Project SAILs

Project SAILS

Paula Hannaford, First Year Experience Librarian
Donna Liu, High School Liaison Technician

Through our participation in the High School Student as Researcher (HSSAR) group, we understand that library programs for information literacy vary greatly in the Halton and Peel region high schools. Additionally, at the U of T Mississauga Library reference desk, we encounter a wide range of abilities among your first-year students in locating and evaluating information.

To gather data about this cohort, a special project was initiated this past summer to assess the information literacy competencies of incoming first year students. Information literacy "is a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information"1. The test we administered provides results about these students as a cohort, rather than individual results.

The U of T Mississauga Library selected the Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills' (SAILS) test, a knowledge test with multiple choice questions targeting a variety of information literacy skills. Project SAILS was developed by Kent State University as an instrument for standardized assessment of information literacy skills. In 2002, Kent State received a monetary award in support of the program from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Three phases of pilot testing with other institutions (US and Canadian) resulted in the current diagnostic tool. Test items are based on the item-response measurement model and are based on the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Overall, the test has been developed as a standardized tool that contains items not specific to a particular institution or library but rather assesses at an institutional level. It is easily administered and provides for both external and internal benchmarking2. For more details about the test, please see the project SAILS website.

To administer the test, we liaised with the Registrars' Office and the UTMOne program to promote the project to the incoming cohort of first year students. We administered the test in the Amgen Canada Inc. Smart Classrooms in the U of T Mississauga Library. Test results were obtained from the SAILS Administration at Kent State University in mid-January, and will be analyzed this winter. Preliminary review of these results indicates that our students' ability to evaluate sources is similar to all other benchmarking institutions. On the other hand, our students' ability to document sources and to develop a research strategy falls below the average.

Our immediate plan is to analyze the results of the SAILS test and make recommendations on key competencies for first-year students, identifying areas within the ACRL Information Literacy Standards where improvement is most needed among the cohort of incoming first-year students in relation to high enrolment first-year course requirements.

Currently U of T Mississauga Liaison Librarians work to provide information literacy instruction to students on an assignment-by-assignment basis. Our goals over the next few years are to continue to gather and analyze data on students' information literacy competencies and to liaise with departments to develop a curriculum embedded information literacy program. Best practices in information literacy programming indicate that students, regardless of their disciplines, benefit from an enhanced curriculum with identified information literacy learning outcomes across each level and through each year of study within a subject. Such a program would ensure all U of T Mississauga students graduate from four year programs with a discipline-specific set of information literacy competencies.

1. Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education, Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library Association, Chicago, 2000.

2. Project SAILS (Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills), Kent State University. 2000-2008. https://www.projectsails.org.