Tom Adam

Tom Adam is Information Literacy Coordinator for Western Libraries at the University of Western Ontario. He works from the Teaching Support Centre, located in The D.B. Weldon Library at Western. It is a collaborative partnership of information literacy, pedagogical and faculty development experts. The Centre facilitates programmes and services on scholarly teaching practices and fosters a culture of research in the scholarship of teaching for faculty, librarians and graduate teaching assistants at Western. Tom chairs the Information Literacy Committee, which coordinated Western's participation in the SAILS project.

Ilo-Katryn Maimets

Ilo-Katryn Maimets has been a science librarian at York University since 2003. Her subject specialties are Nursing, Kinesiology and Biology, and service provision for these groups include liaison, collection development and information literacy instruction. She has a special interest in IL instruction and adult learning, and is extensively involved in collaboration efforts with nursing faculty to integrate IL into the curriculum. As a member of the IL committee, she was involved with implementing Project SAILS at York University in its third phase of development. One of her current focuses is on providing equivalent access to library instruction and resources for distance and remote learners through the use of technology.

Information Literacy Evaluation: Fishing for answers with SAILS

Tom Adam, University of Western Ontario and Ilo-Katryn Maimets, York University

workshop 1 / Wednesday, May 10 / 1:00 - 4:00

Beginning in the fall of 2006, SAILS (Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills) will be widely available to use as a tool for measuring information literacy competencies of students. How will you know whether SAILS is right for you? Attend this session and hear about the experiences of two Ontario universities who participated in SAILS in 2004-2005.

The discussion will focus on why SAILS was chosen as the instrument to evaluate information literacy in these two universities, how it was implemented and promoted in each institution, what the test revealed about the students who took it, and lessons learned from the partnerships and collaboration with different communities on campus. The session will ultimately focus on how the information gathered through SAILS testing can be used for refining and focusing information literacy instruction in the future.

Participants will benefit from this session in several ways:

1) Participants will understand the benefits of using a standardized test for assessing Information Literacy skills among students.

2) Participants will understand what resources (human, financial, technical) are required for SAILS testing.

3) Participants will see sample results and understand how the data can be used to inform and enhance future directions for information literacy instruction.

Carolyn Radcliff

Carolyn Radcliff is associate professor for Libraries and Media Services at Kent State University. She has been a reference and instruction librarian for fifteen years and is currently liaison librarian for biological sciences, communication studies, and journalism. She has a long-standing interest in assessment and library effectiveness. She is a founding member of Project SAILS, for which she currently serves as project administrator, and is co-administrator for the Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program (WOREP). She has published and presented in the areas of information literacy assessment, reference service, and reference assessment.

Joe Salem

Joseph Salem is Assistant Professor for Libraries and Media Services at Kent State University. He has served as a reference and instruction librarian specializing in government information since 2000 and assumed his current position as Head of Reference and Government Information Services in 2005. Research and professional interests include the assessment of and library services in general and information literacy instruction in particular. As a member of the Project SAILS Team, his responsibilities include item development and data analysis.

Using the SAILS Test to Measure Information Literacy

Carolyn Radcliff and Joe Salem, Kent State University

The Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (SAILS) is a new tool for measuring information literacy levels of cohorts of students. The SAILS test is based directly on the ACRL Information Competencies for Higher Education. Focusing on both fundamental and advanced information literacy skills and concepts, the test asks students questions about research strategies; selecting sources; understanding and using finding tools; developing and revising search strategies; evaluating results; retrieving materials; documenting sources; and a host of legal and social issues related to ethical and effective use of information. Results of the test are presented within skill sets and by the demographic variables of class standing and major. Comparisons with groups of institutions are also included.

Attendees will develop an understanding of the SAILS test and whether it may be useful at their own institutions. They will participate in a small group exercise on understanding and interpreting results from the SAILS test. They will learn that SAILS can be administered to students at different stages in their college careers, allowing for comparison of freshmen to seniors. It is also possible to measure the effect of different teaching strategies and interventions. In these ways, librarians and their collaborators can know if students are being prepared to be successful information searchers and users.

Project SAILS is located at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio and has received support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Association of Research Libraries, and more than 80 institutions from Canada and the U.S. that participated in the development phase of the project. The presenters are members of the Project SAILS team.