Illinois Central College: Project Description

✓ Student Learning: Assignment

(No) Student Learning: Course

(No) Student Learning: Major

(No) Student Learning: Degree

(No) Student Engagement

✓ Student Success

(No) Academic Intimacy/Rapport

(No) Enrollment

(No) Retention

(No) Completion

(No) Graduation

(No) Articulation

(No) Graduates' Career Success

(No) Testing (e.g., GRE, MCAT, LSAT, CAAP, CLA, MAPP)

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Instruction

(No) Instruction: Games

✓ Instruction: One Shot

(No) Instruction: Course Embedded

(No) Instruction: Self-Paced Tutorials

(No) Reference

(No) Educational Role (other than reference or instruction)

(No) Space, Physical

(No) Discovery (library resources integrated in institutional web and other information portals)

(No) Discovery (library resource guides)

(No) Discovery (from preferred user starting points)

(No) Collections (quality, depth, diversity, format or currency)

(No) Personnel (number and quality)

(No) Other (please describe)

✓ Undergraduate

(No) Graduate

(No) Incoming

(No) Graduating

(No) Pre-College/Developmental/Basic Skills

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Arts

(No) Humanities

(No) Social Sciences

(No) Natural Sciences (i.e., space, earth, life, chemistry or physics)

(No) Formal Sciences (i.e., computer science, logic, mathematics, statistics or systems science)

(No) Professions/Applied Sciences

✓ English Composition

✓ General Education

(No) Information Literacy Credit Course

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Assessment Office

✓ Institutional Research

✓ Teaching Faculty

(No) Writing Center

(No) Information/Academic Technology

(No) Student Affairs

✓ Campus Administrator

✓ Library Administrator

(No) Other Librarian

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Survey

(No) Interviews

(No) Focus Group(s)

(No) Observation

(No) Pre/Post Test

✓ Rubric

(No) Other (please describe)

(No) Student Portfolio

✓ Research Paper/Project

(No) Class Assignment (other than research paper/project)

(No) Other (please describe)

✓ Test Scores

(No) GPA

(No) Degree Completion Rate

(No) Retention Rate

(No) Other (please describe)

• How does the project align with your institution’s priorities and needs?
• Why did you choose the outcome and library factor as areas to examine?
• Why was the team composition appropriate?

1. “How does library instruction impact student success within sections of ENG 111(Composition II)?” was our inquiry question. This aligned with our ENG 111 course goal, “to locate, evaluate, use and document primary and secondary conventionally published research sources” and our general education goal, “the student demonstrates computer literacy and information literacy.” This general education goal is new for Illinois Central College, and the college will be looking closely at assessing it in 2014-15. Therefore, we wanted to begin the process early, since librarians will be an integral part of this assessment. Our team members included two teaching faculty in our English/Humanities department, one of which is also part of our college-wide assessment committee. They were invaluable in providing insight to general assessment techniques.

• What are the significant contributions of your project?
• What was learned about assessing the library’s impact on student learning and success?
• What was learned about creating or contributing to a culture of assessment on campus?
• What, if any, are the significant findings of your project?

1. I feel the main contributions to the college about our project is the idea that the library is “buying in” wholeheartedly to assessing student success, especially as it related to the general education goal. The “culture of assessment” started at Illinois Central College several years ago, and this project allowed for us to make a starting contribution. Library instruction assessment is relatively new for us, and this project got us started on the right foot. In my opinion, it provided me (as team leader) the skills to continue assessment projects in the future. As for our findings – we discovered that after library instruction, evaluation of resources increased significantly. Location of information improved as well, but not as much as originally hoped.

• What will you change as a result of what you learned (– e.g., institutional activities, library functions or practices, personal/professional practice, other)?
• How does this project contribute to current, past, or future assessment activities on your campus?

1. This assessment project was VERY small scale, and yet we were able to gather some good data regarding our instruction sessions for our most popular class, ENG 111. Therefore, we know what we need to change/emphasize more in our sessions – how to find information more efficiently. Our teaching of the evaluation of information is doing well, but as always, could continue to be improved. As far as future assessment activities on our campus, I feel that we will be involved more. Librarians on campus were never included in any assessment projects previously, and will now be included in the future, which is a huge step for us!

Please list any articles published, presentations given, URL of project website, and team leader contact details.

1. Amy Glass, Reference Librarian
   1 College Drive, East Peoria, IL 61635-0001
   309-694-5748, amy.glass@icc.edu

   • Co-Presenter at the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) Annual Meeting, November 1, 2013
   • Co-Presenter at the Illinois Council of Community College Administrators (ICCCA) Annual Conference, November 14, 2013

Library Assessment…the Next Frontier!

This poster session is the story of the Illinois Central College Library and its mission to explore the impact of librarian led instruction over the course of two papers in several sections of ENG 111 (Composition II) courses. The team sought out assessment strategies to measure student success with those papers (as part of a new general education goal to demonstrate information literacy)…and boldly went into the new and exciting world of assessment.