Difference between revisions of "Standard 5.E"

Revision as of 12:14, 21 March 2008

Library and information resources planning activities support teaching and learning functions by facilitating the research and scholarship of students and faculty. Related evaluation processes regularly assess the quality, accessibility, and use of libraries and other information resource repositories and their services to determine the level of effectiveness in support of the educational program.

Analysis & Assessment of Teaching & Instructional Programs

The strong focus on teaching throughout library and information resources suggests the following questions: 1) In a college without requirements, does information technology instruction reach enough students to assure that the vast majority of graduates develop their skills broadly in support of their inquiries? 2) Which students are taught? Do students receive their information technology instruction in an array of disciplinary and developmentally varied situations or is it happening only in pockets of the curriculum? 3) Is it working? Are students acquiring cross-curricular information technology and media literacy?

How many students are taught?

Within recent years about 75% of the total FTE attends program-based library instruction workshops annually. [Exhibit: workshop statistics]. In media services, from 2000 to 2007, a total of more than 1500 workshops were offered to approximately 156 programs. The number of media workshops given and students reached in 2005 and 2006 were each more than double the numbers provided in 2000. Workshops have increased along with new technologies, especially in Media Loan and in the new Multimedia and DIS labs.

Academic Computing instructors provide academic program-based training sessions and workshops throughout the academic year.

Up until 2007, Academic Computing offered 30 to 40 general computer skills workshops per year in the Computer Center, attended by approximately 350 students. Professional staff focused these workshops on general technical skill building, independent of academic programs. Fewer students were attending these workshops over time, presumably because more students consider themselves technically literate. In response to waning attendance, Academic Computing redesigned the workshops as student-centered support sessions to which students bring their questions or projects. This student-centered structure should more effectively meet the specific demands of students. Computing will evaluate the success of this reinvented structure.

Which Students?

[This section needs rewrite based on 2006/7 EPRs] The number of teaching contacts shows that library and information resources staff teach a large number of students, but not which students. In end-of-program reviews from 2001-2006, The Office of Institutional Research asked faculty, “Did your students use technology to present work, conduct research (including library research), or solve problems? If yes, How?” Not surprisingly, faculty answered that library/internet research skills were the most commonly used, followed by some form of presentation technology. EPR Technology Summary 2006

The supplemental material in Information Technology Literacy as reported in End of Program Reports provides more detail about of how planning units employed and taught information technologies. To summarize, information technology appears widely but not evenly across the curriculum. Library instruction is the most common form of information technology in the curriculum. Significantly different technologies predominate in different parts of the curriculum and no standard set of applications comes into play, not even in Core programs, where even library research appears less frequently than in many parts of the curriculum. Looking at library workshop statistics, the number of workshops provided to programs in planning units correlates loosely to the presence of library research reported in programs. CTL and SI faculty report the least use of library research in their programs and have the fewest number of programs served by library workshops. Thus, the end of program reviews, correlated with workshop records, may be used as tools for identifying possible opportunities for greater collaboration. This analysis should not presume that more information technology instruction is necessary; the faculty often have logical and legitimate reasons to place their emphases elsewhere. However, assessing whether more information technology instruction or support would be welcome in some areas of the curriculum seems advisable based on this data.

Information Technology Literacy

Media/IT Literacy across the Curriculum: Where are we now?

Since its inception in the context of Holly’s generic library, Media Services has followed its mission to support media literacy and instruction across the curriculum. Over the last ten years, media services have changed dramatically as the personal computer has become the platform for entry-level media production and consumption. One measure of this change has materialized in how media staff have served programs through formal workshops since Fall of 2000. The scheduling data shows that almost 90% of formal program-based workshops serve Expressive Arts faculty. While this scheduling data does not cover equipment proficiency workshops or one-on-one instruction, it’s nevertheless clear that formal instruction by media staff focuses heavily on Expressive Arts programs, with an emphasis on advanced production applications, the exclusive provenance of expressive arts faculty. Media Services provides this advanced instruction in specialized labs, which were enhanced and expanded during the remodel. One effect of this specialization is that entry-level students have migrated to Academic Computing where the staff is more likely to instruct them in basic media skills. In fact, during Fall and Winter of 2006/07, 68% of the faculty who requested workshops in Computer Center were from planning units other than Expressive arts, and many of these workshops included media instruction (Photoshop, Imovie, Flash, etc.).

The Computer Applications Lab also shows a trend toward more broadly used applications. Although the CAL has traditionally focused on the science curriculum in ES and SI, these users have begun to share their space with those who have less specialized demands. Roughly 60%-70% of the classes in the CAL now work with statistical or numeric analysis, primarily Excel, but also including Graphical Analysis, R, and SPSS. Ninety percent of CAL users prepare presentations, most often with Powerpoint, Word, Illustrator, and Excel. Approximately 60% of the programs meeting in the CAL still use analytical tools, including (in order of usage) ArcGIS, Mathematica, and Stella, which were once the focal point of all CAL applications. Science faculty have shifted their emphasis to on-site analysis, using advanced applications in specialized scientific labs in ways that parallel the shift in Media Services toward advanced applications. Meanwhile, the CAL and the Computer Center serve increasing numbers of students who seek instruction or support for the more and more powerful personal computing applications in media production, statistical analysis and presentation media.

Critical Approaches to Media

NB: Link to concepts of reflexive thinking

Although library and information resources instructors work to fuse teaching with program content, students are nevertheless free to access any media application or information technology beyond or without considering program content. Likewise, many programs focus entirely on technical skill building, without any formal attempt to link these practices to disciplinary content. And in other areas of the curriculum, such as CTL, critical media and information studies are often taught in a theoretical mode, without hands-on media production—the thing itself. The point is that, when skills are valorized over content—or when theory ignores practice-students neglect concrete critical reflection on how technology impacts the message, the creators, the audience, or society. However, the generic library model—the founding principle for library and information resources at Evergreen—has emphasized and counterbalanced the tendency to isolate skills from content. Students who read texts are expected to write as well; why should they not be expected to create media as well as view it? Early on, a rotating faculty member who helped link instruction with critical media studies and with interdisciplinary programs directed Media Services. Library and information resources continue to struggle to advocate for the critical study of media and information technology across the curriculum.

Teaching Information Technology Literacy (ITL) Across the Curriculum

During the first half of the self-study period, the Legislature mandated Information Technology Literacy (ITL) as a central focus for colleges and universities in the State. The ITL movement presented nothing surprising to the Evergreen Library, which has been engaged in these ideas and goals since the founding of the college. However, the legislative mandate created interest in evaluating our work. As used in this study, the term ITL encompasses every aspect of information technology, including digitized library research, but also includes concepts found in the literatures of media literacy, visual studies, and communications (critical approaches to media).

In order to assure that students have the skills to communicate about their open inquiries, library and information resources take a broad role in the curriculum. Two of the “Six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate” relate directly to the library and information resources commitment to help students achieve intellectual independence, creativity, and critical acumen. Expectation Two states that our graduates will communicate creatively and effectively; Expectation Four, that our graduates apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across the disciplines. When students at Evergreen learn about media and information technologies, they also are immersed in disciplinary content that promotes their ability to "access, analyze, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts." Not only should literate students read and write astutely, they also should access, view, critique and produce digital media and information that is clear, eloquent and complete. In this way, digital scholarship merges seamlessly with individual and formal educational goals, just as print scholarship has in the past. [Footnote Sonia Livingstone article; Wyatt's definition; Caryn's position paper from the gen ed. process Nov. 27, 2000].

Library and information resources support ITL, including media literacy, as an agenda for students across programs, disciplines and media. Library and information resources collaborate with teaching teams as they instruct students in media and students who create films, multimedia or musical works for programs or for independent study. These are the challenges of the "freely chosen inquiry," –challenges that cannot all be met at all times. However, the location of Media Services administratively and physically within Library Services is meant to insure that media studies and media production are supported appropriately both within the programs that media faculty teach and elsewhere in the freely chosen inquiries of students.

Academic computing also provides access to—and instruction in-- information technologies through a balance of specialized and open computing facilities. With the migration of many media applications to commonly available personal computer platforms, instruction and facilities to support entry-level media production have spread to academic computing and even to the library proper.

Does Library Instruction Result in ITL Gains?

The Library, consistent with college-wide practices, rejects requirements and embraces students who engage in open inquiry and independent judgment and who evince the ineffable quality of critical acumen. In this context, the Library supports a fluid curriculum and responds to changes that drive the needs and expectations of an innovative teaching faculty. Because the Library shapes teaching according to individual students, a fluid curriculum, and highly diverse pedagogy, standard or standardized assessment methods do not apply. Instead, the Library commits to the intensive and never ending task of recreating learning goals, student-by-student, program-by-program. Context is everything, which obviates the role of abstract standards and measures.

On the other hand, the Library does engage in qualitative assessment—a descriptive characterization of ITL teaching and learning. As is the case throughout the faculty, library faculty write annual evaluations of themselves and their library and teaching colleagues. These evaluations consistently address instructional aspirations, successes and failures. [Exhibits: Library Faculty Evaluations]

Further, under the leadership of the Office of Institutional Research, the librarians designed a project that assessed students as they worked through real research inquiries. The study, The Activity of Information Literacy, documented the techniques and processes—and to some extent, the thinking—of several small samples of students as they collaborated intensively on research questions. The study showed that these particular students wee stronger in their grasp of content than they were in their command of library research tools for their specific inquiries. In other words, a question about history might not lead them to Historical Abstracts. They were also strong in their ability to develop their research questions and to evaluate and synthesize the results. What these results suggest is that “Faculty may want to assess their students’ abilities to obtain information and offer tutorials or refer students to the Library when deficiencies are detected.”

Beyond the immediate results, this qualitative assessment also suggested that the students benefited greatly when they collaborated. Certainly, this observation is corroborated by the gains that students make when they work together in skill building instead of in canned computer workshops outside of programs. Additionally, peer groups are widely used across the curriculum as a way to encourage students to develop research topics and individual projects. Given the results of the qualitative assessment and given the widely practiced use of peer groups, library faculty should seek ways to implement collaborative research activities when they link their instruction to programs. This model of cooperation would build on the more isolated collaborations that take place, as a matter of course, between librarians and students at the reference desk. An enlarged vision of this basic transaction—discussion, exploration, and brainstorming—will enhance the relevance and effectiveness of library teaching and workshops.

Survey Evidence

The Evergreen Student Experience Survey asks questions which elucidate what the students themselves think they learned at Evergreen. In the 2006, the ESES asked "To what extent have your Evergreen experiences contributed to your growth in ... the following computer-related fields...?" For the category 'Studying or Doing Research via the Internet or other online sources":

• 30.5% of Olympia campus students reported at least some contribution;
• 47.5% reported quite a bit or a lot, for a total of 77.5%.
• More than 84% of Tacoma students reported at least some, of which 50% reported quite a bit.
• More than 93% of reservation-based students reported at least some contribution; 86.2% reporting quite a bit or a lot.

These statistics correlate well with the end-of-program review and instructional data cited earlier. Considering just how many students seem to express self-confidence in their research skills, and as the internet provides so many increasingly powerful tools for personal research, it is heartening to see that a good majority of students recognize that they developed greater (and one hopes more scholarly) research skills as part of their education at Evergreen.

The ESES 2006 also asked about "Using the computer for artistic expression (e.g. music, other audio, still images, animation, video, etc.":

• Just over 42% reported Evergreen contributed "Some", "Quite a Bit" or "A Lot".

• Fully 36.8% said "Not at All"

• and 20.9% said "Very Little."

The ESES 2006 also surveyed use of non-artistic computer tools, asking about specific types of applications such as spreadsheets, GIS, web development, posters, or programming. In general, as was found in end of program reviews, no single type of computer application dominated. No application type was used by more than 50% of students; instead different types of applications were used by smaller subsets of the students surveyed.

Future Aspirations and Challenges for Instruction

NB: In this section, I need to re-emphasize what is going well in addition to challenges and aspirations.

Library Instruction

Individual library faculty are spending more time out of the library teaching in the curriculum as a result of the loss of one library faculty line to budget cuts. This takes it toll on affairs internal to the library. Specifically, the librarians can’t attend consistently to administration; they struggle to support all areas of the curriculum; and they have not been able to respond to proposed increases in hours for the reference desk. Further, reference desk service has changed as the Internet creates patrons who access our resources from remote locations. Most immediately, virtual patrons do not benefit from the teaching that takes place at the reference desk. As the physical reference desk diminishes in importance, faculty who rotate into the library have more limited opportunities to learn about library resources through interactions with patrons. These trends, challenges, and problems should inform the reference group as they consider how to proceed in allocating team responsibilities with or without an increase in the number of library faculty.

The reference group should evaluate service to areas of the curriculum that report or demonstrate less involvement in the various forms of information technology instruction (as reflected in end of program reports)and consider whether more or different instructional support would be appropriate or desirable. For instance, one of the science librarians retired, leaving one librarian to cover all SI programs. Because this librarian teaches intensively in a few programs, some SI programs may be underserved. This may contribute to the tendency of SI programs to report less work with library research in programs. Thus, the next library faculty hire should probably emphasize scientific expertise. [Revise for 2006/07 EPR data]

The science librarian who does intensive, embedded instruction, works with students as they write bibliographies, which become the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of student research. Some of the other librarians evaluate bibliographies as well. This approach could be more broadly applied to programs across the curriculum, where students are required to research competently and to represent their work clearly in bibliographies, abstracts, research papers, essays and stories. Faculty librarians may want to explore evaluating research results more commonly as they develop their ties with programs and faculty in all disciplines. As librarians become more involved in each stage of research, including writing or production, they should be able to provide more consistent support to students. Of course, this more intensive work with individual programs must be restricted according to the time and energy of the small library faculty team. Variations in the academic year cycle, which show significantly lighter workshop demands in winter, as compared to fall quarter, suggest one strategy for extending this service. This may also be an area to which rotating faculty can contribute.

Academic Computing and the Library Faculty should explore connections with the Quantitative and Writing Centers. The many overlapping values and concerns of these areas seem obvious. In fact, the barriers that persist seem to reflect different philosophies of service—specifically, of public service—rather than intractably divergent views of teaching and learning. For instance, students do a great deal of the teaching in the writing center, whereas faculty librarians consider teaching to be the center of their work. Yet everyone agrees that student-centered instruction is one of the best modes of learning.

Shared Technology Creates the Need for More Shared Work

Today, commonly used media applications, once physically limited to Media Services, are now found throughout the facilities administered by Academic Computing and, to a degree, by the Library. Similarly, library resources, once physically limited to the library building, are found anywhere one can reach the web. Computers, once found only in the Computer Center, are everywhere. These shifts have accelerated over the past ten years and have changed the instructional roles of the areas and their relationship to the curriculum. Undoubtedly, library and information resources will continue to distribute their budgets, facilities and staff to continuing expansion of information technology in programs and for individual students.

As technologies have changed, so have the relationships among the Library, Media Services, and Computing, which now share in the communal project of interconnecting, teaching and supporting our information and technological resources. At this juncture, there seems little point in redesigning the administrative structures that oversee these areas because new relationships and responsibilities have evolved organically, based on need, demand, and interest and will continue to do so. In order to make sure that these effective working relationships continue to develop, reinforcing connections such as joint staffing, deliberately planning together, and continuing involvement across the areas when hiring for new staff and particularly administrators must be emphasized. While the Library and Media Services collaborate, as a matter of course, with Academic Computing, the real challenge remains: How to more thoroughly engage the teaching faculty across the curriculum in defining the role of information technology in the academic careers of our students.

Cross-Curricular Information Technology Literacy

As discussed above, library and information resources and the teaching faculty assure that information technology infuses the curriculum. On the other hand, the faculty has not embraced any particular set of information technology skills as fundamental to the liberal arts undergraduate at Evergreen. Instead, faculty choose and adapt information and media technologies according to the pedagogical and disciplinary requirements of their chosen inquiry. There is little work across the curriculum about critical approaches to media or basic definitions of college level technical literacy for the liberal arts. In the immediate future, library and information resources should invite the teaching faculty into a discussion about whether the campus has any broad consensus about ITL, including critical approaches. Long ago, the college committed to writing across the curriculum and allocated significant institutional resources to encourage that work—without proscriptive limits or standards. A wider discussion about ITL could produce a similar vision and institutional support. In the long run, such a vision will shape our understanding of digital scholarship in the liberal arts.

The shift of some entry-level media production instruction to from Media Services to Academic Computing raises questions about the staffing assumptions in Academic Computing. If critical approaches to information technology are to be addressed and if cross-curricular information technology literacy is a priority for the contemporary liberal arts, then instructional staffing based on historical models of canned skills workshops may be insufficient. Academic Computing needs to be staffed sufficiently with instructors who have both time and expertise to work intensively in program planning, curriculum development, as well as technical skills development, as has historically been the case in the Library and Media Services.

5.E.1 The institution has a planning process that involves users, library and information resource staff, faculty, and administrators.

Any major policy discussions or long-term planning processes invoke the college-wide DTF structure.

See Participatory Decision-Making Culture (Standard 1 Section 2.3) and Standard 6.

The College budget process and schedule drives most mid-term library planning. The College budget process is described in Standard 7 Section 7.A.3

A suggestions and responses bulletin board is being re-established on a new library information kiosk.

Faculty who rotate into the Library identify projects as well as collection development they wish to address.

An annual Reference Services Group retreat, which includes the Dean of Library Services, establishes the year's work before classes start in the fall.

5.E.2 The institution, in its planning, recognizes the need for management and technical linkages among information resource bases (e.g., libraries, instructional computing, media production and distribution centers, and telecommunications networks).

See Creating the Generic Library (Standard 5 Section 1.2)

See Shared Technology Creates the Need for More Share Work (Standard 5 Section 2.2.5)

See Cross-Curricular ITL (Standard 5 Section 2.5.3)

See Planning Across LIR (Standard 5 Section 3.1.1.6)

See Continue Blending LIR Functions (Standard 5 Section 3.3.1)

5.E.3 The institution regularly and systematically evaluates the quality, adequacy, and utilization of its library and information resources and services, including those provided through cooperative arrangements, and at all locations where courses, programs, or degrees are offered. The institution uses the results of the evaluations to improve the effectiveness of these resources.

Institutional Research and Assessment provides annual survey documentation on LIR services several of which are broken down by campus [asked Jennifer to send files for Tacoma and Res-Based as well].

See Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Utilization

Summary of Information Technology Literacy Emphasis in Programs

End-of program Review Results for 2006-07 - Info Technology Literacy Overview

End-of-program Review Workshop - Info Technology Across the Curriculum

Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Computer Skills - First-time, First-years

Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Computer Skills - Transfer Students

Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2004 - Info Technology Literacy and Technology-related Resources

Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Growth in Computer Skills - Oly Campus

Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Satisfaction of Olympia Campus Students

End-of-program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit

Narrative self and peer evaluation of library faculty provide a forum for ongoing analysis within the larger culture of constant evaluation and assessment. [sp needs to compile relevant pieces for this and get oks from authors]