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Information Literacy Toolkit

Information Literacy Toolkit for Faculty

Information Literacy Assessment

Information Literacy assessment allows faculty, instructors, librarians and students to achieve a number of goals:

  • Formative assessments such as short assignments, activities and quizzes check understanding of important concepts, and to provide feedback to further learning, success and engagement.
  • Summative assessments such as major research papers evaluate completed research projects, most often for the purpose of assigning grades. These assessments also provide opportunities for feedback, mark successful completion of assigned work, and facilitate reflection on how the class or group performed.  
  • Programmatic assessments such as national exams, qualitative research studies, and studies of student research projects in a particular major are used to improve programs and curricula. They can be used for reporting and compliance, but in discussions to plan improvements to courses and curricula. 

Many assessments use a mix of approaches and purposes. Librarians can help by collaborating with faculty and departments to recommend short activities and tutorials, assignment revisions, rubrics, and feedback strategies to facilitate information literacy assessment.  

Further information: 

Information Literacy Rubrics

The Fresno State Information Literacy Rubric was developed by a task force of faculty from across the university. The rubric was adapted from the Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) VALUE Rubric for Information Literacy. The VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics were designed to "provide an authentic approach to [...] articulate and measure the skills, abilities, and dispositions that students need and that policymakers and employers demand." These rubrics were developed and tested by evaluators and faculty at many institutions, and inform many assessments across higher education. The VALUE rubric for information literacy was developed to evaluate research papers across the disciplines and can be further adapted to many assignment types.