Document Type

Conference Presentation

Conference Title

10th International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference

Location

Glasgow, Scotland

Conference Dates

June 17-19, 2020

Date of Presentation

6-19-2020

Abstract

Aim
Advocating for the importance of information literacy within our institutions of higher education can be difficult when budget cuts, challenges with student enrollments and retention, and other competing priorities are at the forefront of our faculty, staff, and students’ minds. How do we get the attention of our stakeholders and how do we get their input? At the University of the Pacific, we adopted a participatory design approach, which actively seeks to involve all stakeholders, to inform them about the results of the SAILS Test and to gather feedback on their perceptions of information literacy.

Methods
Librarians at the University of the Pacific administered the SAILS Test to 368 senior students in 2017-2018. A representative from the library and the University Assessment Committee disseminated the results in meetings with stakeholders and held a forum to gather feedback on the SAILS Test results. The forum especially proved to be a valuable event. Approximately 40 faculty, staff, and students viewed select questions from the SAILS Test and discussed what aspects of information literacy is most important to them and their respective disciplines. The feedback gathered from all events is being used to develop new strategies and initiatives for the library’s information literacy program.

Results
From the SAILS Test we learned that our students scored a little higher than students at our peer institutions, transfer students score significantly lower than non-transfer students, and students who reported writing more papers scored higher. Through the participatory design activities, we learned that stakeholders are most concerned with students’ ability to evaluate sources and develop a search strategy.

Discussion/Conclusion
Using the feedback received at the meetings and forum, we will be focusing our information literacy curriculum on evaluating sources and developing search strategies in our teaching and online tutorials. In addition, we are exploring new ways of supporting transfer students, as well as developing a media literacy initiative, which will include lesson plans and activities that can be used for by faculty and/or librarians in the classroom.

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