University of Guelph Library
Fall 2008 testing has been completed and the winners have been notified. An analysis of the report will be posted in the next few months.
A recent SAILS (Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills) assessment of university and college students from across Canada and the United States found that University of Guelph students perform better than their peers at several key Information Literacy (IL) skills.
In 2004, Donna Pennee, former associate dean, arts and social sciences, initiated collaboration with University of Guelph Librarians to design a course curriculum that would increase students Information Literacy. These same students were then assessed in a pilot study to measure their IL quotient, and were found to be well ahead of students from other academic institutions.
Judged against their peers from 83 universities and colleges throughout Canada and the US, students at U of G performed better at:
- developing a research strategy
- selecting finding tools
- searching
- retrieving and evaluating sources
- understanding economic, legal and social issues
According to Pennee, "the embedding of information literacy into course development is the most effective way of getting students into the library and developing research skills from early in their programthey learn discernment and skills that are foundational to developing more complex research literacy as they progress through the core of the their program. Integrating research literacy skill development into the program curriculum is proving, as the early SAILS results show, to be an effective collaborative use of teaching and curricular resources."
In order to determine conclusively that there is a correlation between the curriculum that was customized by University of Guelph Librarians and the better than average Information Literacy test results, more research and more case studies are required.
An analysis of the Fall 2008 results from the testing will be available shortly. For more information contact:
The Research Team:
K. Jane Burpee, Head researcher
Judy Wanner
Jocelyn Phillips
Ron Ward
Reports & Presentations
University of Guelph Project SAILS 2008 Report (PDF – 924kb)
University of Guelph Project SAILS 2007 Report (PDF – 633kb)
Guelph — McMaster Presentation (PPT – 861kb)
Project SAILS Results: What do they mean? (PPT – 1489kb)
