Information on how to use the Association of College & Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education to develop courses to support an academic program. Develop Programs

Using Standards - Develop Programs

An academic program is asked to develop a variety of learning outcomes for its students that will include information literacy. The program reviews their entire curriculum and identifies those courses that are vehicles for teaching these outcomes. The program should guarantee that the outcomes are taught in one course and further developed or reinforced in the following courses; a class in which the skills are reinforced or refined has a prerequisite course that teaches these skills.

Also see our Accreditation Bibliography

Example - Psychology Department

Example of partial Program Matrix: Outlines what all the learning outcomes are:

	PSYCH	PSYCH	PSYCH	PSYCH

Basic Skills Learning Outcomes
Communication
Writing
Speaking
Listening
Critical Thinking
Computer Requirements
Information Literacy (see additional chart below)
Interpersonal Skills

Knowledge / Content Learning Outcomes
Understanding of psychological tests and measures
History of Psychology

Attitudes / Values Learning Outcomes
Citizenship
Ethics
Multicultural Sensitivity

Matrix of Information Literacy Learning Outcomes

	PSYCH Intro Psych	PSYCH Research Methods	PSYCH Intro Statistics	PSYCH Computer Apps.
Standard One: KNOW Students in psychology must be able to identify the key issues in the discipline and place research questions in an appropriate theoretical context.	Taught	Developed	Reinforced	Reinforced
Standard Two: ACCESS Students must be proficient6 at finding information in library databases, the internet and locating information from community resources.	Basic Intro	Taught	Reinforced	Developed
Standard Three: EVALUATE Students in psychology must be able to critically evaluate information and discern credible from non-credible material. This is especially true for pop psychology from the many talk shows and magazines that claim expertise in these topics.	Taught	Developed	Reinforced	Reinforced
Standard Four: USE Students must be able to collect, organize, and present information to others in clear and coherent forms – whether written or orally.	Basic	Basic	Taught	Developed
Standard Five: ETHICAL/LEGAL Students must have a thorough understanding of APA ethical guidelines in the design, data collection, analysis, interpretation and reporting of research.	Taught	Taught	Reinforced	Reinforced

Using Standard Five as an example
Each course focuses on specific learning outcomes from this standard.

The Intro course stresses plagiarism (Outcome 2F) and APA Style Manual (Outcome 3A) when student write their term paper.

The research methods course teaches them issues surrounding research with human subject (Outcome 2G).This is reinforced in the other two courses in various assignments and discussions.