Concurrent Sessions

iSkills: Problem-Based Assessment for Information & Computer Literacy at Marshall University

Tue 3:05 – 3:50PM — Chestnut B
Monica Brooks, Marshall University

For a few years now, our colleagues at Marshall University have been working to refine an innovative general studies curriculum that emphasizes critical thinking across disciplines. Meeting new needs required our breaking some traditional library molds. To become active players within the information and technical literacy thinking domain, four librarians took a dramatic risk by re-tooling positions, re-thinking roles, and completely re-vamping user education. In the spring of 2008 we formed a new unit entitled, the Digital Learning Team, which is comprised of four professional librarians. The team facilitates campus-wide information literacy programming and collaborates with the teaching faculty to provide embedded librarian experiences in a variety of courses.

Addressing curricular change from a theoretical standpoint has merit; however, the librarians also felt we needed a method to assess student learning within the classroom environment. In conjunction with campus-wide assessment efforts, we selected the Educational Testing Service (ETS) iSkills core and advance examinations to provide benchmark and longitudinal data for student abilities with information and communication technical literacy (ICT) in the digital environment. In the fall of 2008 we combined efforts with the existing University College UNI101 program to obtain examinees at the freshmen level who had not been exposed to the embedded library program.


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