OVERVIEW

1. The Information Literacy Game Students Want to Play Project Team: Karen Markey, Chris Leeder, Fritz Swanson, Gregory R. Peters, Jr., Michele Wong, Victor Rosenberg, Soo Young Rieh, Andrew Calvetti, Beth St. Jean Project Liaisons: Alyssa Martin, Catherine Johnson • OVERVIEW • BiblioBouts is an online social game made up of a series of mini-games or “bouts,” each of which gives students practice with a specific subset of information literacy skills within the overall research process • Game play results in a bibliography of high-quality sources for their papers or projects • Social gaming reinforces principles of good learning: results by trial and error, self-discovery, repetition and practice, and the satisfaction of getting it right • Rewards (points and leveling up) stimulate motivation, as players compete to gain the most points and win the game CLOSER BOUT TAGGING & RATING BOUT BEST BIBLIOGRAPHY BOUT POST-GAME LIBRARY GAME GOALS: Players choose their best sources, confirm full texts are attached, and put them into play. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Searching scholarly databases, using Zotero to save and manage sources, correcting citations, assessing relevance GAME GOALS: Players tag other players’ sources with keywords and rate their credibility and relevance. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Assessing relevance and credibility, tagging sources for subject content, editorial process, and publication type GAME GOALS: Players build their final bibliography using each source’s tags and ratings as a guide. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Assessing relevance, being exposed to more sources than one would find on one's own, compiling an annotated bibliography of sources linked to full texts GAME GOALS: After game play ends, all players can access everyone’s sources, including tags and ratings. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Reassessing one's chosen sources after outlining and drafting one's paper, being exposed to more sources than one would find on one's own • EVALUATION • To date, BiblioBouts has been tested in 25 classes at 4 universities, using a • multi-methodological evaluation: • Pre- and post-game surveys (students) • Focus group interviews (students) • Online diary forms (students) • Pre- and post-game personal interviews (instructors)and librarians) BENEFITS IN A STUDENT’S OWN WORDS “I think [the game] is good because you’re not realizing at the time that you’re learning about research. Like, you might not want to think, ‘Oh, I want to go learn about library research today.’ You’re playing the game and you’re learning about it without doing that.” Based on results of the evaluation, changes and improvements are made to the game. Examples are: more feedback, game-like features, and a post-game library info@bibliobouts.org Supported by an IMLS National Leadership Grant