2001)

7. An information literate individual is able 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 as defined by ACRL: Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education

8. Challenges • Access to students – time on campus is highly structured • Connect library skills and information literacy to critical thinking skills in the minds of stakeholders (students, classroom faculty, college administrators, local business community) • Integrate library skills and information literacy to classroom instruction

9. Opportunities • Introduce the use of the tutorial into classroom instruction through relevancy to initiatives, such as • Quality Enhancement Plan : Critical Thinking • Achieving the Dream • Closing the Gaps – Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

10. Change Model revisited • Stakeholders identified as: students, faculty, administrators, classroom faculty, business community • Involve all but business community in planning process through formal and informal discussions • Change model involves changing information literacy as a “library thing” to literacy skills into classroom instruction

11. College Partners • Instructional Innovation Center • Department of Planning, Research and Effectiveness • First Time in College Program • Classroom Faculty

12. Planning • Goal will be to have participant know how to find, locate, use, and communicate information • Focus on larger issues to have participant progress to information literacy for success in college and beyond • Create our own tutorial, involving our community of users

13. Questionnaire Development • Sent questionnaire to Dept. of Planning, Research, and Effectiveness to ensure the questions would lead to the needed results • Revised questionnaire based on feedback • Tested questionnaire on LRC staff/librarians • Got average time of completion of questionnaire

14. 24 FTIC Students • Students are confident of their ability to find information • Students are confident in their ability to use a computer • Students access the Internet are a daily basis • Main obstacle to finding information is determining key words, broadening or narrowing a topic

15. Online Tutorials • CORE (Purdue University) • TILT (UT-Austin. Texas Information Literacy Tutorial) • OASIS (San Francisco State University) • PILOT Queensland University of Technology

16. Tutorial should: • Be modular so that segments can be used independently during classroom instruction sessions • Each module should take no more than 20-30 minutes per module to complete • Involve activity on the part of the student along with pre-exercises and post-exercises. • Be accompanied by a script so that classroom instructors and/or librarians can integrate into curriculum

17. Design Considerations • Interface should be intuitive and not assume a certain level of computer skills on the part of the user. • Accessibility should be built-in to the design • No frames • Few plug-ins • Motivation of the user should be taken into account

18. Modules Module I. What is information? Module 2. Getting there Module 3. Facts vs. folly Module 4. Putting information to use Module 5. Information economics & ethics

19. To Do List • Work with other LRC faculty/staff to add content for the tutorial • Work with staff in the Instructional Innovation Center to add technologies that will make the tutorial interactive while maintaining universal accessibility, such as Javascript and Camtasia Studio • Work with classroom faculty to get use of the tutorial in the classrooms