ACRL Standards

Informed Practice: Using ACRL Information Literacy Objectives to Redirect Library Instruction
Presented by: Jessica Lange and Dawn McKinnon, McGill University 

• Within the Faculty of Management, Bachelor of Commerce Degree program (highest academic requirements currently in the country)
• Discussion around following students throughout their time in the college
• How we were reinforcing the ACRL standards and where are the gaps? 

Investigate the standards, and plan the IL session accordingly

Standards are made up of performance indicators and outcomes

Context:

• Invited into a classroom to facilitate an IL session, and then interest spread by word of mouth 
• Research-focused core classes in selected concentrations 
• IL session related to a specific assignment, 3 opportunities to interface with students and engage them in library services; try to ensure that they are not duplicating materials when the student participates in more than one class offering. Librarians mapped the courses that they were working with, looking at touch points and the types of information that was covered in each session. 
• Went through the ACRL standards to determine what standards were being reinforced and what was being neglected. 
• Discovered that the first and second standard were being taught with first year courses; the fifth standard was reinforced in the upper years of the program. They were hopeful that by the time a student graduated that they would be exposed to all of the standards.  
• The fourth standard falls in the instructor’s realm and was a noticeable gap in their current IL sessions 
• Prioritized standards that had not been previously taught to focus on going forward

This next section contains the standard and then the activities that were used to illustrate the standard

Standard 1
Define the information need
Identify Sources
- Cephalonian method - plant the correct answers in the audience
- Information timeline with slips of paper posted on the white board (specific to non-specific)
- Think-pair-share

Standard 2
Select the best tool
Create effective search strategies
Retrieve information
Refine the search
- Direction question
- Group sharing

Standard 3
Evaluate
Satisfies need
- Compare two articles excerpts and determine which one is academic and which one isn’t
- Illustrate bias

Standard 5
Cite sources
- Identify errors in citations
- Compile a citation out of parts
- Inserting in-text errors - what is missing from this statement?

Upper level group activities

Concentrating on all standards

- Own research questions, students determine what information they need and what resources will provide it
- Groups are given questions on different resources; students find answers and report back to the class

Recommendations:
- Implementing changes
- Faculty buy-in - not possible for one individual to teach all ACRL standards
- Assessment

For more information:
Guillikson, S. (2006). Faculty perception of ACRL's information literacy standards for higher education.  The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(6), pgs. 583-592.