Information Literacy for First-Year Seminars and Special Programs

At Trinity, the primary information literacy project has been a comprehensive outreach to all First Year students. In the fall of 2002, nine Trinity librarians worked closely with the First-Year faculty, the faculty of Guided Studies, and the Interdisciplinary Arts and Science programs, along with their mentors, to create library instruction that served the goals of each individual seminar. Students first had a physical tour of the Library and an instruction session on the CTW catalog taught by the mentor and the seminar librarian. Later in the semester, 90% of all First Year seminars and special programs participated in an instruction session on the academic electronic databases most appropriate to the subject of the class. Over a quarter of the classes took advantage of a third instruction session on Internet search techniques and website evaluation. In addition, a web evaluation tutorial was available through Blackboard or on the Library homepage. By the end of November, the seminar librarians had conducted 91 instruction sessions for the class of 2006.

In the second year of Trinity’s First-Year Information Literacy program, there was an increase in the number of information literacy sessions taught.  By the end of the fall 2003 semester, nine librarians had worked closely with the faculty of all 43 First Year seminars and special programs to create assignments practicing information literacy skills.  A total of 108 information literacy sessions were taught during that fall.  Students completed an anonymous assessment at the end of the semester with positive feedback concerning their instruction and use of library resources.

In spring 2005, the Library offered a college credit course, "Research Methodologies and Information Resources" to a group of selected students.  These students worked with the new spring First-Year focus seminars as peer Research Associates.  Although this course was not repeated in spring 2006, it was the basis for a new course that is now required for all First-Year mentors.  This course, "Academic Mentorship", was piloted in fall 2006 and taught collaboratively by the Library, the Writing Center, and the First-Year Program.

The First-Year library instruction has been evaluated and adjusted each year, but the embedding of information literacy in Trinity's First-Year seminars is now firmly established.  The majority of all First-Year seminars and special programs continue the tour and catalog instruction, database instruction and web evaluation sessions.  In the fall 2005 semester, there were 105 First-Year information literacy sessions taught by 10 librarians.  For the first time, the First-Year students took a pre-quiz of information literacy concepts via BlackBoard at the beginning of their first library session.  They took the same quiz at the end of their final information literacy instruction session.  The average score for students who took both quizzes showed an increase from 68.3% to 78.8% correct answers.

The Mellon Grant for Information Literacy has allowed the Library to position itself as a pedagogical peer and collaborator within the Trinity First-Year curriculum.

 

Discipline specific information literacy skills for majors

The next step in the development of Trinity's Information Literacy program was to explore the discipline-specific information literacy skills that students are expected to develop in their declared majors. Any effort to define and support information literacy skills for majors must involve collaboration with academic departments and programs. In the spring of 2003, the Library worked with faculty from the Chemistry Department to create a model for the definition and support of upper-level information literacy skills in the sciences. Over the course of the grant, the Library worked with other departments to create at least one model for upper-level information literacy skills in each of the discipline groups.

In spring 2004, Trinity's grant implementation team along with the Music and Performing Arts Librarian hosted a lunch for faculty in the Music and the Theater & Dance departments to discuss information literacy objectives for performing arts students.

The Library has also met several times with members of the Psychology department about mapping discipline specific information literacy skills into the sequence of required psychology courses.  The discussions were based on the document, Connections between the APA Undergraduate Psychology Learning Goals and Outcomes and the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

 

Courses designed to integrate information literacy skills

A third component in the implementation of the grant was the support for individual faculty to develop or re-design courses that integrate information literacy skills and their assessment into classroom teaching and assignments. A portion of the grant was designated as incentive for faculty to collaborate with librarians and academic computing specialists on course design. A call for proposals was sent out in spring of 2003, and course development grants were awarded and implemented.  In all, eight course development grants were awarded.  At the completion of the grant, these eight redesigned courses are still being taught with library collaboration.

Online Citation Tutorial

In December 2004, Trinity's grant implementation team began the content design for an online citation tutorial, CiteSource: How to Document Information.  Rather than focusing on the legal implications of plagiarism, the goal of the tutorial is to help students understand and practice the ethical use of information with correct documentation. Citation examples and contextual information are given for resources in a variety of formats, including text, images, sound, data, etc. in each of the most commonly used citation styles for the Humanities (MLA and Chicago), Social Sciences (APA), and Sciences (ACS).  Gravity Switch of Northampton, MA was contracted to design the tutorial software.  The tutorial is used both as a teaching tool and reference source and fills a need repeatedly articulated by Trinity faculty.

Library and IT Collaboration

The collaboration between Trinity's librarians and IT staff on the course specific information literacy projects has been one of the most rewarding experiences of the Mellon Grant for Information Literacy. To give all who participated on a  course development team a chance to report and reflect on their project work, the grant implementation team organized a one-day retreat in June 2005. In the course of the discussions, we confirmed our commitment to further collaboration and exchanged ideas about our evolving roles for faculty and students.

Contact Info:
For questions, interests or suggestions for the Mellon Grant Information Literacy projects, please contact Patricia.Clark@trincoll.edu, Doris.Kammradt@trincoll.edu or AnnMarie.Krupski@trincoll.edu