Strategic Plan for Core Technical Competencies

INTRODUCTION:

The production of information keeps multiplying exponentially, as knowledge is created, developed, and reshaped at dramatic rates. Of course, the rate of production of information has been greatly encouraged by the emergence of information technologies. The power of automation to store, retrieve, and disseminate information is one of the main forces behind the Information Age. While the issue of information competence has existed for decades within the library community, technology has brought the issue to national attention in the larger community of educators. Today everyone interested in information and knowledge is aware of the explosion of information generated and stored, the unregulated sprawl of the internet, the emergence of on-line databases, the mystique of the personal computer, and the power of words and graphics. 

The scope of this plan involves putting into place a comprehensive "baseline" capability for training all the students, faculty, and staff to become information competent and for providing them ongoing professional/technical support services. This initiative also provides the basic quantity and quality of hardware, software and local area networking resources to enable individuals to have the appropriate access to information resources which in turn will increase their personal productivity.

Information Core Competency Definition

Information competence is the fusing or the integration of library literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, technological literacy, ethics, critical thinking, and communication skills. This includes the ability to find, evaluate, use, and communicate information in all of its various formats.

• Is diffused throughout the curriculum.
• Uses a wide range of information resources in problem-solving strategies.
• Makes effective use of instructional technologies to teach information competence.
• Encompasses finding, evaluating, and using information, and it emphasizes the ethical and legal issues connected to information, media literacy, and students as producers as well as consumers of information.
• Is built on a needs assessment, which evaluates the current state of students' competence in information skills, as well as on-going assessment of students' achievement of the skills that make them information competent.

 In An Environment that:

• Respects the individuality of different Marshall University campuses.
• Is built on a collegial partnership of faculty, support services professionals, economic development and business partners.
• Is founded on collaboration and articulation with the community colleges and the K-12 sector.
• Promotes the professional development of faculty and staff.
• Provides necessary human and fiscal resources.
• Provides the necessary information and technology resources.

If Marshall faculty are to foster information competence skills in their courses, many of them need to have their own skills enhanced. Before a professor can teach students to do a hypermedia project or understand the provisions of the copyright act or discuss the ethics of email, he or she must have considerable faculty development opportunities. With the rapid pace of technological change, skills need continual updating and renewing. Many faculty would likely profit from development in the technological aspects of information competence, although many faculty have indeed mastered, as well as masterfully taught, the critical-thinking components of information competence. 

Clearly, the need for faculty development is paramount. Faculty development funds in this area need coordination. In short, before we can ensure the information competence of our students, we must ensure the information competence of our faculty, and we must provide the time and money needed to do this.

Plan of Action

The Office of Information Technology will require all members reporting through that structure to certify themselves via the Computer Based Training Software (CBT). All members will have completed Windows95, Beginning Word 97, Beginning Excel 97, Beginning Access 97, Outlook97, PowerPoint97, Internet Basics and Understanding and Using E-Mail. These are interactive multimedia training models allowing users to test out or any model or participate in training from their desktop. All managers in the areas of IT, Library, and Computing Services will monitor the time required for their staffs to complete each model. These resources are available via MUnet, CD-ROM’s and web downloads (multimedia.marshall.edu/cbt/). This same procedure could be utilized for all Marshall University staff and faculty. This will allow for a common baseline of technical skills.

This work group is to recommend basic competence levels on the use of recorded knowledge and information and processes for assessment of student competence. Student core information competence can be achieved through a three-stage process, in which the fundamentals of information competence are introduced in a freshman-orientation/transitions course, are further developed by being embedded in general education courses, and are reinforced and amplified in the major area. Emphasizing information competence in a "cornerstone" class (introduction to the major area) as well as in a "capstone" class (the culminating experience of the university career) will solidify the competencies.

 The work should at least consider:

• The level of information competence undergraduate students should have when they enter the university.
• The level of competence undergraduate students should achieve early in their university careers in order to pursue successfully their baccalaureate studies.
• The level of competence these students should achieve by graduation in order to be prepared for employment in their profession or for graduate study.
• The means by which competence should be assessed at these levels.
• In order to assist students in acquiring this knowledge and these skills, the level of competence that should be expected of instructional faculty.

A Set of Core Competencies

In order to be able to find, evaluate, use, and communicate information, students must be able to demonstrate these skills in an integrated process: 

1. State a research question, problem, or issue
2. Determine the information requirements for the research question, problem, or issue
3. Locate and retrieve relevant information
4. Organize information
5. Analyze and evaluate information
6. Synthesize information
7. Communicate using a variety of information technologies
8. Use the technological tools for accessing information
9. Understand the ethical, legal, and socio-political issues surrounding information and information technology.
10. Use, evaluate, and treat critically information received from the mass media
11. Appreciate that the skills gained in information competence enable lifelong learning

Skills Currency of Faculty, Staff and Students. The model provides comprehensive faculty and staff development programs for maintaining skill currency in both current and emerging technologies. The highest and best use of information technology is its application to the provision of quality higher education with a focus on the student and the learning, teaching and underlying research supporting that quality. Faculty, students and staff should have easy, well-supported access to the data and information necessary to perform their university functions regardless of location.  

• Basic level Information Competency training for students, faculty and staff
• Baseline training of students in common software and networking tools, including the WEB, Internet
• Baseline training of faculty/staff in common software and networking tools, including Internet, WEB and Video
• Baseline training of all students in uses of generic campus-wide applications
• Baseline training of students in basic applications for academic disciplines
• Advanced training for campus trainers

The major outcome of this strategic plan is to create an information technology infrastructure environment which provides all the students, faculty and staff access to a comprehensive basic level training program, user support services, and hardware/software/local area networking access. A basic level information competency program for the all students faculty and staff will a campus-wide training program which provides students, faculty, and staff the foundation skills necessary to use the campus' generic software, hardware and network tools and to make effective use of the campus-wide applications and information resources.

The primary beneficiary of this plan are individual learners. However, for these learners to effectively use this infrastructure capability to increase their personal productivity, the faculty and staff need to integrate the uses of information technology tools into the learning and teaching experience. This translates into having an information competent and technology skilled faculty and staff. Thus, all three internal participant groups are the beneficiaries of the successful implementation of this initiative. Ultimately the economy of West Virginia and society at large benefit as we educate individuals to become contributors to the workforce as well as lifelong learners by equipping them with the necessary information competencies to adapt to future changes of the information age.

The Information Technology Strategic Planning Sub-committee recommends the following actions to ensure that students who graduate from the Marshall are information competent:

1. Undertake a systematic assessment of student information competence to develop a benchmark.
2. Develop a model list of information competence skills for students entering the university and graduating from the university.
3. Develop pilot information competence programs or courses.
4. Develop a "teaching the teachers" program so that faculty development in information competence can occur.
5. Utilize computer software that enables the teaching of information competence.
6. Develop faculty workbooks and checklists to assist faculty with the teaching of information competence.
7. Work with the community college and support their on-going information competence initiative.
8. Collaborate with Board of Trustees to see what initiatives in information competence can be developed together.
9. Collaborate with textbook publishers to help with the integration of the concepts of information competence into textbooks.
10. Pilot a distance-learning effort with information competence..
11. When communicating with alumni and employers, include information competence as a topic to be covered.

• SUNY College Entry-Level Knowledge and Skills
• Cornell University's Mann Library: Information Literacy
• Cleveland State University: Information Literacy
• Arizona State University West: Information Competencies
• CSU Monterey Bay: Information Competence