Library and Teaching and Information Services
- Mission Statement
The Teaching and Information Services Department is central to Weber State University’s educational mission. We provide research services and information literacy instruction to support the lifelong learning goals of students, faculty, staff, and the wider local community. Opportunities for engagement with information literacy are available through research consultations, research help, course-integrated library instruction sessions, and teaching information literacy courses. Each of these services promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and empowerment through access to information.
- Student Learning Outcomes
- Certificate (Not Applicable)
- Associate Degree (Not Applicable)
- Program Learning Outcomes
Outcome 1: Research as an Exploratory Process
- The research process involves using tools and techniques to address information needs while understanding that the research process is often iterative and nonlinear.
Outcome 2: Scholarship as Communication
- Scholarly communication is a conversation between creators of information with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives.
Outcome 3: Critically Evaluate Information
- It is important to evaluate the quality of all information based on its context.
Outcome 4: Ethical Use of Information
- Legal and ethical standards are important to the dissemination, retention, and study of information sources.
- Certificate (Not Applicable)
- Curriculum Grid
- Program and Contact Information
Contact Information for the Teaching and Information Services Department:
Nicole Beatty, Chair of Teaching and Information Services
Stewart Library, 226
801-626-7034
nicolebeatty@weber.edu - Assessment Plan
The Teaching and Information Services Department is in the process of trying to formulate a course-based assessment plan that investigates the learning outcomes at the assignment level. In 2021, we implemented using the EOL grid to do assignment based assessment. You will see how we approached it in this report. We are hoping that by the Spring of 2022, each instructor will incorporate rubrics that are connected to outcomes for each assignment in their courses so that each course can be assessed at the assignment level and we can make adjustments based on findings. The learning outcomes for the following courses will be assessed every year in September. The courses include LIBS 1704, LIBS 2604/EDUC 2604, LIBS 2804, and LIBS 2904/HTHS 2904. In this report, the integrated LIBS 1704/ENGL 2010 pilot courses were also assessed the same way. In the fall of 2021, this course became ENGL 2015 and now has integrated learning outcomes. Going forward, the Teaching and Information Services Department will work with the Department of English to set up an assessment plan for the new learning outcomes. We have four overarching learning goals, each with measurable learning outcomes. The targeted performance for each of the measurable learning outcomes is 73% or higher. Please see our goals and outcomes:
LEARNING GOAL OUTCOME 1: RESEARCH AS AN EXPLORATORY PROCESS: Students will use tools and techniques to address information needs while understanding that the research process is often iterative and nonlinear.
1. Learning outcome: Understand information needs and formulate focused research questions or thesis statements based on the scope of the project.
2. Learning outcome: Use and refine different search techniques appropriately, matching information needs and search strategies to appropriate search tools.
3. Learning outcome 3: Understand that the research process is often iterative and non-linear.
LEARNING GOAL OUTCOME 2: SCHOLARSHIP AS COMMUNICATION: Students will understand that scholarly communication is a conversation between creators of information with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives.1. Learning outcome: Identify and describe various resource types and formats, recognizing their value and contribution to scholarly communication.
2. Learning outcome: Recognize that a given scholarly work may not represent the only or even the majority perspective on an issue.
3. Learning outcome 3: Recognize the value of information literacy outside the academic setting.
LEARNING GOAL OUTCOME 3: CRITICALLY EVALUATE INFORMATION: It is important to evaluate the quality of all information based on its context.
1. Learning outcome 1: Define different types of authority, such as subject expertise or special experience, and use research tools and indicators to evaluate the credibility of authors and sources.
2. Learning outcome 2: Recognize that authoritative content may be packaged formally or informally and may include sources of all media types, and that information may be perceived differently based on the format in which it is packaged, but all sources should be critically evaluated.LEARNING GOAL OUTCOME 4: ETHICAL USE OF INFORMATION: Students will understand that legal and ethical standards are important to the dissemination, retention, and study of information sources.
1. Learning outcome: Avoid plagiarism by identifying the different types and by giving credit to the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation.
2. Learning outcome: Articulate the purpose and characteristics of ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of information, such as copyright, fair use, open access, Creative Commons, and the public domain.
- Assessment Report Submissions
- 2021-2022
1) Review and comment on the trend of minority students enrolling in your classes (particularly lower-division, GEN Ed) and in your programs.
While we know that students of color enroll in our courses, we have never collected data on this particular demographic. We are in the process of working with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness to get data regarding our courses which will include data on race and gender. We may have more to say in the next report.
2) What support (from enrollment services, advising, first-year transition office, access & diversity, etc.) do you need to help you recruit and retain students?
While we don’t have a program to recruit students for, we could use help from all of the offices to let students know about the information literacy credit and the different ways to satisfy the graduation requirement. It would be great if the students could get into our classes earlier in their educational careers. The integrated course has helped with this some and will continue to do so if we can teach more classes.
3) We have invited you to re-think your program assessment. What strategies are you considering? What support or help would you like?
The Teaching and Information Services Department is considering linking our rubrics for our assignments to our outcomes so it will be easier to get the data at a course/assignment level. We also need to clarify the Evidence of Learning Grid as instructors interpreted how to fill it out differently and data collection would be easier if we made this more consistent. However, we need to talk more with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness to make sure we are doing this correctly.
4) Finally, we are supporting our Concurrent Enrollment accreditation process. Does your program offer concurrent enrollment classes? If so, have you been able to submit the information requested from the Concurrent Enrollment office? Staff from OIE will reach out to you in the next few months to assist in finalizing that data submission as well as gather information for concurrent Gen Ed assessment.
We offer Concurrent Enrollment Courses. They have all been integrated courses and this year, they are now called ENGL 2015. We were approached by the Concurrent Enrollment Office in August to send them information on the training sessions we have been doing for the integrated courses and what is now ENGL 2015. We sent them the information.
The full report is available for viewing.
- 2019-2020
The Teaching and Information Services Department and Library conducted a 5 year program review with full self-study during the spring of 2019. Those results are presented in place of the Biennial Assessment. Please reference those documents for information that includes data for the 2019-20 academic year.
- 2017
- 2016
- 2015
- 2014
- 2013
- 2021-2022
- Program Review