Faculty Perceptions on the Value & Impact of Library Undergraduate Curriculum-Integrated Information Literacy Instruction

Findings from the CONUL ACIL 2012 survey

Mary AntonesaSenior Librarian for Learning and Research Information Services

NUI Maynooth

Background to the study Purpose of Survey Method Demographics Findings Analysis Further studies

Overview

Ralph Catts, CONUL ACIL Seminar 2011

For senior managers: increased retention; lower unit cost per graduate

For students: Enhanced grades; Higher completion rates

Ralph Catts, CONUL ACIL Seminar 2011

For academics, information literate students are likely to require:

Less time to mark assignments; Higher grades for studentsFor librarians, Better resourced information centres; Higher status from enhanced role in design

and delivery of HE curriculum.

Big challenge Well documented “ Situated competencies” How do you measure any learning?

Can you measure impact of IL ?

Nature, value and impact of IL intervention as seen by our academic colleagues nationally

Focused on UG teaching in one Semester in 2011/2012

Not measuring IL for:◦ Postgraduates◦ Second Semester ◦ One shot courses/non timetabled IL activities

Purpose

Took place in March 2012 Surveymonkey software Co-ordinated approach to questions by

CONUL ACIL and then created at DCU Link was emailed by Subject Librarians to

relevant academics with a deadline for completion

CONUL ACIL came together for analysis of findings

Reported findings back to CONUL and within our institutions

Method

The survey was completed by 180 academic staff from across a wide range of disciplines and specifically targeted key academics actively working with the library on semester one undergraduate programmes

Demographics

CONUL Institutions Response Percent Response Count

Dublin City University 15.6% 28

Dublin Institute of Technology 20.6% 37National University of Ireland, Galway 10.6% 19

National University of Ireland , Maynooth 8.3% 15

Royal College of Surgeons In Ireland 4.4% 8

Trinity College Dublin 9.4% 17University College Cork 4.4% 8University College Dublin 10.0% 18University of Limerick 16.7% 30

Total: 180

Discipline Response Percent Response Count (180)

Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine3.3% 6

Architecture 3.9% 7

Arts/Humanities 12.8% 23

Biological/Medical/Health Sciences 27.2% 49

Built Environment 5.0% 9

Business/Commerce 7.2% 13

Computer Sciences 2.2% 4

Earth, Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences 1.7% 3

Engineering 14.4% 26

Law 6.7% 12

Physical Sciences and Mathematics 2.2% 4

Social Sciences 13.3% 24

IL concept impacts on certain aspects of learning e.g.◦ Quality of bibliography and reference list ◦ Breadth of students’ sources for reading◦ Understanding of key concepts/theories◦ Student engagement with content and material

Findings

“Makes a huge contribution to the module; brings students into the library (our sessions are in the library seminar room), they meet library staff whom they can later approach; the students get a real appreciation of the rich resources which our university library holds (including electronic resources) and are enthused, resulting in many cases in postgraduate study plans”

Lots of positive feedback like this!

Academic colleagues really value librarian partnerships eg:◦ We bring sources of expertise outside of lecturer’s

expertise◦ Great partnerships already exist (For 85% of

respondents this was not first intervention) ◦ In some cases academics said that library staff

input leads to improved grades

Discipline matters:

◦ Arts/Humanities and Architecture reported more lecture formats while the Sciences reported more advice formats

◦ Problem based learning interventions were rare in all disciplines except in Physical Sciences where 25% reported this input

◦ Business/Commerce and Physical Sciences (66.7% and 75% respectively) reported that they worked with library to help students understand citing and referencing

◦ 80% Agriculture Science and Veterinary Medicine and 75% in Computer Science reported working with library staff because of poor quality of information sources used by students and poor referencing skills

More online information resources to harness IL in teaching and learning

Sample IL tasks for academic’s own teaching

Track the impact of IL interventions over a timeframe

Future developments?

“Makes a huge contribution to the module; brings students into the library (our sessions are in the library seminar room), they meet library staff whom they can later approach; the students get a real appreciation of the rich resources which our university library holds (including electronic resources) and are enthused, resulting in many cases in postgraduate study plans”

Lots of positive feedback like this!

98% surveyed worked with library staff because they wanted their students to be able to find, evaluate and use good quality sources in their assignments.

60% indicated that their module had explicit learning outcomes relating to information seeking and evaluation skills

88.6% felt that the intervention resulted in improvement in the quality of sources used by students in projects

80.6% would like to be able to draw on a range of information literacy resources (tutorials, videos, etc) that they can use in their own teaching

Impact on grades is difficult to identify but 50% indicated an active interest in working with libraries to track and measure impact over time.

In Summary

With thanks to all the CONUL ACIL group

Ellen Breen DCU (Chair) Peter Hickey UCD

Monica Crump (NUIG) Isolde Harpur (TCD) Grainne McCabe (RCSI) Brian Gillespie (DIT) Ronan Madden (UCC) Mary Antonesa (NUIM) Donna O Doibhlin (UL)

Questions