Information literacy skills assessment and assignments

Currently assessment plans at the Touro Libraries include a post test administered after every library session for both undergraduate and graduate students. The post test administered by librarians is one means of assessing information literacy skills. The library reported to the Assessment Committee of Touro College on March 10, 2011. Check the link for viewing the library assessment presentation. 

Faculty can assess their students information literacy skills in a variety of other formats, such as minute papers, portfolios, self-assessments and rubrics. According to the Information Literacy Instruction Handbook (2008), a rubric is a matrix in which the criteria is in descriptive format and usually demonstrates levels of accomplishments.

A rubric can be created for assessing one skill at a time, such as an annotated bibliography assignment, or for assesing information literacy skills in general. A Research Guidance Rubric for Assignment Design can also be helpful.

Selected assignments

There are many library related assignments that can be incorporated into classes to sharpen students' information literacy (IL) skills. Below are a few examples that can be used for almost every subject.

• Compare the findings of a search on the Internet and that of a library database. Discuss the quality and quantity of results from each source.
• Compare 3 websites in conjunction with topics related to the class and cover the main evaluation criteria: authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, and purpose. For more on Evaluating Web resources click here.
• Find a primary source on an issue or historical topic, then contrast it with a secondary source on the same issue or topic. Discuss how the treatment is different in each source. For more information on Primary and Secondary Sources click here.
• Select a topic related to your subject area and find a popular article concerning this topic. Then find a scholarly article on the same subject. Compare and contrast the approaches between popular and scholarly sources; what are their different viewpoints; look for bias, style and intended audience. For more information on Popular and Scholarly sources click here. 
• Critique questionable sources of information, such as tabloid news articles or a biased  website. Discuss language, audience, structure and format during the analysis.
• Follow a research trend, i.e. select a present day issue or concern and then search the past literature at 5 or 10 year intervals. Discuss how theories or attitudes have endured or changed!
• Give students a few articles and ask them to decide which ones are useful for their paper and which are not and why?
• Contrast magazine articles or editorials from recent publications that reflect conservative and liberal viewpoints.
• Write an annotated bibliography on a research topic. For this project, a specific number and types of resources should be utilized and cited, such as websites, scholarly articles, books, etc. This assignment sharpens the students skills of literature searching and mastering a bibliographic style. For more information on annotated bibliography click here.
• Check on the accuracy of an article in Wikipedia on a chosen topic. Does the information match with two other reliable sources? Can we locate the citations from the references list? Find an article in an encyclopedia and compare it with the article from Wikipedia! 
• Ask students to a create a coursepack. For every material included, they have to write an explanation. A written introduction to the coursepack reveals their knowledge of the subject matter for which the coursepack is intended.
• Find a fact or statistic in a magazine article. Have students research it. Where did it originally come from and is it used correctly?
• Locate the best and the worst website on a topic. Students need to use the website evaluation criteria to recommend improvements for the worst site.