Program: Library & Information Sciences (MLISC)
Degree: Master's
Date: Wed Oct 01, 2014 - 12:20:44 pm
1) Below are your program's student learning outcomes (SLOs). Please update as needed.
These SLOs define the content of the LIS Curriculum and are reviewed each year by LIS faculty. Each SLO also includes several specific examples of skills (evidence indicators). All course syllabi will include the Student Learning Outcomes being covered by the course.
SLO 1: Understand, apply and articulate the history, philosophy, principles and ethics of library and information science and the related professions.
1a) Apply LIS theory and principles to diverse information contexts
1b) Demonstrate understanding of the historical context of information services and systems
1c) Develop and apply critical thinking skills in preparation for professional practice
1d) Craft and articulate a professional identity
SLO 2: Develop, administrate, assess, and advocate for information services by exercising principled communication, teamwork and leadership skills.
2a) Demonstrate understanding of leadership
2b) Work effectively in teams
2c) Develop, manage, and assess information services for specific users and communities
2d) Create instructional and outreach programs
2e) Demonstrate the ability to advocate effectively for information services
SLO 3: Organize, create, archive, preserve, retrieve, manage, evaluate, and disseminate information resources in a variety of formats.
3a) Demonstrate understanding of the processes by which information is created, evaluated, and disseminated.
3b) Organize, create, archive and manage collections of information resources following professional standards
3c) Search, retrieve and synthesize information from a variety of systems and sources
3d) Demonstrate understanding of issues and techniques of preservation of physical and digital objects
SLO 4: Evaluate and use the latest information technologies, research findings and methods.
4a) Evaluate systems and technologies in terms of quality, functionality, cost-effectiveness and adherence to professional standards
4b) Integrate emerging technologies into professional practice
4c) Apply current research findings to professional practice
SLO 5: Engage in projects and assignments dealing with multicultural communities and representing diverse points of view.
5a) Communicate and collaborate with diverse colleagues, information seekers and community stakeholders
5b) Demonstrate understanding of the social, cultural, political, and economic context of information services and systems
5c) Apply LIS principles to meet the needs of Native Hawaiian and Asia-Pacific communities and to promote cultural sustainability
2) Your program's SLOs are published as follows. Please update as needed.
Department Website URL: http://www.hawaii.edu/lis/about-us/mission-and-goals/
Student Handbook. URL, if available online: Information Sheet, Flyer, or Brochure URL, if available online: UHM Catalog. Page Number: Course Syllabi. URL, if available online: http://www.hawaii.edu/lis/courses/course-descriptions/ Other: Other: 3) Select one option:
4) For your program, the percentage of courses that have course SLOs explicitly stated on the syllabus, a website, or other publicly available document is as follows. Please update as needed.
0% 1-50% 51-80% 81-99%
100%5) Did your program engage in any program assessment activities between June 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014? (e.g., establishing/revising outcomes, aligning the curriculum to outcomes, collecting evidence, interpreting evidence, using results, revising the assessment plan, creating surveys or tests, etc.)
Yes No (skip to question 14)6) For the period between June 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014: State the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goals. Include the SLOs that were targeted, if applicable.
SLO 5: Engage in projects and assignments dealing with multicultural communities and representing diverse points of view.
Indicator 5c: Apply LIS principles to meet the needs of Native Hawaiian and Asia-Pacific communities and to promote cultural sustainability
One of the charges of the LIS Curriculum Committee for 2013-2014 was to evaluate how well the LIS program addressed SLO 5c and seek ways to improve it. The Curriculum Committee, which included three student members, developed a list of non-LIS courses relevant to SLO 5c, and the full faculty voted to allow these courses to count toward the MLISc degree. A list of these courses can be found here: http://www.hawaii.edu/lis/courses/course-descriptions/other-departments/
More broadly, the culminating experience of the LIS Program for non-thesis students, a one-hour oral examination, was revised to reflect all program SLOs more directly. The oral exam consists of three scenarios and a statement of professional philosophy, all of which are mapped to program SLOs: http://www.hawaii.edu/lis/program/oral-exams/
7) State the type(s) of evidence gathered to answer the assessment question and/or meet the assessment goals that were given in Question #6.
The LIS Curriculum Committee reviewed a curriculum map compiled by instructors (the same one appended to this report), reflecting which core courses reflect which SLOs. SLO5c was covered by the fewest core courses.
Part of the LIS Strategic Plan is to continually review the curriculum and culminating experience. The LIS Curriculum Committee compiled a spreadsheet of past oral exam scenario responses and found that some scenarios were very rarely chosen, and that boilerplate responses from students would meet the previous standards to pass. From this data, we created a new oral exam scenario framework requiring students to personalize their responses, and to demonstrate understanding of a specific professional environment (e.g. public library, archive, academic library, etc.) to ground their responses.
8) State how many persons submitted evidence that was evaluated. If applicable, please include the sampling technique used.
For the review of SLO 5c, all full-time and adjunct faculty reported the SLOs they felt were covered in their courses, which would be roughly 20 instructors total. However some of this data was collected and reported several years ago, others (usually full-time faculty or new instructors) are more recently updated.
For the oral exam review, data was collected by full-time faculty who assess the oral exams, totaling 7 people.
9) Who interpreted or analyzed the evidence that was collected? (Check all that apply.)
Course instructor(s) Faculty committee Ad hoc faculty group Department chairperson Persons or organization outside the university Faculty advisor Advisors (in student support services) Students (graduate or undergraduate) Dean/Director Other: 10) How did they evaluate, analyze, or interpret the evidence? (Check all that apply.)
Used a rubric or scoring guide Scored exams/tests/quizzes Used professional judgment (no rubric or scoring guide used) Compiled survey results Used qualitative methods on interview, focus group, open-ended response data External organization/person analyzed data (e.g., external organization administered and scored the nursing licensing exam) Other: Raw frequency counts of courses and oral exams from past years.11) For the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goal(s) stated in Question #6:
Summarize the actual results.
SLO 5c was covered by the fewest core courses in the LIS program.
Several oral exam scenarios were avoided by students. Often these were perceived as more difficult or esoteric.
12) State how the program used the results or plans to use the results. Please be specific.
Faculty voted to allow and encourage students to take non-LIS courses to address SLO 5c.
Faculty revised the structure and content of the oral exam scenarios.
13) Beyond the results, were there additional conclusions or discoveries?
This can include insights about assessment procedures, teaching and learning, program aspects and so on.
We discovered that not all instructors have the same criteria or threshold for declaring that their courses cover a particular SLO. Also, involving students in the assessment process as members of the LIS Curriculum Committee allowed us to get the students' perspective on how well particular courses cover particular SLOs in their experience.