30 - An Information Literacy Project: Fostering Faculty-Librarian Collaboration and Building Lifelong Learning Skills through Tutorials

Background: The prevalence of misinformation highlights the importance of information literacy and the role of librarians in teaching this valuable skill. With a grant from the university libraries, a faculty from the health and kinesiology department and a health sciences librarian created an interactive lesson that integrated information literacy in two core curriculum e-textbooks. The tutorial guided the students in finding and evaluating resources while teaching them the basics of effective searching. The project’s main objective was to introduce students to credible information sources on topics related to complementary health approaches. This tutorial impacts 5,000 students each fiscal year.

Description: To support information literacy in courses, the university libraries announced a new grant offered to teams of faculty and librarians. The faculty received $2,000, and the librarian received $1,000 to spend on professional development or fund their projects as needed. Our project, which started in Spring 2020, included creating a tutorial using Articulate Storyline and adding the tutorial in a chapter of two electronic textbooks. We collaborated with other faculty in the health and kinesiology department and the publishers to implement the tutorial. The tutorial addresses critical evaluation and effective searching. By following the tutorial, quizzes, and interactive activities, students learn search strategies to research a topic on complementary health approaches. At the end of the fiscal year, a sample of assignments was collected from multiple sections to evaluate the project.

Conclusion: The tutorial was well received by faculty and our assessment demonstrated directed practice and quizzes have helped students gain a better understanding of complementary health approaches. Not only was there a positive impact on student learning, this collaboration created a strong relationship between the faculty and the librarian. They worked closely to meet project deadlines and assess outcomes. The faculty and librarian were both highly involved in building the tutorial. Throughout the project, they developed new skills and used new software, which can be applied in other future projects. The grant offered by the University Libraries was a successful initiative that helped build collegial relationships and foster cross-departmental collaboration on campus.