LOEX Annual Conference 2011

Interactive Sessions

Authentic Assessment: Crafting Knowledge-Based Assessment Tools to Align with Learning Outcomes
Laura Sanders (Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science)

Authentic assessment remains a challenge for many information literacy programs. Despite progress developing and integrating learning outcomes into curricula, many programs fail to demonstrate changes in knowledge or behavior as a result of their instruction. Instead, the majority of programs rely on indirect measures such as surveys and self-reporting, or tests that rely on student regurgitation of information. Through hands-on exercises and demonstrations, participants in this interactive workshop will rework indirect measures into authentic forms of assessment directly connected to student learning. Participants should bring examples of existing tools to use as a basis for developing authentic assessment measures

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Click or Poll Your Way to Interactive Library Instruction
Sarah R. Gewirtz (College of St. Benedict / St. John's University) cancelled

Many of us have gotten the blank stare when we ask students, Do you have any questions? or Can anyone give me a search term to try? Students may be reluctant to respond in front of their peers for various reasons. This might be the only time we see them. We want to make a positive impression but also make sure they learn something during their short time. How can a we do all of that? Easy! Use Clickers (Audience Response Systems) or an online version like PollEverywhere.com. During my presentation, I will discuss the questions I've asked and responses I've gotten from classes I have taught using both clickers and PollEverywhere.com. I will discuss feedback from each system from students and faculty so you can decide which will best be used in your environment. Since PollEverywhere.com might not be something many librarians are aware of, I will focus a majority of my session on how easy and useful this tool can be. This session is interactive. You can use a cell phones to text responses to me so you can experience PollEverywhere.com as a user. I will note drawbacks as well as advantages to both systems.

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Fostering Student Collaboration in Embedded Librarian Classes
Joe Goetz and Dr. Mary Kelleher (University of St. Thomas, Houston)

Embedded academic librarians can save time and increase their impact by fostering online student discussion and peer evaluation. When students respond to each other's research and evaluate each other's information literacy skills, they learn more with less direct input from the librarian. This interactive workshop will help participants to create assignments for online information literacy discussions based on the ACRL's Objectives for Information Literacy. Participants will also generate rubrics that set high standards for posts and responses.

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Library Instruction Credibility: How do we establish it? How do we publicize it?
Frances A. May and Yunfei Du (University of North Texas)

What I would like to propose is not a presentation but a strategy session. Over the ten years I have spent as an instruction librarian, I have come to realize that what we need is quantitative data showing the benefits that students derive from library instruction. It needs to be gathered and published in non-library forums, such as educational or subject specific journals. Once the benefits are publicized and understood by educators and faculty, we may be able to move beyond the fifty minute, one shot instruction session, and make an information literate society a reality.

To do this, we need to form a strategy for conducting the research, ideally working with colleges and universities of different sizes, and agree to use measures that are mutually compatible so that the resulting statistics can be compared validly. The resulting broad spectrum of evidence that library instruction is the cornerstone on which our information-rich society can build its knowledge will demonstrate its value, and show that it needs to be taught systematically rather than to depend on students "picking it up."

This will be a brainstorming session where anyone who wants can make suggestions and volunteer to gather information from their institutions and contribute it to the aggregate. Obviously this is a long-term project, but the librarians who attend LOEX are the best group to undertake it. This interactive workshop will be facilitated by a veteran instruction librarian and a professor of library science whose specialization is academic libraries.

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Lose the Lists! Elevating Your LibGuides to a New Level
Andrea Falcone and Lyda Ellis (University of Northern Colorado)
- Powerpoint Slides
- Handout

This ain't your mama's LibGuide! Ready to think outside the box? Want to empower your students? A sampling of institutions reveals a clear focus for Libguides - lists, lists, and more lists! No one contests the informative value of this design, yet these Libguides often lack instructional components essential to student success. Break the Libguides mold! Discover how to create an instructional platform that addresses various learning styles. Informed by focus group data, develop a toolkit to elevate your LibGuides to a new level. This interactive session will help you lose the lists and empower your students today!

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Pirate maps, tattoos, and flus: Using a problem-based format to teach information literacy skills
Kerri Shaffer Carter and Emily Buzicky (Westminster College)
- Prezi presentation (external site)
- Handout
- Scenario Handout
- Scenarios 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

This workshop will introduce attendees to the basics of problem-based learning (PBL). Participants will have the opportunity to create a lesson plan for a PBL session while working in a PBL environment. The workshop will focus on creating learning objectives, creating PBL prompts, facilitating discussion, and leading a de-briefing session. PBL activities complement information literacy sessions because they ask the student to actively demonstrate competencies, and allow the instructor to act as a "guide on the side."

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Problem-Solving Skills for Librarians
Cindy Batman and Lesley Baker Tsuchiya (University of North Texas)

Every time a librarian conducts a reference interview, does research for a patron, teaches a workshop or bibliographic instruction session, that librarian is modeling good problem solving skills. When the same librarian is faced with the challenge of a micromanager, a coworker who is a trouble maker, or team workers who are not working, immobility sets in. These problems seem insurmountable. The same discipline and strong learning skills that propelled the librarian through graduate school, the good written and oral presentation abilities, and the critical thinking demonstrated every time librarians answer a question, are still there. Librarians are just little reluctant to flex these problem-solving muscles outside of their comfort zone.

There are numerous problem-solving strategies that can be applied and the key to success is to apply one, any one. Approaching challenges in a calm, objective manner will allow librarians to employ their analytical, resourceful thinking to the development of solutions. The steps to problem-solving involve recognizing there is a problem, defining the problem, breaking it apart into components or factors, determining who is impacted, establishing a dialogue with those stakeholders, brainstorming potential solutions, and then securing involvement in change and participation toward a solution and implementation, even if steps are small.

This presentation will provide examples of several problem-solving techniques that could be applied. Problem-solving frameworks will be discussed and worksheets with multiple choice problems and solutions will be reviewed. Problem scenarios will be presented and practical problem-solving techniques will be demonstrated.

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Rethinking the Instruction Session Handout
Ashlynn Wicke (University of Houston – Clear Lake)
- Slides
- Handout

Handouts can be more than just copies of PowerPoint slides printed in handout mode. Handouts can include descriptions of resources, search strategies, and activities created for a specific library instruction session. Creating paper handouts may appear low tech compared to creating online content and reaching out to students via social networks and course management systems. However, handouts can appeal to visual and kinesthetic learners. During the summer and fall of 2010, instruction librarians at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) experimented with ways to better utilize instruction session handouts to include critical information while incorporating active learning exercises, database comparison charts, and promotion of online resources.

With the advent of online instruction resources, like LibGuides and videos, are paper handouts still relevant? Should handouts be given out during sessions? Do handouts need to be critically examined in order to remain useful for students? Join the discussion about the usefulness of paper handouts, and bring your ideas to rethink instruction session handouts.

In this interactive session, participants will see and discuss handout examples from UHCL librarians and library literature. After a discussion about the potential usefulness of handouts, participants will break into small groups, and each will be given an instruction scenario. In the small groups participants will discuss the most important information for students to take away from the session and brainstorm various ways to present this information using a handout.

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The Teaching Librarian's Toolkit
Jenny Dale and Amy Harris Houk (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
- Handout

Engaging students is critical to maximizing the effectiveness of information literacy sessions. But when you're faced with heavy teaching loads, back-to-back sessions, and balancing your other professional responsibilities, it can seem that there's never enough time to develop effective, engaging, and creative classroom activities. Enter the Teaching Librarian's Toolkit - flexible, modular activities that can be mixed and matched to align with student learning outcomes and enhance your information literacy sessions. In this interactive workshop, you'll participate in sample activities, share your strategies, and develop a sample lesson plan to use or adapt in your teaching.

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Breakout Sessions

A Tutorial for Transfer Students: Reaching Out to USC Upstate's Underserved Students
Andrew Kearns and Chris Vidas (University of South Carolina Upstate)
- Slides
- Handout
- Discussion Questions

How do you "catch" transfer students to ensure that they receive timely instruction in information literacy? What kind of intervention will be compatible with library staff and budgetary considerations? What kind of outreach is likely to gain support of the institution? This presentation will describe USC Upstate's Foundation in Information Literacy (FIL), an "inventory" administered through the admissions process. We will describe how we created FIL, how we marketed it, what kinds of follow-up we have designed for students who take it, and the results of the pilot administrations in Spring and Fall 2010. We will also address the future possibilities for FIL becoming a permanent part of the admissions process or evolving in other ways.
Because FIL is a work-in-progress, and because serving transfer students is a growing need on many campuses, we are designing this session to include an activity where participants will be able to share what their institutions are doing for transfer students and their ideas for more effective service to this population.

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Ambitious Student Seeks Valuable Internship: Will You Mentor Me?
Anne Marie Gruber (University of Dubuque) and Cara B. Stone (Indiana University)

How does a random email become a graduate student internship and what can be learned from the mentoring experience? What started as email correspondence from an MLS student seeking librarian mentors in her home state turned into meeting in person, and eventually an internship at University of Dubuque's Charles C. Myers Library. Spring 2011 is the first time library staff have had the opportunity to welcome a MLS graduate student intern. The internship primarily focuses on information literacy, involving the student in a thriving, curriculum-integrated program that consists of over 500 class sessions per year, delivered by five librarians. Staff created a mutually-valuable experience, helping the student develop her professional voice.

Presenters will share the planning process, including how communication and shared goals are key elements of a successful match. They will reflect on their learning and teaching experiences, sharing examples of personal and professional growth. Participants will engage in discussion of their own institutions' mentoring practices, sharing ideas that can be applied broadly to develop interns, student workers, paraprofessionals, and librarians new to the profession. Many libraries may not have opportunities for MLS-level interns, so practical recommendations to support meaningful mentoring and valuable partnerships within any library instruction program will be discussed.

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Amplify the Active Learning: Revamping Course-Integrated Library Instruction to be Student Centered
Malia Willey (Loyola University New Orleans)
- Slides

Get ready to turn the dial to eleven! Course-integrated library instruction for Introduction to Music Industry Studies classes was redesigned to be student centered. Based upon student feedback and student-centered pedagogy, the research sessions and accompanying assignments were revamped for more meaningful and active learning. Database demonstrations and lectures were transformed into hands-on research workshops and problem-based learning activities. The content and number of assignments now better align with the students' semester project to allow for authentic learning. This presentation provides adaptable examples of how to amplify the active and student-centered learning in your library instruction.

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Back to School: The Challenges and Rewards of a Research Library's Instruction Program for a Charter High School in Chicago
Rebecca Starkey (University of Chicago)
- Slides

In 2009, the University of Chicago Library began offering Library privileges to seniors attending our University-run charter high school, UC Woodlawn (UCW). As part of this new program, the Library provided instruction sessions for the students, who had little experience using academic libraries. The Library experienced several challenges implementing effective programs. Through their experiences, U of C librarians were able to learn from mistakes and develop successful programs working with UCW teachers. At the end of the presentation, participants will be offered an opportunity to share their experiences working with high schools at their libraries.

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Bridging the Gaps: Transliteracy as effective pedagogy for information literacy
Lane Wilkinson (The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
- Slides (warning: large file, 69MB)

'Transliteracy' is a topic that is quickly spreading around the library world. However, there is little agreement about what, exactly, transliteracy is. This presentation will situate transliteracy within the context of library instruction as an enhanced approach to information literacy. Students are surprisingly information literate as they make effortless cognitive shifts between Facebook and e-mail, smart-phones and desktops, or text-messaging and speaking. Yet, they often hit a wall with library databases, indexes, or other research tools. Transliteracy addresses this issue pedagogically by emphasizing and harnessing the cognitive processes underlying preexisting media and information use. The presentation will begin with an overview of transliteracy, including its provenance, current debates, and exemplary cases. Next, I will discuss the multiple literacies encountered in the typical library instruction session and the problems most commonly faced. I will then propose the adoption of transliteracy as a methodological principle for designing information literacy classes, focusing on three core areas: making use of existing cognitive skills, separating information from its media, and multimodal media instruction. To this effect, the information literacy program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga will be presented and analyzed as an example of a library instruction program based in a transliterate approach.

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Cite it Right: Critical Assessment of Open Source Web-Based Citation Generators
Hui-Fen Chang (Oklahoma State University)

Writing proper citations is a critically important part of the research process. Instructing students how to cite is a key component of information literacy initiatives for academic and research libraries. To further support students, many libraries have purchased the licenses to bibliographic management software packages such as RefWorks and EndNote to help create and manage citations. Recently, a number of free or inexpensive Web-based citation generators such as EasyBib, NoodleBib, BibMe, KnightCite, Citation Machine, NCS Citation Builder, SourceAid have emerged and gained the attention of students as well as teaching librarians. While most of these tools are designed to emphasize ease of use, the accuracy of these programs remains to be investigated. This project takes a critical approach to assess the accuracy of these citation generators. It focuses on the commonly used citation styles of MLA, APA and Chicago bibliographies created by citation generators. Sample student bibliographies submitted to an information literacy credit course will be used as data for this study. Citation formats include books, reference books, scholarly journal articles (both print and electronic), and web sources. I will also conduct a survey of the web sites of ARL member libraries to determine which citation generator(s) is recommended by these libraries. The findings of this project will hopefully shed some light on the suitability of open source web-based citation generators for instructional services to students in academic and research libraries.

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Classroom Assessment Techniques in One-Shot Instruction Sessions: Balancing Teaching, Learning, and Time
Laura Westmoreland Gariepy (Virginia Commonwealth University)
- Slides

Librarians who teach one-shot instruction sessions often find it difficult to make time for assessment at the expense of teaching content. This session will discuss how librarians can use Classroom Assessment Techniques to not only quickly assess student learning and improve teaching, but also enhance student learning. The presentation will focus on one-shot instruction sessions; however, the principles will apply to a variety of instructional settings.

Participants will explore a variety of Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs): exercises and activities administered in the classroom to assess student learning. As opposed to many large scale assessment instruments that demonstrate what students have learned at the conclusion of a course, year, or degree, CATs assess learning so that librarians and instructors can then change and improve lesson plans to better meet student needs prior to final assessment.

The presenter will focus on CATs that require minimal time for preparation, implementation, and analysis. CATs that will be discussed include, but are not limited to, misconception/preconception checks, background knowledge probes, focused listing, and a few "homegrown" techniques. The presenter will explain how classroom assessment can not only assess student learning, but also contribute to enhanced learning by providing opportunities for reflection and active learning. The audience will participate in CATs to assess their own learning throughout the presentation.

Overall, the session will encourage participants to consider CATs an integral part of their instruction sessions to assess and enhance student learning and improve teaching--not as yet another activity to squeeze into a session.

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Consumer to creator: Investigating and building library support for undergraduate research
Merinda Kaye Hensley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- Slides

Since the publication of "Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities" (Boyer Commission 1998), universities have worked to develop and strengthen inquiry-based curricula aligned with faculty members' scholarly and creative efforts. A decade later, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that scholarly disengagement can be reversed when students participate in high quality, discipline-oriented undergraduate research programs, defined by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) as "an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline." However, there is a significant gap in the library and higher education literature on library support of undergraduate research programs.

The University of Illinois is conducting a survey of institutional members from the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) to benchmark dedicated library support (e.g. services, collections, space, and equipment) for formal undergraduate research programs. This presentation will discuss the details of the survey as well as consider the possibilities for growth within information literacy programs in teaching advanced information literacy skills.

This research sits at the nexus of several significant trends affecting librarianship and higher education in the areas of student learning, information literacy, and scholarly communication. During our discussion, we will consider how teaching librarians can build a community of practice to support students who have graduated from being consumers of knowledge to being creators of knowledge.

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Continuous Assessment, the Catalyst for Building a Successful Information Literacy Program That Focuses on Student Needs
Jon R. Hufford and Arlene K. Paschel (Texas Tech University)
- Slides

In keeping with the requirements of Texas Tech University's current strategic planning initiative, assessment, and in particular student-learning assessment, has become a crucial step in the process of continuously developing and improving the Libraries' Information Literacy program. This presentation reviews developments in the program, training for the librarians who participate in the program, the outreach and collaboration efforts to expand the program, and the important role that assessment plays in the process of discovering student needs, improving content, teaching, learning, and the operation of the program. The emphasis is on assessment as a catalyst in the process of continually improving the Information Literacy program.

The program has been using various types of assessment for several years. Pre- and post-assessment surveying used in the library skills credit course has proved to be a useful tool for measuring student learning. However, librarians involved in the program are taking an experimental approach to assessment and are committed to assessing the various parts of the program using a number of techniques that seem to have the potential for being effective in providing useful findings. In doing this, they will address such issues as how to identify new kinds of techniques appropriate for assessing the program and assisting it in reaching its goals and vision for the future, and how to incorporate this experimental approach to assessment into the yearly cycle of planning, developing, marketing, implementing, assessing, and reviewing.

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Creating a Leaner, Meaner, Database Collection to Leverage Instruction
Mary Anne Erwin and Emily Scharf (Webster University)
- Slides

In spring 2010, Librarians reviewed each of Webster University Library's 150 subject and multidisciplinary databases to ensure they continue to support the curriculum, . This successful collaboration began with subject liaisons and reference librarians and extended to meaningfully include faculty, other library staff, students, and vendors. Examples and results are presented in the context of our largest subject collection, the 40+ business-related databases. We will showcase how this review has, and continues to, inform and strengthen library instruction and collection development across the Walker School of Business & Technology. This session describes the review process and outcomes in detail so participants may replicate useful elements in their own libraries or with their own subject collections.

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Diverse Learners, Diverse Services: Reaching Out to Continuing Education Students and Instructors
Jessica Lange and Robin Canuel (McGill University)
- Slides
- Handout

As the face of higher education transforms in North America, academic librarians must adapt their instruction initiatives to the needs of diverse learners. This session presents practical ways to implement library services for previously underserved diverse learners, based on librarians' successful work with McGill University's Centre for Continuing Education. We will explore strategies for reaching non-traditional students and instructors, including teaching methodologies, curriculum integration, promotional initiatives, and ongoing asynchronous support. Throughout the session, participants will engage in conversations on how to reach underserved and diverse user groups within a university, with the end goal of facilitating information literacy development.

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Ending the Disconnect: Uniting Research and Writing through a Graduate Student Pedagogy Class
Cindy Fisher, Michele Ostrow and Meghan Sitar (The University of Texas at Austin)
- Slides

Involved in a first year writing program and overwhelmed by the number of one shots you teach? Not sure these one shots are effective? We hear you! Recognizing that research and writing are iterative, integrated processes, Instruction Librarians at The University of Texas at Austin and the director of the first year writing program collaborated to end the disconnect between research and writing through a graduate level pedagogy class. This presentation will describe how via class visits and a wiki, graduate student writing instructors are empowered to take ownership of teaching information literacy skills throughout the semester.

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Evaluating Video Tutorials: Measuring Excellence and Outcomes
Sally Ziph (University of Michigan Kresge Business Library)
- Slides

Librarians at the University of Michigan's Kresge Business Administration Library have created Camtasia video tutorials to help walk patrons through the complicated processes of business research. Statistics show the videos are being viewed, but they do not indicate whether patrons find the videos useful or effective. This presentation will explore the challenges and best practices of evaluating video tutorials and measuring student mastery of desired learning outcomes.

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Evidence Based Practice, Information Literacy, and Graduate Inquiry: A Collaborative Learning and Teaching Experience
Dr. Rosemary Green (Shenandoah University) and Dr. Mary Corcoran (Shenandoah University and George Washington University)

This session addresses the alliance between information literacy and evidence-based practice (EBP) - the process of applying clinically relevant research to patient care. The context of the discussion is an occupational therapy (OT) research course co-taught by a graduate librarian and an OT faculty member. The course was literature-based, evidence-based, and inquiry-based; students engaged in problem-based activities related to occupation, mobility, and accessibility. We describe our strategies for embedding and modeling information literacy as a natural function of the course; provide examples of class activities and studentsí multimedia projects; and invite participants to explore their own understandings of practice supported by evidence.

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Formative Assessment: Transformación de la Educación en la Biblioteca (Transforming Education in the Library)
Teague Orblych (University of Michigan - Dearborn) and Michelle Kathleen Dunaway (University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences)
- Slides
- Handout

How can librarians provide effective research instruction to groups of students with widely varying information competencies? How can we engage students in the process of creating library instruction that responds to their individual learning needs? This presentation will demonstrate the process of using assessment-elicited evidence of students' information literacy skills to tailor each instruction session based on the information proficiencies of the students in each instruction session. Using formative assessment in one-shot library instruction sessions makes information literacy instruction significantly more practical for students, and therefore improves students' learning.

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"Gun Control" is NOT a Research Question! Partnering with Teaching Faculty to Solve Problems and Refresh Library Instruction
Beverly Kutz (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
- Slides
- Handout

It's a classic problem: students in library instruction trying to research a topic without adequate preparation, or worse, having no topic at all. This was the number one problem identified when University of Tennessee Chattanooga library instructors and English Composition teaching faculty met in focus groups last summer.
Learn how the UTC library used focus groups to partner with Freshman Composition teaching faculty to identify major problems, create innovative solutions, and collaborate to implement a completely refreshed 1st year library instruction program.

The results so far have been extremely satisfactory. Our partnership with Freshman English Composition faculty has resulted in library instruction that is an integral part of the Composition courses. We are making strong connections with students in library sessions that are closely coordinated with course assignments. Through this partnership, we have solved some issues that plague most library instruction programs.

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"How Did We Do?": Evaluating the Instruction Program with a Senior Survey
Terry Taylor and Heather Jagman (DePaul University)
- Handout

Library instruction programs often center around reaching first year students in a required course. Predictable contact with a student pool of this size is not only an excellent foundation for consistent delivery of information literacy instruction, it can also be a valuable component of an assessment plan.

Frequently, assessment focuses on learning outcomes of instruction sessions. How else might we examine the impact of instruction through our students? DePaul's Library surveyed seniors in capstone courses university-wide to gauge their perceptions of the instruction they had received over their years at the university. Their responses provided information about the reach of the instruction program (distribution, depth, and frequency) but also helped in gaining valuable insight about student research challenges and library service opportunities.

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Ignite the SPARK: Fire up an Information Literacy Program for Faculty
Kathryn Klages and Mara Bordignon (Seneca College)
- Handout

Want faculty to embed the library in their classes and curriculum? Then embed the library in the minds of faculty. Watch how an information literacy program designed for faculty members transforms them into library champions.
SPARK (Short Practical Academic Research Knowledge) sessions are a valuable component of Seneca College's Information Literacy program. They provide faculty the opportunity to enhance research skills and knowledge, while encouraging the integration of library resources and services in the curriculum. Sessions are delivered through workshops, self-directed eLearning modules, and newsbytes. Topics have included eBooks, YouTube in the classroom, and grading for MLA and APA.

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Incorporating Mobile Technology into Information Literacy Instruction: Opportunities and Challenges
Chad Crichton (University of Toronto) and Robin Canuel (McGill University)
- Slides

Increasingly, modern mobile technology allows academic librarians the opportunity to connect to their communities in new and exciting ways, fostering patron outreach and new avenues for instruction in information literacy. This session will explore various means of expanding the use of mobile technology in a library context to discover ways of leveraging it more extensively to facilitate teaching and learning. Mobile technology offers a number of new and innovative ways for academic librarians to interact with students and faculty. It can facilitate the delivery of content and services to users in real time at their point of need and engage students in a medium in which they are already interacting in a non-academic context. Discussion will include how mobile devices might be used to foster mobile reference services and self-guided learning, and to reinforce traditional in-class information literacy instruction. Participants will gain an understanding of the current state of mobile technology and its consequences for our professional practice. In addition, they will learn about the implications of these developments for information literacy programming and reference services, and about new methods of information access which take advantage of the unique technological aspects of mobile devices.

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Information Visualization and Keyword Searching in Library Instruction
Matt Conner and Melissa Browne (University of California, Davis)
- Slides

The session will provide an overview of advances in visual literacy and their relevance to library instruction and focus on the sub-field of information visualization as an emerging area that synthesizes trends in computer science, education, and psychology. Information visualization will then be related to the search behaviors of users which appear to be deteriorating under the influence of the internet. Three graphical pedagogies (based on information visualization) for teaching the generation of keywords will be discussed. The session will end with an update on research underway to test the effectiveness of the three pedagogies.

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Intentional edutainment: A pedagogically and theatrically sound approach to information literacy instruction
Joshua Vossler and John Watts (Coastal Carolina University)
- Slides
- Handout
- Video used during presentation (YouTube)

Gaining and maintaining student attention during information literacy instruction can be a challenge. To address this challenge, entertainment value, as well as instructional efficacy, ought to be factored into assessment and design of instructional materials. Information literacy instruction should be as much about building bridges with students as it is about imparting useful information and skills. Entertaining while educating (edutaining), promotes student attention and helps build a positive learning environment. In this interactive session, attendees will participate in a practical approach to producing creative and entertaining content for information literacy instruction.

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Leadership in the White Spaces: A New Model for Librarians
Janet Tapper (University of Western States) and Noelle Stello (National College of Natural Medicine)

Organizational change guru Geary Rummler coined the term "white space" in the 1960s to describe the uncharted landscape of an organization, between the vertical reporting lines of the traditional organizational chart, where the real work usually gets done. Although not promoted initially as a leadership theory, the concept of white spaces is an effective construct for leadership opportunities commonly encountered by librarians. Using our experience at academic CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) institutions as a back-drop, this presentation will explore the concept that white spaces are natural and effective areas of engagement and emergent leadership for librarians of all stripes. This session will explore the intersection of the librarian skill set and the requirements of effective white space innovation and leadership.

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LibGuides, Videos, and Screencasting: Technologies to Enhance and Promote Digital Wisdom in Information Literacy Instruction
Rafia Mirza and Jody Bailey (University of Texas at Arlington)
- Slides
- Handout
- Related LibGuide (external site)

In this workshop, we will discuss how the information revolution affects teaching information literacy--specifically, students' need for digital wisdom. Today, students are usually aware of what technology can do for them socially but do not know how to produce and critically assess digital knowledge in their scholarship. Demonstrating the production of digital objects will help promote digital wisdom in the classroom by making the process transparent. To this end, we will demonstrate the following:
- A LibGuide that is interactive, welcoming, personal, and helpful and that will focus on how to teach students or faculty about video editing. We will discuss how to point students to these tools and give them step-by-step instructions, and we will explain how to talk to students about broader issues of copyright and content acquisition since they often have a facile view of how multimedia are produced and how copyright works.
- A video that is shot on a Flip camera and edited while the workshop participants watch. This demonstration is meant to help participants realize that teaching basic video-editing skills can be relatively quick and painless.
- A screencast service that we have personalized to students' and faculty members' individual needs. We use a free service to answer individual questions as they come in via an online form that feeds into a database that we made, which we will also showcase.
- As participants become familiar with these technologies, they should also become more comfortable with them and realize that learning and teaching them can be relatively quick and painless.

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Making the Most of Teachable Moments: Livening and Enhancing the Virtual Reference Experience
Heidi Steiner (Norwich University)
- Slides
- Handout

This presentation will address the undeniable presence of instructional opportunities in reference interactions. From small teachable moments to impromptu instruction sessions at the reference desk, reference is instruction and virtual reference is no exception. In virtual reference exchanges, however, these moments can be far more challenging to harness and engage. Due to barriers of time, communication, and technology between librarian and patron, virtual reference interactions frequently must be approached differently than those occurring in person. The overarching challenge of providing visual demonstration during teachable moments of virtual reference interactions will be emphasized.

Despite the barriers between librarian and patron in virtual reference, increasingly flexible and free technologies make it easier than ever to employ instructional strategies in reference for users at a distance. This presentation will discuss how to liven and enhance both asynchronous and synchronous virtual reference experiences, while also accommodating a greater number of learning styles, by using on-the-fly screencasting, screen sharing, and web conferencing technologies. The presentation will utilize extensive visuals, demos of select tools, and questions to engage the audience.

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Match Made In Heaven: Blackboard Vista, Information Literacy, and College Freshmen
Julie Nichols and Kristin Johnson (Northeast Lakeview College)
- Slides
- Example
- Sample Assessment (.pub file)

Northeast Lakeview College (NLC) serves over 6000 students in the greater San Antonio area. Our diverse student body includes many "first generation" students. To address the needs of a growing library instruction program and to introduce students to academic research, NLC librarians developed a program, using Blackboard Vista (BBV) to deliver library instruction to first semester freshmen English students. The highly interactive, self-paced BBV tutorials emphasize basic information literacy skills that are reinforced with a follow-up face-to-face library instruction session. Since Fall 2009, we have evolved these tutorials from an optional, self-registration model to a listed course in our college catalog - LIBR 0001 - a registration-linked, mandatory class component of ENGL 1301, our first semester composition course. Data analysis indicates that students completing the tutorials are gaining skills and knowledge, and are transferring that knowledge to successfully complete assignments in their English course. We will include details from the analysis and evaluation of data, including overall completion rates, question-by-question analysis, and how working with the English faculty factors into our success rates. We will demonstrate our existing BBV tutorials and discuss the beneficial use of technology in our information literacy instruction, including 24-hour accessibility for students. We will discuss our strategies for the future, including partnering with faculty to improve student learning and alignment with English Department student learning outcomes. Further, we will describe our plan for incorporating this type of instruction into other NLC courses and will demonstrate modules currently being created for a Student Development course.

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Move Aside Scotty, Jing is the Thing: Individualized Student-Created Tutorial Collections, Performance Assessment and Easy Instructor Feedback
Stephanie Wiegand (University of Northern Colorado)

If only Scotty could beam us around the world, to wherever and whenever students need our help… But, wait, there's Jing freeware! Engage students in video creation for performance assessment as they build personalized libraries of research tutorials. But, wait, there's more! Address and correct errors in class assignments in seconds. But, wait, there's more! Create individualized instruction for students not enrolled in information literacy courses and videos as follow-ups to one-shot sessions. Attend this session and discover a new frontier of easy and efficient online video utilization for instruction.

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Muchos Mentores en Iowa: The Pedagogy of Student to Student Mentoring in Information Literacy
Phil Jones, Julia Bauder and Beth Bohstedt (Grinnell College)
- Slides
- Handout

At Grinnell College we believe that students can be the best teachers and that lasting learning also happens outside of the classroom. The Grinnell College Libraries' peer mentoring program is rooted in these beliefs. Our program has two components: advanced research help provided by reference assistants (RAs) at the reference desk; and basic information service provided by all students working at our public service desks. Throughout this presentation, attendees will be challenged to consider if peer information service is appropriate for their libraries and to articulate initial steps to explore and implement such a service.

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One size can't fit all: A multi-layered assessment approach to identifying skill and competency levels
Jennifer Sharkey, Bill McMillin and Trisha Prosise (Illinois State University)

Identifying skill and competency levels of freshman college students can be challenging. Where they are and what they know regarding finding, using, evaluating, and synthesizing information influences what we teach via tutorials, online subject guides, and in-class teaching. This session will discuss why it is important to conduct multiple types of assessment for determining students' skill and competency levels. The presenters will highlight the instruments that make up their library instruction program's multi-layered assessment approach for a first-year introductory composition & communication program and how they are used to inform future planning and teaching efforts. Specifically, the types of assessment instruments, such as pre-/post-testing, student self-evaluation, source use analysis, and feedback mechanisms from librarians and instructors, utilized within the program will be included in the presentation. The presenters will also discuss barriers to implementation of various assessment approaches. A final component of the presentation will be to show how to use gathered data to inform future planning and instructional efforts for a program. In particular, the presenters will address important elements, like determining validity of questions, mapping trends of skill sets and competencies, and applying continual internal self-reflection, to guide the planning, design, and implementation process.

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Picture This: A Show-Me-To-Win-Me-Over Method of Visually Indexing Strategic Research Instruction
Eloisa Borah (UCLA Rosenfeld Management Library)
- Handout

What if you could show a single image which instantly summarized your one-hour instruction session? Short attention spans could be conquered, and your library instruction could jump right into the prescribed search strategies. Despite the proven strategy of using pictures to say a thousand words, most library instruction Web pages, handouts, slides, and other instructional materials are still text-only or mostly textual. See how employing visual indexing of information can be a powerful tool to help your users remember the instruction provided in both your online and live tutorials. Learn how this method has been winning over users. Take away a checklist and practical instructions.

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Reaching the masses through your content management system
Leslie Adebonojo and Kathy Campbell (East Tennessee State University)

Using your institution's content management system to distribute a module on the library's resources creates an effective venue for reaching students. Our goal was to get the word out about our resources and teach our students a few techniques about searching by using our institution's course management system. We created a Desire2Learn (D2L) module for release to all faculty consisting of short films and documents about the library as well as websites of interest. If the professor decides to incorporate the module into their course site, it becomes part of the course's class content. We are currently monitoring 67 courses.

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Reducing digestible tidbits from meaty stock: Satisfying varied tastes with an attractive instructional assessment menu
Erika Bennett, Jennie Simning and Kim Staley (Capella University)
- Slides

Do you collect streams of data that never see the light of day? Libraries are more frequently being held accountable for metrics via scorecards, dashboards, and other short snapshots of performance. Information Literacy practitioners have meanwhile moved away from tick-marks to a learning outcome assessment culture. This means that the full array of evaluative, formative and summative approaches-- competencies, tests, self-reports and rubrics-- can leave new librarians' heads spinning.

Learning outcomes data are hard to wrangle, let alone, in a digestible format, but fresh assessment approaches can fully illustrate the benefits of our varied media and modes of instruction. Instead of underreporting our value, we must reconcile decision-makers' needs with instructional best practices. The presenters are assessment enthusiasts, not assessment professionals, so this session will be highly accessible, and the presenters will encourage audience members to share their expertise.

The session will gauge the audience's vocabulary and skills regarding assessment culture. It will apprise practitioners of the challenges of educational media assessment and introduce new technologies for visualizing and compiling data. It will also provide practical examples from Capella Library's assessment strategy.
Session presenters come from a higher education for-profit setting. They bring the value of Information Literacy to the forefront in an intensely results-driven environment. Capella University Library has engineered a holistic reporting strategy through a living information literacy plan that draws from a plethora of data pipelines. Capella University is an invited member of the Presidents' Alliance for Excellence in Student Learning & Accountability.

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Rigging for Rigor: Guiding Classroom Faculty toward Richer Research Assignments with the Research Guidance Rubric
Pete Coco and Hazel McClure (Grand Valley State University)

Proceeding from Project Information Literacy's recent report documenting student needs being left unmet by many research assignment prompts, two librarians developed a tool for faculty to self-assess their assignment prompts. The Research Guidance Rubric (RGR) functions both as a self-evaluation tool for faculty and as aìconversation-starter" between the disciplinary expertise of professors and the information literacy expertise of liaison librarians. We'll discuss assignment collaborations as we plumb the questions that premise the RGR: what makes a collaboration successful and how can librarian-created tools move the conversation on research assignments toward better student outcomes?

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Singing the Praises of IL: The Case of a Required Credit-bearing IL Music Course
Paul Neff (Augustana Campus, University of Alberta)

This presentation will focus on Music 228 -- the required credit-bearing discipline-specific information literacy course for undergraduate music students at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta in Camrose, Alberta, Canada. Augustana students in both the Bachelor of Arts (Music) and Bachelor of Music degrees are required to take this course (preferably in their 2nd year of study) to graduate. This presentation will include discussion of the course structure, example assignments and practical advice. Commentary will be offered regarding the course components including, but not limited to: understanding information, using the library catalogue, interdisciplinary and subject specific database searching, citation and plagiarism, using internet resources for academic research, etc. In addition, the presenter will discuss the co-requisite feature which encourages students to take a music history course concurrently with Music 228, thereby putting IL pedagogy into immediate and relevant practice. As well, results of 10 years of assessment of student learning via pre- and post tests in Music 228 will be reviewed. Strategies for implementing and sustaining such a course, including aspects of collaboration with faculty, will also be shared.

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Spice up Your Library Instruction With a Little PICO!
Ellen Welty and Sheila Hofstetter (Arizona State University)
- Slides
- Handout

PICO, a search-building technique born in the medical library profession, is readily adaptable to many other disciplines. As the "Five Ws" help students to identify the essential parts of an English composition, so too does PICO prompt students to recognize the important concepts of their research question. With PICO, students easily create a powerful and effective search strategy.

This demonstration will use PICO to formulate a search in three separate disciplines; health science, aviation, and the typical freshman composition assignment. We will reveal how to adapt the elements of the PICO acronym for use in a variety of disciplines not only in the search strategy but also in the reference interview. In one easy step we create a short list of extremely relevant results that students can use immediately.

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Teaching Matters: Reviewing and Rewarding the Teaching Role of Librarians
Carrie Donovan (Indiana University) and April Cunningham (Saddleback College)
- Slides
- Handout

Seizing the opportunity to increase the scope and impact of their efforts, librarians are expanding their role as teachers. Librarians who contribute to their institution's educational mission through the development and implementation of information literacy initiatives should have access to the established system of rewards available to other faculty. Based on survey data and documented research, this presentation will describe discrepancies among methods of assessment for teaching librarians in different types of institutions of higher education, as well as propose possibilities for more purposeful and strategic methods of describing and documenting librarians' teaching activities with the goal of rewarding success.

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Teaching with WorldCat Local: What's Different?
Margaret G. Grotti (University of Delaware) and Karen Sobel (University of Colorado – Denver)
- Slides
- Handout

This presentation discusses a recent study examining how WorldCat Local impacts library instruction. WorldCat Local is a library catalog discovery layer offered by OCLC. It has proven popular with academic libraries since its initial launch in 2008. This system is not merely a more flexible catalog interface, however; rather, it provides users with simplified search capabilities and access to multiple types of resources such as articles drawn from databases as well as catalog records drawn from an OPAC. Thus, WorldCat Local can be characterized as a meta-search system. Meta-search systems have long been at the center of a debate in library instruction contexts. This debate centers on the question of whether such systems ultimately help or hinder students' successful acquisition of information literacy skills and concepts.

The study revealed that librarians are struggling to adapt this radically different resource to existing teaching schemas, with mixed results. Librarians whose institutions have implemented, or which may implement WorldCat Local or another meta-search system will benefit by learning of the experiences, pedagogical approaches, and concerns of librarians who teach varied patron populations using this tool. Because adapting to new resources requires considerable experimentation and reflection, attendees will learn from the experiences of others and will gain a sense of how WorldCat Local can support information literacy. The presentation will additionally focus upon suggested teaching methods for harnessing the advantages of this resource and will discuss emerging best practice for teaching with WorldCat Local.

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The ASE Process Model: An Evidence-based Approach to Information Literacy Instruction
Don Latham and Melissa Gross (Florida State University)
- Slides

This presentation will describe an innovative approach to information literacy instruction developed through an IMLS National Leadership Research Grant. The instruction is driven by data gathered from first-year college students with below-proficient information literacy skills. Session participants will be introduced to the ASE Process Model. ASE is an acronym for both the process itself (Analyze, Search, Evaluate) and the means by which it was developed (Asking Students about their Experiences). Participants will also be shown how they can implement the ASE Process Model in various types of information literacy instruction in their home institutions.

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TILTing toward Millennials: Updating online information literacy instruction for post-modern learners
Rebeca Befus and Joshua Neds-Fox (Wayne State University)

This session will describe the challenge of reinventing a graphically outdated and content heavy online information literacy tutorial and tilting it toward a millennial audience. You will learn how we reinvented substantive content from an instructional design perspective and be provided general suggestions for creating quality content. In addition, you will learn specific design strategies, focusing on innovative web design trends, collaboration with public services librarians, and using cost-effective resources to create successful virtual learning environments. You will also view results from a study performed on the tutorial and learn how the results have influenced updates.

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Using Mashups and Multimedia to Provide Online User Independence for all Learning Styles
Lori Mestre (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
- Slides
- Handout

In the globalized e-learning environment, students coming from different cultures have different characteristics and require different support designed for their approaches to study and learning styles. Learn effective strategies of how to revolutionize your web pages and online instructional efforts to create engaging online learning tools and mashups that appeal to diverse learning styles. Improve your ability to move from passive presentation methods to more effective online instruction that focuses on independent student active learning.

After a discussion of a usability study to assess learning style preferences as they pertain to library tutorials, the audience will help to redesign a web page by pulling in various (preselected by the speaker) multimedia tools with the end goal being to create a page that allows for maximum control by students so that they can pick and choose the elements they need.

By the end of the session, audience members will have experienced a glimpse of challenges many students who are not linear or analytic thinkers confront when using many of the web pages and online instructional tools now available. They will also have had the opportunity to think more broadly about ways to modify pages by bringing in multimedia tools or by creating mash-ups to assist all learners to be able to actively and independently engage in the sites.

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What they don't know can help you: Creating information sessions based on a pre-assessment of students' library knowledge
Katherine Hanz and Jessica Lange (McGill University)
- Slides

Assessment typically comes at the end of an IL session; however, pre-assessment can prove equally valuable. As an ice-breaker during information sessions, two liaison librarians from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) asked students to write down one question they had about the library. Responses were collected, read on-the-spot and used to direct the content of the session. Afterward, questions were analyzed by theme, academic level, discipline and semester. The analysis illuminated areas in which the librarians had made assumptions about students' library knowledge when planning their information literacy sessions. Had it not been for the ice-breaker activity, many of the students' basic questions about library use would have been ignored. This research was used to tailor library workshops to address the actual, and not the assumed, gaps in students' library knowledge. Attendees will become familiar with a fun and interactive icebreaker activity to try in their own classes, as well as a new tool and methodology for assessing students' knowledge prior to information sessions.

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You Oughta Be in Pictures: Using Video in Library Instruction to Engage Students
Lori Mardis (Northwest Missouri State University)
- Prezi presentation (external site)

The presentation will showcase the development and implementation of three approaches where videos were integrated into the general education curriculum to help students connect with the services, resources, policies, and search techniques that are typically showcased in library instruction classes. Inspired by Rian Misfeldt's LOEX-of-the-West 2010 G.I.F.T.S. session, the presenter had freshman seminar students use flip video cameras to create their own library orientation videos. In an introduction to computers and information technology course, popular media was used to facilitate keyword selection and synonym brainstorming. A video of service and resource mixups was also used as a follow-up to instruction. This video quickly flashes library materials, collections, building facilities, services, and programs to reinforce the benefits and value of an academic library. The presenter will share the lesson plan worksheets, development guides, and equipment necessary to adapt the methodologies at attendees' institutions.

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