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This study tested the influence of instructional elements within an online Open Educational Resource (OER) focused on information literacy (IL) on outcome measures of IL achievement, learner satisfaction and IL self-efficacy among undergraduate students. An online OER was designed to address the domains of access, evaluation and communication of IL guided by the notion of instructional scaffolding and self-regulated learning. Participants were randomly placed into one of six different OER conditions: (a) full version with all instructional elements, (b) lean version, (c) version without tooltip text, (d) version without embedded practice questions, (e) version without learning objectives and (f) version without summaries. There were no significant differences found across the six conditions on the dependent measures. Participants averaged 58% for IL achievement, performing slightly better in the domain of access versus evaluate and communicate. Limitations include a controlled laboratory setting where participants were not necessarily motivated to complete the study tasks at a high level of achievement. Future research can explore more ecologically valid environments where learners might be more motivated, along with more rigorous intervention and assessment construction. This paper includes implications for educators and researchers to explore the established and innovative instructional elements that are natural affordances of an online OER in IL. This paper presents innovative IL instruction that does not require instructor or learner training and evaluates its effectiveness using a sound, replicable methodological approach to isolate the effects of the individual instructional elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a creative Wikipedia-based project developed by the University of Kansas (KU) Libraries and the KU Biology Department. Inspired by the tenets of open pedagogy, the purpose of this project is to use Wikipedia as a way for students to learn about the scholarly peer review process while also producing material that can be shared and used by the world outside the classroom. The paper is divided into three sections, with the first summarizing pertinent related literature related to the paper's topic. From here, the paper describes the proposed assignment, detailing a process wherein students write new articles for the encyclopedia which are then anonymously peer reviewed by other students in the class; when articles are deemed acceptable, they are published via Wikipedia. The parallels between this project and academic peer review are emphasized throughout. The paper closes by discussing the importance of this project, arguing that it fills a known scholarly need, actively produces knowledge, furthers the aims of the open access movement, and furthers scientific outreach initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The OTIL is a new information literacy (IL) test, designed to be flexible and adjustable for use across a variety of contexts where IL is important. This paper discusses the development and face validation of OTIL and a Higher Education (HE) add-on that can be used to make the test HE specific. OTIL was developed in line with the new CILIP (2018) definition. It is comprised of a core set of general IL questions which can be combined with context-specific add-on question sets. Categories of IL form a template that can be used for additional question creation. Additionally, we have developed add-on questions for HE which do not contain in-built specificities to domain, region or institution in order to permit for IL research across different universities. The OTIL is designed for longitudinal research, with three different test versions available. The categories, general questions, and HE questions have been face validity tested with a panel of experts. The expert panel found the OTIL to be relevant and to accurately represent what is meant by IL. Feedback from the panel was used to refine and improve the test questions. The OTIL aims to be adaptable to different information contexts, in recognition of the diverse ways in which IL can be expressed. We encourage researchers in IL to use the OTIL and create add-on question sets for their different information settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the attempt by librarians at California State University Channel Islands (CI) to authentically assess the information literacy levels of first-year and third-year students, their partnership with faculty from CI's writing and rhetoric programme in receiving a grant for this endeavour, the creation of a rubric and specialised assignment to facilitate the assessment process and the initial assessment data that came from the three-year grant period. Information gathered during our pilot study suggests that student information literacy proficiency levels can been determined by assessing student writing assignments, and that a targeted rubric is an effective authentic assessment measure in this endeavour. This study is of use to practising librarians as it highlights the efforts of the authors to partner with faculty, not only in assessing student papers, but also in creating a rubric and specialised bibliography assignment that can be used by librarians and faculty at their institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to discuss some of the challenges and possibilities that librarians may face when engaging in faculty-library collaboration. The main objective is to present findings from two case studies of embedded librarianship at Gjøvik University College (GUC) and to compare these findings with results from a literature review. The literature review is concentrated around collaboration challenges, a possible role-expansion for librarians, team-teaching and assessment of information skills courses. Another objective is to present two pedagogical approaches that are in use at GUC; the tutor approach and the team-teaching approach. Findings from the case studies suggest that faculty staff were impressed with the librarian's knowledge and they quickly became comfortable with team-teaching and/or leaving the librarian in charge of the students. However there were concerns from both the teacher and librarian about the time-consuming nature of collaborative work. This paper contributes to the literature through a literature review, two case studies and teaching approaches that highlight factors leading to success when collaborating with faculty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of 2012 a short course, the Certificate of Information Literacy, was registered by the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Libraries and was first introduced in 2013. The course consisted of five modules and a summative assessment. The assessment, accessed via the Learning Management System, comprised 100 multiple-choice questions of which students received a randomly selected fifty to answer in ninety minutes. This article reports on the effectiveness and validity of the online assessment for the Certificate of Information Literacy: whether the assessment instrument accurately measures the information literacy skills of the students and whether the test can be considered valid and reliable. There are two parts to the study, but this paper focuses on the first part which is an item analysis on the assessment data of the students who completed the test in 2013. The results highlight weaknesses and problematic areas in the test. The second part of the study will focus on comparing the results students received in the test with the results of a subject-specific essay assignment to measure the level of application of their information literacy skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]