Collaboration in Campus-Wide Assessment : Defining Undergraduate Information Literacy Competencies for Oregon State University
Location
Peavy/Richardson Halls
Event Website
http://uenr.forestry.oregonstate.edu/
Start Date
3-15-2008 9:00 AM
End Date
3-15-2008 9:30 AM
Description
Colleges and universities across the country are feeling pressure from accrediting agencies and others to measure just what it is their students learn. Librarians at Oregon State University saw this as an opportunity to bring information literacy into a campus-wide conversation about what all OSU graduates should know. Working directly with faculty and other campus partners, OSU librarians defined undergraduate information literacy competencies that reflect the links between research, life-long learning, discovery and critical thinking. Ideally, the college experience affects students in a variety of complicated ways. Finding ways to make the complex and often abstract learning college students do measurable is a real challenge, even within clearly defined disciplines. Finding ways to measure student mastery of general skills and concepts (like “communication skills” or “information literacy”) is even more challenging, because the learning experiences that lead to this mastery happen throughout the institution. OSU Librarians realized early that to successfully build a structure to support the assessment of Information Literacy skills at OSU, a collaborative process was needed. As a starting point, librarians adapted the Association for College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education to fit OSU’s needs. This initial draft was intended only as a starting-off point for discussions with a variety of campus partners. In focus groups, faculty described what they want for their students, confirming some of our assumptions and inspiring new thinking about others. In meetings with additional campus stakeholders representing a wide range of academic and administrative programs, we were deluged with suggestions for incorporating the competencies across the curriculum. The final product includes both general and disciplinary competencies and outcomes. Just as important, the partnerships that were built during this collaborative process have continued.
Collaboration in Campus-Wide Assessment : Defining Undergraduate Information Literacy Competencies for Oregon State University
Peavy/Richardson Halls
Colleges and universities across the country are feeling pressure from accrediting agencies and others to measure just what it is their students learn. Librarians at Oregon State University saw this as an opportunity to bring information literacy into a campus-wide conversation about what all OSU graduates should know. Working directly with faculty and other campus partners, OSU librarians defined undergraduate information literacy competencies that reflect the links between research, life-long learning, discovery and critical thinking. Ideally, the college experience affects students in a variety of complicated ways. Finding ways to make the complex and often abstract learning college students do measurable is a real challenge, even within clearly defined disciplines. Finding ways to measure student mastery of general skills and concepts (like “communication skills” or “information literacy”) is even more challenging, because the learning experiences that lead to this mastery happen throughout the institution. OSU Librarians realized early that to successfully build a structure to support the assessment of Information Literacy skills at OSU, a collaborative process was needed. As a starting point, librarians adapted the Association for College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education to fit OSU’s needs. This initial draft was intended only as a starting-off point for discussions with a variety of campus partners. In focus groups, faculty described what they want for their students, confirming some of our assumptions and inspiring new thinking about others. In meetings with additional campus stakeholders representing a wide range of academic and administrative programs, we were deluged with suggestions for incorporating the competencies across the curriculum. The final product includes both general and disciplinary competencies and outcomes. Just as important, the partnerships that were built during this collaborative process have continued.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cuenr/7thBiennial/Sessions/33
Comments
Session #8: Making Learning Count: Outcomes and Assessment. Presentation for 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources, March 13-15, 2008, Corvallis, Oregon. Featured in the ScholarsArchive@OSU in Oregon State University. Suggested Citation: Deitering, Anne-Marie. 2008. Collaboration in campus-wide assessment : defining undergraduate information literacy competencies for Oregon State University. UENR 7th Biennial Conference, ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University. http://hdl.handle.net/1957/8114