Information Literacy Modular Activities through

Blackboard

Carol FranckSUNY Potsdam

CIT 2002

Why this, why now?

• Information Literacy, in vogue

• Accountability and assessment

• Everyone’s an “expert” (or so they believe)

Driving Forces

• SUNY Potsdam General Education

• SUNY Administration– GER (General Education Requirements)– GEAR (General Education Assessment

Review)

• Middle States

• Employer Expectations of Graduates

Information Literacy

• ACRL (Association of College & Research Libraries) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

– http://www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html

Information Literacy

Formulating questions Knowing what type of resources to look for Knowing how to look for those resources Evaluating search results Interpreting the information found

The Past: One-shot library “bibliographic instruction” sessions

The Future: A coordinated, programmatic, and developmental approach to Information Literacy.

The Project

Goal:

To provide instruction in basic Information Literacy skills/concepts that is flexible, assessable, and reduces duplication on the part of the student.

The Project

Objectives:

• To determine what constitutes the core set of “basic” skills and concepts

• To create an electronic tutorial for each item in the core set

• To incorporate interactive assessment measures within each tutorial

• To be able to track which students have successfully completed each tutorial

The Project

The Reality

• Existing online tutorials

• Significant body of literature on BI

• Blackboard

Blackboard 5

PROS

• Familiar to students

• Familiar to faculty

• Assessment features built in

• Grades/tracking recorded automatically

Blackboard 5

CONS

• Not designed for content, but for access

• Limited flexibility in what you can do

• Limited flexibility across courses

Contact Information

• This presentation may be found at http://www2.potsdam.edu/franckcr/cit.htm

• e-mail: franckcr@potsdam.edu