Information Literacy Program
2001: A Snapshot

Introduction
2001 was the first year of full operations for the Information Literacy Program. Training began in January, 2001 and concluded in late December. The delivery is through eight main nodes -- the National Institute of The Arts libraries, the Information Literacy Program for Graduate Students, IT Group, Asia-Pacific Cluster, Science Cluster, Law Cluster, Social Science and Humanities Cluster, and Infoplace. There are approximately 35 Information Infrastructure and Scholarly Information Services staff involved in the administration and delivery of training sessions. Four staff members (3.5 EFT) are employed solely on the program.

Statistics below relate to courses delivered. A number of activities, undertaken by the Program team, do not lend themselves to statistical analysis. Some of these are noted below and some are discussed in Progress Reports.

Overview

These statistics indicate that the Information Literacy Program has achieved a remarkable outcome in its first year of operation. Statistics for previous years information literacy training conducted by The Library have not been included as they were not collected in a way that allows easy comparison.

Points to note

1. Student IT training and Information Literacy Program for Graduate Students were both new enterprises for 2001. The IT Group held its first classes in March 2001. The Graduate Program for Information Literacy held its first classes in May 2001.

2. InfoPlace statistics do not include the number of interactions between students and student consultants. For example, from Jan to Oct, 2001 InfoPlace had 10,421 logged enquiries. This indicates that many more students participate in the Information Literacy Program than are formally counted through session attendance.

3. Law (2269 participants) and Science (1995 participants) were particularly successful in 2001 in integrating information literacy teaching practices into first year units. Law had an existing Program prior to the establishment of the Information Literacy Program so was building on an already strong base.

Location of training
Training was held across the campus in most major buildings. The predominance of hands-on training created a significant strain on bookings for the computer laboratories. Training was held across all precincts of the campus

Methodology of delivery
Approximately 85.2% of training involved active participation by attendees through hands-on workshops or seminars. Delivery styles included:

Hands-on workshop
Presentations and Tours
Demonstration
Drop-in Help Session
Individual assistance
Seminar

Staff and student participation ratio

Staff training
It is not possible to calculate a definitive number for staff who participated in training due to the large number of sessions attended by both staff and students. However, at least 1567 ANU academic and general staff attended training in 2002. Staff training was conducted across all 8 delivery nodes. The pattern of delivery fell into four broad categories:

1. Training through a Faculty or School Faculty of Asian studies Faculty of ArtsFaculty of Economics and CommerceRSPAS & RSSS*all training was free
2. Generic information literacy training offered to all staff Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Dreamweaver, HTML, EndNote, web searching,*ILP subsidised training by approximately 50%
3. Small group training with highly specific outcomes eg Web of Science and New Electronic Journals for Resource Management and Environmental Sciences for the CRES staffOutlook for Bruce Hall staff *library training is free, IT training is subsidised
4. Combined staff and student E.g. Graduate Electronic Resources for Australian Studies, WestLaw*all training was free

Student training
All student training in 2001 was free to students. Training was delivered to a wide diversity of groups ranging from pre-admission students through to all levels of candidature within the Graduate School. There were two main delivery modes:

1. In Curriculum Training Embedded into the curriculum and assessment Eg LAWS 1201, Big Questions, Adjunct training eg Excel and Word, NCEPH MAE, Electronic journals for 3rd year Art Theory students
2. Most IT and Graduate Information Literacy Program training in 2001 was generic cross campus (e.g. touch typing, Overview of the Thesis Production Process). Training offered by each Library cluster was usually much more specific (e.g. Electronic resources for Art Theory, Endnote for Science).

Self perception of skills development

A total of 2,524 evaluations forms were submitted, by staff and students, at the conclusion of training sessions.

Comparison of staff and student self perception of skills before and after training

The graphs below indicate that there appears to be little difference between the way students and staff perceived their level of skills prior to training. Staff, however, self-rated as generally having a low starting point but after training it appears that they perceive themselves as having achieved similar skill levels to students.

Both staff and students achieved a significant shift upwards in their self perception of skills gained through training . At this point the method of statistical collection does not allow breakdown between academic and general staff.

Comparison of staff and student self perception
of skills before and after training, 2001

Both staff and students indicated a high level of satisfaction with the quality of materials, trainers and examples used within the sessions.

Conclusion
Although there were elements of Information Literacy delivered by the Library prior to 2001, last year was the first full year of operation of the Information Literacy Program. The above statistics will form the basis for analysis of the success of the Program in addressing the various information literacy needs of members of the University Community over the next two years.

Karen Visser
Trainer -- Manager, Information Literacy Program
12 Dec 2001