Notes from Joint Progression Standards Meeting

The following is an account of the Joint Progression Standards Meeting held last Friday. Many thanks to Eleonora Dubicki (Monmouth University) for preparing these notes.

Progression Standards Meeting
Joint Meeting SIL, ACRL/NJLA User Education Committee, and CJARL
Held at Monmouth University
December 12, 2008 10am – 12pm

Participants: Jacqui DaCosta – session leader (TCNJ), Eleonora Dubicki (Monmouth), Gary Schmidt (Ocean CC), Amy Clark (Brookdale CC), Jesse Traquir (Berkeley College), Martin Crabtree (Mercer County CC), Caitlyn Cook (Ocean CC), Ellen Parker (Atlantic Cape CC), Daniel Calandro (Mercer CC), Pamela Price (Mercer CC), Pat Dawson (Rider U), Heather Huey (NJIT), Nancy Madacsi (Centenary), Anne Ciliberti (WPUNJ), Nancy Weiner (WPUNJ), Beatrice Priestly (LBPL and Monmouth), Ruth Hamann (Passaic CCC), Lynee Richel (County College of Morris), Lisa Coats (Monmouth)
VALE executive committee charge – Work together to develop progression standards for students progressing from two year to four year colleges, for the entire group of 52 NJ academic libraries.

Anne Ciliberti – In the recent changes in articulation standards, four year schools must accept credits from 2 year schools. In current definitions of standards, technology and Information Literacy skills are grouped together so that either one satisfies the category, but in reality students need both not just one of these skills.

Many session participants felt that we need to pursue our progression standards recommendations with the Council of Community Colleges, President’s Council (to seek NJ academic officers endorsement.)

Task force – meet in January, March and present at NJLA. Standards should be completed by this summer.

Brainstorming – entire group participated to identify issues and topics that should be addressed by the task force and the documents produced:
- What do we want these standards to be?
- Standards vs guidelines/mandates vs suggestions
- There are K-12 standards for IL, but they aren’t well disseminated. 4 groups. NJ Dept. of Ed. http://www.nj.gov/education/cccs/s8_tech.pdf
- If you get through Middle States accreditation, then school will have addressed IL articulation standards.
- How do you assess whether students have the necessary IL skills when they come to college?
- Heather – it helps to meet with classes multiple times. At NJIT IL is covered in humanities 101 , which meets 3 times – citations, book or articles, evaluate websites.
- Nancy - Focus on our freshman and sophomores to be at when they move to 4 year. What is the competency they should have at end of sophomore year and take this to governing body. Help differentiate between IL and Technology Literacy.
- 2 yr schools have open admissions, how do you address the needs of all types of students – those continuing those who are non-matriculating.
- Mark - Where should IL standards be enforced – librarians, faculty
- Pam - Should there be specific standards for people in professional programs – nursing, therapy.
- Ma Lei: ACRL – standards are the standards and objectives. That’s where should start. Merge with Middle States standards – give visions
- Lynee – needs will be diverse across so all types of students and schools, we should look at macro level which are relevant to everyone – evaluating information and ethical and legal uses.
- Is there a model we would like to follow? What type of wording? Go with simplicity.

Break-out group highlights:

Group 1:
- conceptualizing the document, macro
- Preferred Oswego format, focus on the degree of difficulty. Standards for 1) 1st yr 2) 2nd year
- Copyright only at upper division
- Prefer one page for presentation to groups, bullet point format for simplicity in presentations
- Outcomes assessments (by institution)
- Broad framework to cover difference student contexts, include non-traditional and DL learners

Group 2
- Progressive statements
- non-jargon language to communicate effectively to administrators/non librarians
- Use ACRL standards as a foundation- benchmarks, incoming proficiency, second level
- Assessment – where does it happen, how is faculty involved?
- IL should be embedded in the curriculum

Group 3
- Need to sell information literacy to admin, faculty – highlight IL failures that have been in the news. Context is very important.
- Ethical/Legal/economic issues important in lifelong learning (ACRL5)
- Important to understand “critical thinking” as many faculty see IL – IL not always addressed outside of library
- Need to have a broad foundation
- Simplicity (ACRL too detailed)
- Need to add another layer of experience to Bloom’s taxonomy to include active learning, significant, intentional learning

Group 4
- Accreditation – suggest models as a mandate
- Checklist for competency – simplify wording
- Role of the librarian
- Skills assessment/ outcomes
- Evidence
- Critical thinking

Group 5
- Simplicity in the document produced, eg. SUNY, Rochester
- What should be mastered by end of freshmen and sophomore years? Or expectations by credits – 30 credits, 60/64 credits
- Individual schools can contextualize our document
- Simplified ACRL standards 1-5 eg. SUNY, Eg. 1) Information need – one sentence explanation, then identify competencies needed
- Rows – Standards then competency (how you demonstrate)
- Columns – Level (1st and 2nd) and Upper
- Use a brief introduction to explain the proposed standards ½ - one page

Resources which were shared with participants prior to the meeting or mentioned during the session:
- Middle States IL: http://www.msche.org/publications/Developing-Skills080111151714.pdf
- Core Library and Research Skills Grad 9 – 14+ (Rochester Regional Library Council)
- Information Literacy Learning outcomes for SUNY Oswego Undergraduates
- Criteria for Information Literacy Competency (New Jersey City University)
- California State University Checklist of Information Competencies
- NJ skills assessment chart for K-12: http://www.state.nj.us/education/techno/techlit/tapin/2ci_skills_array.pdf
- NJ Dept of Education website: http://www.state.nj.us/education/techno/techlit/compare/
- NJ Dept of education, Professional and Educational standards: http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_list_cpi;c=8;s=1;g=12