▪ understanding essential concepts about that ecosystem;
▪ engaging in creative inquiry and critical reflection to develop questions and to find, evaluate, and manage information through an iterative process;
▪ creating new knowledge through ethical participation in communities of learning, scholarship, and civic purpose; and
▪ adopting a strategic view of the interests, biases, and assumptions present in the information ecosystem."
The mission of the Library's Information Literacy Instruction Program is to teach students to be effective users and producers of ideas and information.The program provides students with varied opportunities for acquiring the needed knowledge and skills to become information literate.
The following represents major projects (2008 through 2014) undertaken by COD librarians in support of the Instruction Program's mission and strategic goals.
| Fall 2008 | The Embedded Librarian: Levels of Involvement | Status: in use |
| Spring 2009 | Creation of YouTube Channel | Status: in use |
| IL Pre-Assessment quiz for English 1102 | Status: discontinued | |
| Gen Ed Outcomes including Info Lit | Status: complete | |
| Health Information and Research Course (HS & LTA) | Status: complete | |
| Fall 2009 | "Library Launch" Fall Library Orientations Promotional material: 1 and 2 |
Status: discontinued |
| Library Resources link added to Blackboard | Status: in use | |
| Research 101 customized for COD Library Original and Revised |
Status: in use | |
| Fall 2010 | IL Modules developed | |
| Spring 2011 | IL Modules piloted | |
| Fall 2011 | IL Modules launched college-wide | Status: in use |
| SOS Online launched October webinars; November webinars |
Status: ongoing | |
| Involvement with NSO Presentations:2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 |
Status: ongoing | |
| Fall 2012 | Launch of EDU 1820, Info Lit Course Syllabus |
Status: discontinued |
| Revision of Subject Guides and Research Landing Page | Status: in use | |
| "How to Avoid Plagiarism" tutorial | Status: in use | |
| Summer 2013 | WTDW created | Status: in development |
| Fall 2013 | 1st Annual Open Access @COD Library | Status: ongoing |
| LIRT Innovation in Instruction Award Nomination | Status: completed | |
| Fall 2014 | Assisted Public Service Committee in launching Research Desk | Status: completed |
| Future of Research faculty information literacy series | Status: ongoing | |
| 2nd Annual Open Access @COD Library and In-Service Day | Status: ongoing |
College of DuPage Library has a long and successful history of providing information literacy instruction to the more than 26,000 students who attend COD every semester. Under decades of leadership by ACRL Community and Junior College Libraries Section Program Award winner Diana Fitzwater, the COD Library’s Instruction Program was expanded to include a successful IL course for faculty. Faculty members who completed this course received mentorship from their liaison librarians and formed lasting partnerships with the library.
The resulting buy-in from teaching faculty has been the foundation of the success of our current Instruction Program-- annually, College of DuPage’s nine faculty instruction librarians provide 1000 one-shot instruction sessions reaching approximately 18,000 students.
Additionally, since 2001, the Library has offered free information literacy and research skills workshops to students, faculty, staff and community members. For over a decade, the SOS Workshop series has provided our patrons with co-curricular instruction in everything from employing advanced search techniques to using Google for research; navigating Yahoo! directories to creating Delicious linkrolls; citing sources to creating websites with Wordpress.
More recently, the Library’s Instruction program has expanded exponentially, largely to accommodate the to the rapid growth of the COD’s Online College, but also in response to the needs of our students, the changing environment of information and the physical changes of our Library as we entered a two-year renovation program. In order to provide information literacy instruction to our distance learners as well as our population of working, commuting, and otherwise busy students, we have begun to explore and employ multiple modes of delivery.
With the institutional acquisition of the Adobe Connect web conferencing system, we have added webinars to our SOS program and can easily provide synchronous online instruction to online and off-campus students. One of the most exciting developments from within the Instruction Program, however, has been the introduction and adoption of Information Literacy Modules. Designed to support the inclusion of the College’s Information Literacy General Education Outcomes in courses, the six units that comprise the IL Modules are available for instructors to import into any Blackboard course shell.
Since their creation in 2010, over 400 students have used the IL Modules in face-to-face and online courses ranging from English to Economics. With the support of teaching faculty, the Modules provide basic information literacy instruction to entire classes that may never come to the Library as well as foundational instruction to on-campus classes, allowing librarians to introduce higher-level research skills in one-shot sessions.