Embedded infolit skills appear to be most beneficial.

The University of Guelph Library believes that information literacy skills are skills students need to become critical thinkers for their studies and for lifelong learning. There are several models of instruction currently in practice at the University of Guelph Library and Learning Commons. We support the information literacy initiatives by providing students, staff and faculty with a range of opportunities, formal and informal, for information literacy learning. These opportunities fall into one of three categories: Supplemental, Integrated and Embedded. Supplemental instruction includes instruction in generic research skills; development of on-line resources; individual and small group support; and information and awareness sessions on services through campus outreach activities. Integrated programs provide an opportunity to relate information literacy skill building to specific course contexts. They are created in consultation with faculty or teaching assistants and address discipline-specific research issues. The integrated program includes one-shot course integrated sessions. Embedded services include collaborative initiatives with individual faculty, courses, departments, and curriculum committees that build learning tools and supports directly into the curriculum. The embedded program includes "for credit" courses entirely focused on information literacy skills and initiatives in which information literacy skills are intentionally designed and embedded within course and curriculum frameworks. While all types of information literacy instruction are important we see the embedded initiatives as the most effective way to reach our students because we feel that information literacy skills are best learned within the context provided by a course within the curriculum and when they have been designed and incorporated into the course design stage in collaboration with faculty. All information literacy learning components are based closely on the content of the course and its learning objectives. In addition our latest initiatives include a unique Learning Commons curricular approach. Our goal is to embed learning, writing, research, numeracy and technology learning objectives throughout the curriculum.
http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/services/information_literacy_&_instruction/about_information_literacy/

Goal:

• To graduate information literate individuals.

Assessment:

• Interviews with faculty - commented that the library integration was a resounding success.

• The chair - indicated that this embedded approach was providing her students with innovative classroom instruction, assignments attuned to the faculty's course plans and the students' needs. She felt that we were supporting the faculty not just by contributing to the curriculum but also because we were designing assessment components that helped measure the courses information literacy learning components.

• Results from the SAILS testing of first and fourth year BAS students - found that students in the BAS program performed higher than all other institutional benchmarks and higher than the Ontario Consortia.

Comprehensive, embedded infolit skills in 4-year programs.

The Bachelor of Arts and Science program is a four-year honours program leading to a B.A.S. degree. A unique aspect of this program is that students pursue double minor specializations, rather than concentrating on a major. The two majors include one in the Arts (Humanities or Social Sciences) and one in the Sciences. The double minor requirement provides the students with an opportunity to undertake research and to stimulate their intellects in original ways through an unconventional pairing of disciplines. Complementing the double minors that each student chooses is a required, common stream of "core" courses. It is in this core stream that we focus our information literacy integration efforts. As the program develops we have had the opportunity to develop relationships and collaborate with the department chair, the curriculum committee and all teaching faculty to articulate goals, objectives, outcomes, assignments, and sequencing. The program is not designed to be a checklist of skills taught. Our model assumes that skills get deepened over time and experience. With each passing semester we know what has been taught before and can deepen that understanding to a next level. Rather than basing our efforts solely on the traditional ACRL Information Literacy Standards, we included in our model the approach of the "Seven Pillars of Information Literacy" of the British Society of College, National, and University Libraries (SCONUL). The essential tenets of this model are that information literacy be embedded in an ever deepened way into the curriculum. Our goal is to have students, who began the BAS program as "novice" library users, move through the information literacy pillars to become "proficient" or even "expert" researchers and users of information.

Goal:

• To reach all students in the BAS program in every year of their degree by embedding skills into their core courses.

Assessment:

NA