SAILS Information Literacy Assessment Update
As described in the fall edition of News U Can Use, York University Libraries are participating in Phase III of a North America-wide project called SAILS (Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills). This project has been developed at Kent State University, in collaboration with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). It involves the creation of a survey questionnaire for measuring student information research skills and has been based on the Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards. Phase III, involving some 140 North American universities, encompasses the refining and finalizing of the questions in the survey. This project has been approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-committee at York. For a full description of SAILS see: http://sails.lms.kent.edu/.
At York, undergraduates learned about this survey in library instructional sessions, through the Libraries' website, distributed flyers, posters and in other ways. Many took time to answer this anonymous web-based survey available at http://epsilon.library.yorku.ca/sailsform.htm. At this point over 280 completed surveys have been received, so we’ve exceeded our minimum of 200 responses. SAILS closed at the end of March, and a number of students won prizes as a reward for their participation (including multiple $20 photocopy/print cards and a DVD player).
SAILS survey results will be sent to Kent State University along with some personal, though anonymized, data about the student participants: gender, GPA, major and level of study. The results will only appear in aggregated form.
York University Libraries will use these results to learn more about undergraduate research skills at York and how library instruction can be enhanced in future for a more successful academic experience.
For more information about SAILS, please contact one of the members of the SAILS research team:
- Sophie Bury, Peter F. Bronfman Business Library, sbury@yorku.ca
- Jennifer Dekker, Leslie Frost Library, dekkerj@yorku.ca
- Ilo Maimets, Steacie Science and Engineering Library, ilo@yorku.ca
<< newsletter home
|
