Information Literacy

Collaborations

Some Numbers

Student population (Headcount 2009/10)36,000 Total enrolment

• 25,500 Undergraduate Students• 2,100 Graduate Students (Master’s/Doctoral)• 8,500 Continuing Education Students

Source: Ryerson University Planning Office. http://www.ryerson.ca/upo/

Library Instruction Statistics 2006-2011

56% increase in number of students taught since 2006

(2011) We’re reaching ~40% of the total number of students (36,000 headcount) through instruction

(excluding service provided through the Reference Desk, VR, online tutorials, one-on-one help)

(~25 librarians)

Types of Instruction Offered• In-class Sessions• Drop-in Sessions• One-on-One Sessions• Online Tools: – Podcast library tour– Database tutorials– Short videos (“Ryerson Research Minutes”)– Blackboard integration (More on this later)– Course-specific tutorials. More on this later

• http://www.ryerson.ca/library/tutorials/index.html

Library Presence in the University (Teaching)

• Senate Learning and Teaching Committee – Librarian presence for 10+ years

• Ryerson Learning and Teaching Office: Workshops, committees, conference planning, etc.

• Ryerson Academic Integrity Committee• Librarians very active in the annual Faculty

Conference (planning and presenting)• Faculty Teaching Chairs

Faculty Teaching Chairs

• Established by the Provost in August 2010 • Promote best practices in teaching in the

university (professional development programs, workshops, presentation, surveys, etc.)

• 7 Faculty Teaching Chairs (including 1 Library Teaching Chair)

• Each Teaching Chair chairs a Learning and Teaching Committee within their faculty [Library]

Faculty Teaching Chairs Model

Library Learning and Teaching Committee and the Teaching Chairs

• Provides a mechanism by which the library has a seat at each Faculty Learning and Teaching Committee

• Greater exposure for the library: L&T Committees provide a conduit for introducing and promoting new library initiatives, projects, faculty workshops, collaborative efforts (assignment design, IL integration, etc.) into faculties and departments

• A chance to reach faculties that have been low library users, e.g. Engineering and Science.

Projects (Library L&T Committee) 2011

• Workshop for faculty on creating effective assignments

• Workshop for faculty on publishing, journal impact factors, open access publishing and the Digital Commons.

• Development of online information literacy tutorials in collaboration with faculty. RE:Search Online Information Literacy Tutorials … (later)

Library/Course Integrated Initiatives

• BUS 100 • Interior Design• Social Sciences and Humanities• Arts and Contemporary Studies

Library/Course Integrated Initiatives (cont’d)

• ACS 102 (Arts & Contemporary Studies) Foundation Course for all incoming Arts students

• Librarians worked with professor in developing course content, delivering lectures, leading tutorials, creating assessment tools, providing office hours.

• Full integration of library content into course—followed ACRL Info Lit Standards.

• Librarian present at every lecture and tutorial. First class held in Library.

• Pre-test and post-tests administered. • 26-question assessment tool based on the 5 ACRL

Information Literacy Standards– 1st test. Before course started. – 2nd test End of course. – 3rd. Test 6 months after course ended

(Did students retain skills learned?)

Findings: Information literacy skills increased significantly over the length of the course and most students retained the skills 6 months later.

Reed, M. J., Kinder, D., & Farnum C. (2007). Collaboration between librarians and faculty to teach information literacy at one Ontario university: Experiences and outcomes. Journal of Information Literacy, 1(3), 29-46.

BUS 100 Interior Design

RE:Search Online Tutorial System

• A Web-based tool for creating information literacy tutorials

• Developed by a team of librarians at the University of Toronto in collaboration with interested faculty members.

• Tutorials are created through collaboration between librarian and course instructor

• Designed to cater to research needs at the course level. • Allows professors and librarians to create content,

exercises and feedback tailored to course content

RE:Search Cont’d

• Structured to present a framework for scaffolded learning and to develop mastery of basic concepts and advanced processes in research and writing

• Ryerson is partnering with UT in creating modules to add to the pool.

• Modules can taken and adapted for other courses (UT and Ryerson)

RE:Search Cont’d

5 modules based on Information Literacy Standards and the learning objectives of Bloom’s Taxonomy:

[Knowledge-Comprehension-Application-Analysis-Synthesis-Evaluation]

Must start with a research model relevant to the course: e.g.– PICO (Population/Intervention/Comparison/Outcome) – 5Ws+H (Who/What/Where/When/Why/How)– SRO/Systems Research Organizing

(Context/Client/Intervention/Outcomes)

– All tutorial content created must reflect the selected model– Have piloted the project with a Graduate (Master’s) Nursing Informatics

course. – Will be promoting it to the faculties (through the Faculty Teaching

Chairs/Committees) in the fall. – Business faculty is very interested, as is Engineering and Science

RE:Search Tutorials listing:

http://webapps.utsc.utoronto.ca/itcdf/start.php

MN8932 (Nursing Informatics)

+35 more

• Benefits– Tailored to course content– Collaboration with faculty in developing tutorial– Excellent resource for distance education students– Easy interface, content can be changed/added– Students get feedback, can work at their own pace

Embedding Library Resources into Blackboard

• Working on research guide content at the subject or course level to embed it into the course management system (Blackboard)

• Created a Blackboard building block that Faculty members can add to their course shells– automatically links data based on the course code

• Can create generic items at the subject level (e.g. NUR, for nursing) or we can get very specific, to a specific course, year and section

• Can tailor content to assignments: suggested databases, search strategies, etc.