It is important for teaching, learning and assessment to be aligned, so that the assessment method is appropriate for the learning outcomes that have been set for a class or a task. The issue of assessment of learning in information literacy has received some attention, but there has also been criticism (see, e.g. Catts, 2000) of the approaches to assessment used by librarians. This page contains links to articles, case studies and assessment ideas, plus (first of all) a few words about our own ideas and links to two presentations.

In March 2002 we gave a talk on Assessment for information literacy at the IT and Information Literacy conference in Glasgow, Scotland. This is the PowerPoint presentation from that conference. We have developed our ideas further and are presenting a paper at the LifeLong Learning conference in Yeppoon, Australia in June 2002. We will put up that presentation in late June 2002, probably plus some more backgraound material.

Looking at our earlier ideas, the following is the abstract of a paper by Bill Johnston, presented at the Online 2000 conference in London in December 2000. There is also a powerpoint presentation of the talk available.

There is growing acknowledgement of information literacy's importance. Increased use of the internet has led to more widespread recognition that everyone needs to be able to search information sources effectively, make informed choices about sources, and evaluate the information they have found. There have been major initiatives, particularly in Australia and the USA (e.g. theInstitute for Information Literacy). In Europe, in addition to the European Union's programmes, there is movementat national level. For example, the Scottish Executive's recent 'Digital Scotland' consultation paper, notes that web navigation and information extraction skills are vital for young people.

The value to companies of information literate staff and managers has also been recognised specifically. A key challenge is measuring progress in information literacy. There has been a tendency to downplay the complexity of information skills, and use simplistic measures (e.g. the ability to identify X items on a specific topic). These often do not demonstrate much beyond theability of the student to follow a set of instructions. This dumbed-down version of information literacy, side-stepping the problem-solving and evaluative elements, does no service to thelearners, who may not be able to adapt their skills to ever-changing resources and needs.

The speaker will propose ways in which information literacy educators and learners can tell whether they have made any progress. He will discuss challenges and solutions concerned with assessing information literacy in three contexts: academics educating students in a classroom situation; librarians educating staff and students in the university sector; and information managers educating staff in thecorporate sector. The speaker will draw on experience of teaching an Information Literacy class to third year business school undergraduates, and of work with the private sector on an information literacy programme, as well as hisknowledge and experience of the education field generally.
Johnston, Bill. (2000) "How can you tell that you are information literate?" in Online 2000: 24th International Online Information Meeting: Proceedings Oxford: Learned Information. 45-53.

Badger, J. and Roberts, S. (2001) Finite Questions and Infinite Answers: Online Assessment of Information Literacy Skillsin Proceedings of Information Online 2001, held in Sydney, Australia, 16-18 January 2001.
"Information staff at [Australian] Swinburne University's Lilydale campus design and deliver an information literacy module within Information Methods, a compulsory subject for all first year higher education students."
http://www.csu.edu.au/special/online2001/papers/information_literacy_strategiesc.htm

Catts, Ralph. (2000) "Some issues in assessing information literacy." in Bruce, C.S. and Candy, P.C. (Eds) (2000) Information Literacy Around the World: Advances in programs and research. Charles Sturt University, Centre for Information Studies. 271-283.

Crib, Gulcin and Woodall, Leith. (1997) "Webbook for engineers: an interactive infformation skills programme." The new review of information networking 3, 245-253.

Pausch, L.M. and Popp, M.P. (1997) Assessment of Information Literacy: Lessons from the Higher Education Assessment Movement. In: ACRL 1997 National Conference Papers. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries.
Critiques librarians' approach to assessment.
http://www.ala.org/acrl/paperhtm/d30.html

Deliberations Assessment page with links to material on assessment of learning and teaching, including a series of articles published by SEDA.
http://www.lgu.ac.uk/deliberations/assessment/

ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation
US based, and with a bias towards the quantitative (tests etc.), but some useful links and the full text of the journal Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation
http://ericae.net/

Learning and Teaching Support Network, Generic Centre. (2002) Assessment. York: LTSN GC. http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/projects/assessment/
This page leads to valuable resources, including the The LTSN Generic Centre Assessment Series which is a series of booklets which can be downloaded full text and which address different aspects of assessment. The LTSN is a UK network which supports teaching in UK higher education.

LOEX. Instruction Links: Assignments Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University.
http://www.emich.edu/public/loex/islinks/asslinks.htm

Orr, Deborah. (2001) Ideas for information literacy related assessment. Central Queensland University.
This gives a series of suggestions for assessment exercises, and for many of them provides relevant links.
http://www.library.cqu.edu.au/informationliteracy/assessment_ideas.htm

Phillips, Margaret. (2000) Information Literacy: Resources on the web: assessment. University of California at Berkeley.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/InfoLit/WebResources.html#assess

Ragains, Patrick. (2001) Assessment in Library & Information Literacy Instruction Reno: University of Nevada.
A list of annotated links to papers etc. Some of the items are about course evaluation rather than student evaluation.
http://www2.library.unr.edu/ragains/assess.html

University of California at Berkeley. (2001) Effective Assignments Using Library Resources Berkeley: UCB. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/assignments.html
This document is aimed at academics, urging them to set objectives to do with library resources, to teach research skills, and avoid common mistakes.