Direct Assessment of Information Literacy Through Portfolio Assessment

Scharf, Davida, Norbert Elliot, Heather Huey, Vladimir Briller and Kamal Joshi. (2007). Direct Assessment of Information Literacy using Writing Portfolios. Journal of Academic Librarianship. Article in Press; Corrected Proof for July 2007 issue. Available online 30 April 2007.

Johnson, Carol Siri. (2006). The Analytic Assessment of Online Portfolios in Undergraduate Technical Communication: A Model. Journal of Engineering Education (Washington, D.C.), 95(4), 279-87. Avaialble February 21, 2007 through the OmniFile Full Text Mega database: HTML PDF.

Direct Assessment of Information Literacy at NJIT: A Portfolio Assessment Model
      Summary (pdf) Full Report (pdf) [July 2006]
NJIT Assessment Scales: Information Literacy (pdf) [May 2006]
NJIT Information Literacy Standards Mapping - Constructed Response (pdf) [May 2006]
NJIT Information Literacy Standards Mapping - Limited Response (pdf) [May 2006]
NJIT Information Literacy Model (pdf) [May 2006]



    Recent calls for strengthening information literacy provided the occasion for a collaborative effort undertaken by colleagues from New Jersey Institute of Technology's Robert W. Van Houten Library, the Department of Humanities, and the Office of Institutional Research and Planning. Unlike other models that use student self-assessment or process assessment through the evaluation of student information seeking behaviors, our method focuses on the examination of evidence of information literacy in student work product. Using an established sampling plan designed to yield a high confidence interval, research papers were selected from the writing portfolios of students taking first-year composition or senior capstone seminars in the Humanities.

   Four analytic and one holistic score were given to each research paper using a set of four traits tied to the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) standards for information literacy developed by a collaborative team of librarians and humanities faculty. These five performance measures were rated on a 6-point Likert scale. 1) ability to cite sources 2) use of information beyond the syllabus; 3) integration of outside sources into the development of ideas presented in the paper; 4) Appropriateness of sources to the topic. 5) An overall holistic information literacy score rating the overall impression of research competency.

   Reader calibration using the NJIT Scale for Information Literacy resulted in high inter-rater reliability which yielded authentic, performance-based data that informs our concurrent instructional efforts.


Collaboration with Educational Testing Service (ETS)
   NJIT is collaborating with the ETS on the ICT Literacy Assessment (Information and Communication Technology Literacy) to validate NJIT's portfolio assessment through added validity gained through ICT. Through this collaboration, NJIT & ETS intend to serve as agents of change and to initiate the second literacy for a global environment.

   People From ETS: Irvin Katz, Senior Research Scientist; Yigal Attali, Research Scientist; Don Powers, Principal Research Scientist

   Information Literacy at NJIT: Toward Validity. Presentation at the ETS ICT National Advisory Committee Meeting July 17-19, 2006. Brief Presentation (PowerPoint ) Full Presentation (PowerPoint )