may04b.indd INTERNET RESOURCES Assessing student learning Available resources by Amy E. Mark T he national attention on assessment in education is here to stay. Teaching librar­ ians are focusing on assessing student learning both to justify library instruction to stakeholders and to improve student learning by working toward graduating entire classes of information literate students from colleges and universities. Librarians have become increasingly involved in assessment culture while searching for methods to assess information literacy. This column of Internet resources on student learning assess­ ment differs from a list of information literacy assessment Web sites by embracing the paradigm shift away from evaluation and moving toward the assessment of student learning. Librarians are transitioning from skill­based measurements of evaluations to outcomes­based assessment. By reviewing the resources below librarians also open themselves up to research outside of librarianship, cognizant that other disciplines have expertise with measurement and instru­ ments from which we can borrow. Meta sites • The Educator’s Reference Desk. The new ERIC Web site. Click on the “Evalua­ tion” link for many assessment and student learning resources. Access: http://www. eduref.org. • The Evaluation Center. Out of Western Michigan University, the center’s mission is to advance the theory, practice, and use of evalu­ ation; the site includes a searchable database of instruments. Access: http://www.wmich.edu /evalctr/. • Internet Resources for Higher Education Outcomes Assessment. One of the best meta­ sites examined, this page has informative annotations and is organized by listing an overall site link followed by links to helpful pages within sites. Highlights include links to conference sites, assessment handbooks, accrediting bodies, and a large section of individual institutions’ assessment­related pages. Access: http://www2.acs.ncsu.edu/ UPA/assmt/resource.htm. • Outcomes Assessment Resources on the Web. This site focuses primarily on links related to assessment in higher edu­ cation, including university assessment pages, links to agencies, institutes and or­ ganizations involved in assessment, instru­ ments, commercial resources, and statistical software. Access: http://www.tamu.edu /marshome/assess/oabooks.html. • Policy Center for the First Year of College. The place to go to find the right survey. “Instruments and tools” provides a list of assessment instruments plus a comprehensive collection of resources and guidelines to assist institutions in local data source compilation, data assembly, and data About the author Amy E. Mark is head of library instruction at the University of Mississippi Libraries, e-mail: aemark@olemiss.edu © 2004 Amy E. Mark 254 / C&RL News May 2004 mailto:aemark@olemiss.edu http:http://www.tamu.edu http:http://www2.acs.ncsu.edu http:http://www.wmich.edu http:eduref.org http://www analysis procedures. Access: http://www. brevard.edu/fyc. Organizations/Associations with Assess­ ment Resources • AAHE Assessment Forum. Home base for higher education practitioners working in assessment, the authors can honestly state that the site is the “primary national network connecting and supporting higher education stakehold­ ers involved in assessment.” All links to original content. Access: http://www.aahe.org /initiatives/assessment.htm. • American Evaluation Association (AEA). Devoted to the application and exploration of evaluation in all its forms, AEA believes that evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products, and organizations to improve their effectiveness. Access: http://www.eval.org. • Code of Professional Responsibilities in Educational Measurement. A site focusing on the ethics of measurement; prepared by the National Council on Measurement in Educa­ tion. Access: http://www.natd.org/Code_of_ Professional_Responsibilities.html. • Savvy Assessment and Evaluation Skills. This page from Diversity Web, an interactive resource hub for higher educa­ tion, is maintained by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Access: http://www.diversityweb.org/research_and_ trends/research_evaluation_impact/campus_ climate_evaluation_tools/savvy_assessment.cfm. Student learning outcomes and assessment • Nine Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning and Developing an Assessment Plan to Learn About Student Learning. Two initiatives from AAHE. Access: http://www.aahe.org/assessment/principl. htm and http://www.aahe.org/assessment /assessmentplan.htm. • FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing. Principles and indica­ tors for student assessment systems from the National Forum on Assessment. Access: http://fairtest.org/princind.htm. • Guidelines for Rubric Development. An important skill set in assessing student learning, this site gives examples of rubric design. Ac­ cess: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/july/rubrics /Rubric_Guidelines.html. • Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. An article discussing the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education in the context of communication and information tech­ nologies, by Steve Ehrmann and Arthur Chickering. Access: http://www.tltgroup.org /programs/seven.html. • Learning Skills Program Bloom’s Tax- onomy. One of the many interpretations of Bloom’s taxonomy used to categorize the level of abstraction of questions that com­ monly occur in educational settings. Access: http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program/ hndouts/bloom.html. • TLT. The Teaching, Learning, and Tech­ nology Group’s (TLT) goal is to “improve teaching and learning by making more appropriate and cost­effective use of information technology without sacrifi cing what matters most.” TLT fea­ tures assessment tools from the award­winning Flashlight Program. Access: http://www.tltgroup.org/. • Virtual Resource Site for Teaching with Technology. A resource for faculty seeking di­ rection in appropriate ways to use Web­based technologies to accomplish key learning strate­ gies of the teaching/learning issues in technol­ ogy­enabled instruction. The site consists of two modules; Module 1 provides information about the selection and use of various Web­based media; Module 2 focuses on delivery. Access: http://www.umuc.edu/virtualteaching/. Library­oriented sources • ACRL’s Infor mation Literacy Com- petency Standards Toolkit. A set of tools, Web pages, and other resources to help you use the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Includes performance indicators for each standard and outcomes. Access: www.ala.org/ala/acrl /acrlissues/acrlinfolit/infolitstandards /standardstoolkit.html. C&RL News May 2004 / 255 www.ala.org/ala/acrl http://www.umuc.edu/virtualteaching http:http://www.tltgroup.org http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program http:http://www.tltgroup.org http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/july/rubrics http://fairtest.org/princind.htm http://www.aahe.org/assessment http://www.aahe.org/assessment/principl http://www.diversityweb.org/research_and http://www.natd.org/Code_of http:http://www.eval.org http:http://www.aahe.org http://www • Assessing Community College: Informa- tion Literacy Competencies and Other Library Services and Resources. Includes a variety of links related to assessment and original con­ tent by Gratch Lindauer. Access: http://fog. ccsf.cc.ca.us/~bgratch/assess.html. • Assessment of Information and Technol- ogy Literacy. A statewide attempt to assess the information/technological literacy of bacca­ laureate degree recipients of the public four­ year institutions of Washington State. Access: http://depts.washington.edu/infolitr/. • Characteristics of Programs of Informa- tion Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices: A Guideline. An initiative by the Institute for Information Literacy and approved by the ACRL Board in June 2003, these guidelines attempt to “articulate elements of exemplary information literacy programs for under­ graduate students at four­year and two­year institutions.” Access: http://www.ala.org/ala /acrl/acrlstandards/characteristics.htm. • Hutchins Library Bibliographic Instruc- tion Program Evaluation. Detailed pretest and posttest analysis of student learning and percep­ tions of library instruction by Susan Henthorn. Access: http://www.berea.edu/library/BIEVAL /Pre­test­Post­test.html. • Internet Education Project. A site from the ACRL Instruction Section for sharing peer re­ viewed instructional materials created by librari­ ans to teach people about discovering, accessing, and evaluating information in networked environ­ ments. Access: http://cooley.colgate.edu/etech /iep/default.html. • LOEX Clearinghouse for Library Instruc- tion. LOEX provides resources “on all aspects of instruction to libraries and librarians who are institutional members,” including one­ page point­of­use handouts, bibliographies and subject guides, pathfi nders; instructional video; and Internet sites. Access: http://www. emich.edu/public/loex/loex.html. • Project SAILS: Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills. A project to “develop an instrument for program­ matic level assessment of information lit­ eracy skills that is valid and thus credible to university adminis­ trators and other academic personnel.” Access: http://sails.lms.kent.edu/index.php. Electronic lists on assessment • ASSESS. An electronic list from the Universi­ ty of Kentucky­Lexington (listserv@lsv.uky.edu) that is devoted to assessment in higher education and has a searchable archive and instructions for using the list. Access: http://lsv.uky.edu/archives /assess.html. Journals on assessment • Education Policy Analysis Archives. Ar­ ticles dealing with education policy. Access: http://epaa.asu.edu. • Educational Researcher. Publishes scholarly articles of “general significance to the educational research community from a wide range of disci­ plines.” Access: http://www.aera.net/pubs/er. • JEM: The Journal of Educational Measure- ment. Publishes original measurement research, reports on new measurement instruments, and serves as a vehicle for improving educational measurement applications in a variety of set­ tings. Access: http://ncme.org/pubs/jem.ace. • NCA-CIHE Assessment Resources. Provides links to original full text articles from the Higher Learn­ ing Commission on assessment. A c c e s s : h t t p : / / www.ncacihe.org/ resources/assess­ ment/index.html. • Review of Higher Education. Peer re­ viewed articles about critical higher educa­ tion issues, including assessment. Access: h t t p : / / w w w . p r e s s . j h u . e d u / j o u r n a l s /review_of_higher_education/. Corporate and pay assessment solutions • The Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric (HCTSR). Products for “multi­modal assessment” with four levels of descriptors are used to categorize the critical thinking evident in projects, portfolios, presentations, and essays. Access: http://www.insightassess­ ment.com/HCTSR.html. • InterEd. A business that offers out­ come assessment products for colleges and universities. Access: http://www.intered.com /college/collegehome.htm. (continued on page 284) 256 / C&RL News May 2004 http:http://www.intered.com http://www.insightassess http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals http:www.ncacihe.org http://ncme.org/pubs/jem.ace http://www.aera.net/pubs/er http:http://epaa.asu.edu http://lsv.uky.edu/archives mailto:listserv@lsv.uky.edu http://sails.lms.kent.edu/index.php http://www http://cooley.colgate.edu/etech http://www.berea.edu/library/BIEVAL http://www.ala.org/ala http://depts.washington.edu/infolitr http://fog gramming formats (adult contemporary, all news), shows (Fibber McGee and Molly, All Things Considered), networks and compa­ nies (NBC, Clear Channel Communications), technology (audiotape, receivers, walkman, digital satellite radio), law (Wireless Acts of 1910 and 1912, “Seven Dirty Words” case), issues (advertising, blacklisting, women in radio, propaganda, violence), awards, fi lm and TV depictions of radio, and emergency broadcasting. A much broader treatment than John Dunning’s On the Air: The Ency­ clopedia of Old­Time Radio (Oxford, 1998). $375.00. Routledge. ISBN 1­57958­431­4. Refuge of a Scoundrel: The Patriot Act in Libraries, by Herbert N. Foerstel (218 pages, January 2004), analyzes all aspects of the USA Patriot Act directly affecting libraries and of­ fers advice on what to do if your library is ap­ proached by law enforcement under authority of Section 215 of the act. Other chapters sum­ marize the FBI Library Awareness Program of the 1970s, recent government actions beyond the Patriot Act, and public and legislative re­ sponses to the act. Foerstel, formerly head of branch libraries at the University of Maryland­ College Park, also includes several useful ap­ pendices: survey results of the University of Illinois Library Research Center and the Califor­ nia Library Association on FBI library visits; a sample U.S. attorney records preservation de­ mand letter; and a sample district court ECPA order, subpoena, and search warrant. The FBI has refused to provide samples of either a FISA warrant or National Security Letter. $35.00. Li­ braries Unlimited. ISBN 1­59158­139­7. Russia, All 89 Regions: Trade and Invest- ment Guide (1,029 pages plus companion CD, January 2004), an English translation of a new Russian series to be published every two years, gathers together economic infor­ mation on Russia’s 89 republics and regions, cooperatively provided by the administra­ tors of each region, official publications of the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation, data from regional statistics of­ fices, and the estimates of regional and inde­ pendent experts. The guide’s primary section offers data on the administration, economic potential, trade and investment opportuni­ ties, and investment projects for each area, introduced by the region’s governor. Other interesting features include an introductory article by Arkady Volsky, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entre­ preneurs (Employers), titled “Why Invest in Russia?”; information on the Russian tax sys­ tem and foreign­investment legislation; a list of international credit institutions in Russia; the largest banks operating in each region; and an overview of the major economic events in the Russian Federation for the fi rst half of 2003. $395.00. CTEC Publishing, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 1007, New York, NY 10020. ISBN 0­9743478­1­7. Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Ran- dall and the Broadside Press, by Melba Joyce Boyd (385 pages, February 2004), highlights the life and career of Dudley Ran­ dall (1914–2000), poet, publisher, editor, civil­rights activist, and professional librar­ ian at Lincoln University, Morgan State Uni­ versity, the Wayne County Federated Library System, and the University of Detroit. Boyd, a former editor at the Broadside Press (founded by Randall in 1965) and his colleague for 28 years, has penned this de­ fi nitive biography and celebration of his poetry. Randall’s works include “Booker T. and W.E.B.” (1952), a dialogue between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois; “Ballad of Birmingham,” writ­ ten to commemorate the 1963 bombing of a church in which four girls were killed; and “Detroit Renaissance,” for which he was named poet laureate of the city in 1981. $29.50. Colum­ bia University. ISBN 0­231­13026­0.  (“Assessing student learning” continued from page 256) • National Center for Higher Educa- tion Management Systems (NCHEMS). A nonprofit organization with the mission of assisting colleges and universities as they improve their management capability; many assessment resources for sale. Access: http:// www.nchems.org.  284 / C&RL NewsMay 2004 http:www.nchems.org