Advanced Design Seminar: Portfolio Project on ACRL Standard 2

      I have been developing online learning modules for a course I used to teach in a live classroom. The college course is Information Literacy.  It is based on the 5 Standards of Information Literacy as published by the Association of College and Research Libraries.  The 5 Standards are:

1.      Determine the extent of information needed

2.      Access the needed information effectively and efficiently

3.      Evaluate information and its sources critically and incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base

4.      Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose

5.      Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally (ACRL, 2016) 

      I took the assessment course in the MALET program last semester.  I developed a learning module on the 3rd standard of Information Literacy for that course, which is evaluating information.  For this course I propose to make a module for the 2nd Standard. 

       The 2nd Information Literacy competency is: “Access the needed information effectively and efficiently.”  Searching for information using databases is an essential skill for 21^st century college students.  Not all information is made available through free search engines such as Google.  Some information, including some periodicals, academic articles, e-Books, scientific data and company information can only be accessed through subscription databases.  It is true that more information is being made available through free search engines, like Google Scholar and Google Books; still much of the scholarly journal articles are only available through subscription databases.   

      In this module, the students will learn about the different databases available. They will experience the different database companies that have customized interfaces.  They will also learn the specialties of different databases.  For example, some databases contain e-books, some scholarly journal articles, some popular periodicals and those concentrating in specific academic disciplines.  The students will also learn methods of accessing the information that they need.  They will learn advanced search features such as: author, title of article, date, name of publisher, name of periodical, and subject terms.  They will also learn the definition of scholarly articles and the databases that contain them.

      There will be formative and summative assessments to measure the progress of the students.  This module will take place over the course of a week.  The students will be expected to check in at least 3 times during the week.  I propose to make at least 2 videos.  After the 1^st two lessons there will be formative assessments.  After the 3^rd lesson, which will be mostly a review, there will be a summative assessment for the module of the week.  There will also be a wrap up student reflection after the summative assessment to evaluate the experience and quality of instruction.

References

Association of College and Research Libraries. (2016). Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Retrieved from American Library Assocation: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency