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INFORMATION LITERACY AND
DESIGNING NATIONAL GUIDELINES
Margarete Bower
Chemistry Library
What is Information Literacy?
Middle States Commission on Higher Education
In Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education (2006)
A set of skills that “relate to a student’s competency in
acquiring and processing information in the search for
understanding . . .” (p.42) regardless of the methods by which
the information is sought.
Association of College and Research Libraries
In Introduction to Information Literacy on the ACRL Information Literacy web
site (updated March 20, 2007)
“Information literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve,
analyze, and use information.”
These skills include the ability 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
Information Literacy Competency Standards (ACRL, 2000)
Why now?
 Changing information environment
 Accrediting agencies
 Accountability to funding organizations
Middle States Commission on Higher
Education
 http://www.msche.org
 Accrediting unit of the Middle States Association of Colleges and
Schools (PA, NY, NJ, MD, DE, DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands)

Publications
 Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education (2006)
 http://www.msche.org/publications/CHX06060320124919.pdf
 Developing Research & Communication Skills: Guidelines for
Information Literacy in the Curriculum (link to executive summary of
handbook)
 http://www.msche.org/publications/devskill050208135642.pdf
Association of College & Research Libraries
(ACRL)
 A division of the American Libraries Association (ALA)
 ACRL web site http://www.ala.org/acrl
 Information Literacy web site
Under Issues and Advocacy
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/informationliteracy.
htm
 Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education
(2000)
 Under Standards and Guidelines

http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/standards.pdf
 http://www.ala.org/ilcomstan.html
 Standards Toolkit
 On the Information Literacy web site
 http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/infolitstandards/standar
dstoolkit.htm
Subject Specific Guidelines
 American Chemical Society
 ABET (accrediting agency for engineering programs)
 American Society for Engineering Education
 Special Libraries Association, Chemistry Division
 ACRL Science and Technology Section
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Committee on Professional Training (CPT)
Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: Guidelines and
Evaluation Procedures Draft version of revised document (Feb. 2, 2007)
http://acswebcontent.acs.org/education/cpt/acs_draftguidelines.pdf
Chemical Information Retrieval
A topical supplement to the ACS CPT Guidelines from Spring
2003
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC=e
ducation\cpt\ts_cheminfo.html
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/23yt2v
Lists information skills a student graduating with a bachelor’s
degree in chemistry should have.
Special Libraries Association (SLA)
Chemistry Division Ad Hoc Committee on Information
Literacy
 Chemistry Division web site
http://units.sla.org/division/dche/
 Information Competencies for Chemistry Undergraduates: The
Elements of Information Literacy
http://units.sla.org/division/dche/il/cheminfolit.pdf
ACRL Science and Technology Section (STS)
 STS web site
 Under About ACRL and Sections on the ACRL web site
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/aboutacrl/acrlsections/sciencetech/st
s.htm
 Information Literacy Standards for Science and
Engineering/Technology
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/infolitscitech.htm
Information Literacy as a Liberal Art: Enlightenment
Proposals for a New Curriculum
Shapiro, J. J., Hughes, S. K. in Educom Review, v. 31, no. 2, March/April
1996.
 The information literacy curriculum includes:
 Tool literacy - The ability to use print and electronic resources including
software.
 Resource literacy - The ability to understand the form, format, location
and access methods of information resources.
 Social-structural literacy - Knowledge of how information is
socially situated and produced. It includes understanding the
scholarly publishing process.
 Research literacy - The ability to understand and use information
technology tools to carry out research, including discipline-related
software.
 Publishing literacy - The ability to produce a text or multimedia
report of research results.
(As summarized on the ACRL Information Literacy for Faculty and
Administrators web page)
Assessment
 Classes and individuals
 Pre- and post-tests
 Self-assessment
 Assignments
 Online quizzes and exercises
 Portfolios
 Project SAILS
 Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills
https://www.projectsails.org/
Project SAILS
 Developed at Kent State University
 Knowledge test that focuses on information literacy skills
 Based on the ACRL Information Literacy Competency
Standards for Higher Education
 Multiple choice questions
 Web-based test
 Measures skills of groups of students
 Accounts for the relative difficulty of the questions
 Results are reported by major and class level
 Benchmarking data for comparison to other institutions
 Currently testing discipline specific modules for biology,
communication studies, education, and history
 University of Pittsburgh has used the test with groups of
communications and engineering students
Designing Information Literacy Classes
 Chemistry
 Organic chemistry laboratory class
 Engineering
 Information Skills for Engineers
Organic Chemistry Laboratory Class
 Second semester of the organic chemistry sequence
 Mostly second year students, not all chemistry majors
 One week each semester plus some summer classes
 Approximately 350-400 students and 40-50 classes per year
 Assignment has changed over the years to make use of new
information resources
 Chemical Abstracts in print
 Science Citation Index/ Web of Knowledge
 Beilstein
 Helps to fill the American Chemical Society requirement for
instruction in information retrieval and database searching
 Instruction and assignment must meet the needs of chemistry
majors and be appropriate for students who will not take more
chemistry courses
 Mix of broader information and literature concepts and more
detailed instruction in a specific chemistry database
 Cooperation between the Chemistry Library and department in
dividing the instruction responsibilities
 Librarian meets with the professor and teaching assistant to
determine the goals of the instruction session
 Different types of scientific literature and articles
 Parts of a scientific journal article
 Peer review
 Difference between the library catalog and an
indexing/abstracting database
 Awareness of Chemical Abstracts/SciFinder Scholar
 Instruction in use of Beilstein with hands-on experience
 Assignment to practice the skills used in class
 Students should come to the library
 Designing the assignment
 Use the most common search methods
 Structure drawing
 Exact search and substructure search
 Reaction search
 Should relate to topics covered in the laboratory course
 Choose a molecule and reaction they will study in another
laboratory class
 Read a Beilstein record correctly
 Interpret a citation to the literature correctly
 Use the library catalog and e-journal list to determine if the library
owns an article located by a Beilstein search
On class day:
 Teaching assistant talks about the scientific literature, types of
journal articles, and peer review in the pre-laboratory lecture
 Each laboratory section comes to the library for 45 minutes
during their laboratory period
 Librarian covers:
 Indexing databases and catalogs
 Importance of Chemical Abstracts/SciFinder Scholar
 Choosing an appropriate database
 Instruction in use of Beilstein
 Students receive assignment to be completed later
 Assessment
 Completed assignments are reviewed to identify areas of
difficulty
 Changes can be made to wording of the assignment questions
or areas of emphasis in the instruction sessions
 Assignment is used for several semesters and then reviewed for
a change in topic
Information Skills for Engineers (ISfE)
 Developed by Kate Thomes, ULS Engineering Librarian
 Cooperated with two faculty in the Chemical Engineering and
Bioengineering Departments of the School of Engineering
 Assistance from the offices of Instructional Development and
Measurement and E
 Based on national standards for information literacy
 ACRL – Association of College and Research Libraries
 Middle States criteria
 ABET
Goals
 Identify and teach a set of skills needed by professional
engineers for finding and using information
 Develop training materials and delivery mechanisms to teach
these skills
 Assess students’ progress as a result of the training
 Use the assessment to modify and improve future training
Training developed for two classes
 Foundations of Chemical Engineering
 Second year undergraduate students
 51-63 students
 Bioengineering Intramural Internship
 Third year undergraduate students
 20-32 students
 Working with faculty in research labs
 Librarian created a set of Objectives for Information Skills for
Engineers based on ACRL, ABET, and Middle States
 Upon graduation from the School of Engineering students will
be able to:
 Determine the nature and extent of information needed for a
project
 Access information effectively and efficiently
 Evaluate and understand the information
 Use information ethically
 Use research to create new knowledge (This higher level skill was
not addressed directly in this pilot program.)
 3-5 specific examples were added under each category
Fall 2005
 Instruction presented by librarians in the classroom
Fall 2006
 Instruction presented in a series of modules created using
BlackBoard software
 Seven modules focused on topics for engineering research
and information sources
 Librarian made a presentation in the Chem Eng class before
each of two lab report assignments
 Librarian made one presentation in the Bio Eng class to
introduce the modules
Modules for Information Skills for Engineers

Search Tools for Engineering Information

Suggested Library Research Process

Research Databases for Engineering Information

PittCat: The ULS Online Catalog

Types of Engineering Information

Critical Evaluation of Information

Ethical Use of Information
Assessment
 Initial Survey
 Pre-test before the first instruction session
 65 items based on the SAILS survey, but including items
specific to engineering
 Post-test
 Survey was repeated at the end of the course to assess
students’ progress in the selected information skills
 BlackBoard modules included self-tests for students
 Faculty or librarian had to provide feedback
 Assessment results did show improvement in student scores
 ChemE Pre-test Mean: 48.3
Post-test Mean: 52.51
 BioE
Pre-test Mean: 51.06
Post-test Mean: 54.28
 Number of students scoring >80% also increased
 ChemE: 22% to 65%
 BioE: 38% to 75%
 Questions were added to get feedback from students about the
BlaclBoard modules
Future developments
 Revise the module quizzes so they don’t need faculty effort to
grade them
 Revise the modules to be more interactive and challenging
 Present additional skills and information through modules
 Analyze the pre- and post-test results to reduce the number of
items in the test