ED-MEDIA 1999 Proceedings Book - Association for the ...

one-on-one with Teaching Assistants to provide customized support. Extensions underway for Library
Explorer include subject-specific “chapters” for different disciplines and special CD-ROM “cuts” from
Library Explorer to use with distance education students who do not have access to the Internet
(http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/libexp/).
TIER TWO – UTRIPLE I: Librarians work with faculty to determine a desirable combination of instructional
formats, assignments, and outcome evaluation methods building on experience derived from current and past
partnerships with GER and upper division course instruction for tier two components in an initiative called
UTripleI (University of Iowa Information Literacy Initiative) for:
• General Education Requirement Courses -- introductory subject-based information literacy component
developed with faculty and built into selected GER courses selected from the Departments of English,
Geography, History, Political Science, and Psychology including query formulation, information seeking
strategies, basic evaluation of information sources, and a basic understanding of copyright and intellectual
freedom issues.
• Science Information Literacy Initiative Project – development of specific information literacy components
related to the special needs of science disciplines and their courses.
• Undergraduate “Majors” Component -- advanced and more complex subject-based information seeking,
retrieval, and analysis components built into selected courses for undergraduate majors.
TIER THREE – FACULTY TRAINING AND SUPPPORT: Efforts to scale information literacy efforts
through faculty training include programs for on the application of learning technologies in their courses:
• nTITLE (New Technologies in the Teaching and Learning Environment – website noted below) is a
summer faculty training program taught largely by librarians. The Center also provides input into the
University Libraries’ TWIST (Teaching with Innovative Style and Technology) project
(http://www.uiowa.edu/~ntitle).
• TWIST (Teaching with Style and Innovative Technology) is a three year grant funded program whose major
goal is to create a model program for training faculty to integrate networked information into teaching as
well as information literacy components. TWIST project staff are sponsoring a series of late summer
workshops for faculty and staff to explore ways of fully using information technology in instructional
settings. The sessions focus on building learning environments for students - how to help students learn to
use electronic resources via OASIS (the University Libraries’ online catalog), the Web or CD -ROM; how
to build instructional Web sites to guide students as they learn critical thinking skills. One “scaling” factor
in this program is the development of web-based tutorials for faculty to use at anytime. Another scaling
factor is the development of a TWIST “template” for faculty to develop course web pages with an emphasis
on linkages to resources and information literacy-based lessons (http://twist.lib.uiowa.edu).
SUMMARY
Issues and challenges to scaling efforts with be reviewed including the need to “mine” partnerships with faculty
and technologists, the need for improved marketing of the inherent benefits of integrating an information
literacy component into one’s course, the difficulty of measuring and evaluating the success of a “scaled”
information literacy program, and the challenge of putting together a coherent program or curriculum in an
easily translatable modular form.