Department/Program

Claremont Colleges Library

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

2014

Abstract

Presenters will discuss curricular and authentic assessment methods intended to prepare students to submit superior undergraduate theses for deposit in the institutional repository and related issues.

Using a Claremont Colleges Library developed Information Literacy (IL) Rubric (https://bit.ly/ccl-ilrubric) originally adapted from a rubric at Carleton College (Gould Library Reference and Instruction Department. "Information Literacy in Student Writing Rubric and Codebook." Northfield, MN: Carleton College. 2012. https://go.carleton.edu/6a), librarians are working closely with departments to provide authentic assessment of senior theses. Through this, librarians and faculty have identified areas where students score poorly (primarily attribution and evaluation of sources). In tandem with the rubric are curriculum mapping projects and coordinated librarian efforts to reach research and capstone classes that should help librarians and faculty scaffold Information Literacy into the curriculum.

This has led to faculty conversations about Information Literacy and its importance in producing high quality senior theses. Clearly, low quality theses reflect poorly on the college and the student while high quality theses create a high-quality repository and encourage further submissions. Faculty are sensitive to a variety of issues related to making theses available and they must be involved in policy making for departments and institutions. This is especially important to colleges that require senior theses to be uploaded to the repository. Greatly important is the opportunity for this process to stimulate discussions between librarians, faculty and students related to crucial issues of IL that might not otherwise be considered.

Comments

Presentation at ALA Midwinter (January 25, 2014) as part of bepress panel: Repositories as Curricular Tools.

Rights Information

© 2014 M. Sara Lowe and Sean M. Stone

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