Final Report of the Education and Technology Committee

Trinity University – May 2006

Chair: Mello Members: Barry-Oliver, Easby, Gapen, Greer, Piland, Williams

The Education and Technology Committee began the academic year in the fall of 2005 with an organizational meeting attended by committee members and the Academic Vice-President, Dr. Sue Blanshan. At that meeting Dr. Blanshan encouraged committee members to investigate how technology education could be enhanced at Trinity University. The committee accepted the charge and began looking at how Trinity addresses technological issues in education. The charge was enhanced during the year as a result of the middle states self study report, to focus more specifically on information literacy. However, the committee’s direction remained focused on the original questions presented at the opening meeting and recorded in the minutes. Those questions as summarized by the committee chair are as quoted from the minutes:

1) Mello proposed the following questions to guide the committees work for the year:

a) What is information literacy?

b) What are best practices in achieving information literacy?

c) What is Trinity doing already regarding information literacy?

d) What should Trinity do in the future regarding information literacy?

Regarding sub-point A, the committee, with the aide of new head Librarian, Dr. Gaye Gapen, endorsed adopting the definition of information literacy offered by the American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries. The ACRL defines information literacy in the following manner:

Information Literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.

The beginning of the 21st century has been called the Information Age because of the explosion of information output and information sources. It has become increasingly clear that students cannot learn everything they need to know in their field of study in a few years of college. Information literacy equips them with the critical skills necessary to become independent lifelong learners.

Too often we assume that as students write research papers and read textbooks they are gaining sufficient IL skills. This is not so. IL skills may be introduced but what is needed is a parallel curriculum in IL forming a strong foundation of a college education.

As the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy (January 10, 1989, Washington, D.C.) says “Ultimately, information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them. They are people prepared for lifelong learning, because they can always find the information needed for any task or decision at hand.”

(www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/infolitoverview/introtoinfolit/introinfolit.htm, retrieved May 8, 2006)

The committee adopted this definition because it first offers a simple, direct, one line definition of information literacy while also providing a more nuanced definition that incorporates directly Trinity’s mission relating to life long learning.

Regarding sub-point B the committee adopted the Best Practices as outlined in the article of the same title. The article is attached to this report.

The next challenge involved considering how Trinity currently dealt with information literacy and how best to incorporate information literacy education into Trinity’s curriculum in the future. First, the committee discussed the importance of knowing what our students know in regards information literacy upon arriving at our doorstep. The committee considered several ideas regarding information literacy entrance assessment. Committee members discussed the various levels of abilities that our students have. Some students have little to no computer skills and need to be taught the basics before they can move on to significant information literacy skill building. Others are quite computer savvy but cannot tell the difference between information found on wikkipedia versus articles available from refereed publications. Faculty members from CAS, SPS and EDU discussed the different student populations of each and the need to develop entrance assessments to meet the needs of each population. Generally speaking the committee thought that basic computer skills, which are building blocks for information literacy should be taught in workshops for those students who need them. More advanced information literacy skills need to be addressed in a course and throughout the curriculum at various stages. Each CAP committee should address these issues in a manner appropriate for the student population they serve.

Both SPS and EDU are developing or have developed a specific information literacy course designed to meet the needs of their student population. The committee recommends that CAS develop such a course when they redevelop the general education curriculum and the first year experience. Faculty from all colleges and programs should share their innovations regarding information literacy with colleagues and an outlet for such sharing needs to be developed.

Moving forward, the committee put forth the following specific recommendations:

Recommendation 1 -- Develop an IL course in CAS as part of the first year experience similar to those offered in SPS and EDU, with the focus of the course clearly being on first year traditional aged students, with a particular focus on women’s use of technology.

Recommendation 2 -- Incorporate an IL requirement in all writing courses and the Public Speaking course. That requirement should develop a student's ability to use the databases available at Trinity to locate reliable, credible information to support a writing or speaking assignment. Specifically, students should demonstrate the ability to perform a simple search on a topic and obtain articles in full text or PDF format via email.

Recommendation 3 -- Incorporate an IL requirement in the second year seminar (assuming that the seminar still remains required in the CAS general education revision). That requirement, building on the information retrieval skills developed in the IL class and the writing classes should develop the student’s ability to analyze and synthesize information obtained. Advanced data base search techniques should be used. Although this recommendation does not speak to SPS, the committee recommends incorporating IL components in upper division courses in SPS. In part the goal of incorporating IL components in upper division courses is addressed with the following recommendation.

Recommendation 4 -- Incorporate an IL requirement in all senior/capstone courses that ties information literacy directly to research objectives in the particular discipline. That requirement should introduce students to disciplinary organizations and the information available via those organizations.

The recommendations are based on the Florida International University program available at: www.fiu.edu/~library/ili/iliprop.html. Clearly our recommendations are not as elaborately defined as FIU’s. Becoming that elaborate will require the participation of faculty members who teach specific courses that will have IL goals tied to them. However, as general recommendations, the above can nudge us forward on IL across the curriculum.

Over the summer and into next year’s committee work, the committee will seek to address the following specific issues in regarding IL:

1. Goals

2. Objectives

3. Learning outcomes

4. Syllabi integration (where information literacy will be integrated into a faculty member's course – with full participation of faculty involved)

5. Critical thinking integration (e.g., where and how IL can support critical thinking that is part of coursework)

6. The plan for how we're going to go about doing this since it's going to have to be phased

7. What can we learn by looking at how other Universities have gone about this?

8. The information literacy and content tool components that might differ across disciplines

9. Any distinctions that would be relevant to online classes and/or

Blackboard assisted classes that are held in classrooms

10. What we can do to measure success

Clearly this is not an exhaustive list, but it does provide an initial framework for Faculty consideration. Feedback from the faculty is encouraged and welcome. The development of an Information Literacy program across the curriculum will support the University’s mission of developing life long learners. The committee looks forward to working with the various constituencies as we proceed with developing specific goals and incorporating them into coursework.