About Library Instruction at Transy: Assessment

To assess the effectiveness of Transy’s library instruction for the first year seminar (FYS) program and to determine the next steps to improve FYS instruction, instructional librarians created a information literacy assessment. It aligned with the ACRL Framework’s standards taught in the First Year Seminar (FYS) program by including the following topics: avoiding plagiarism, citing sources, creating research questions, narrowing research topics, evaluating the credibility of sources, and conducting searches in library databases. 

The assessment consists of 14 multiple-choice questions and a survey about the Transy library instruction provided in the FYS program. In the survey, students provide feedback on how well librarians taught each information literacy skill and make suggestions on how to improve instruction for the FYS program. 

First year students take this assessment at the beginning of the fall semester prior to library sessions so that librarians can ascertain students’ knowledge of information literacy concepts as they enter Transylvania University. To evaluate the effectiveness of the library’s information literacy instruction, first year students take this assessment again at the end of the winter semester. Librarians use students’ performance on the assessment and survey comments to make adjustments to their instruction for the FYS program. For the summary of the assessment results, please see the library's Annual Reports. 

Furthermore, instructional librarians created a faculty survey to gather feedback on library instruction from FYS professors. Faculty are asked to rate the library’s sessions, instructor, and resources for their courses. The survey also requests that faculty provide information about what they liked about the library instruction and what could be improved about the library instruction. For the summary of the survey results, please see the library's Annual Reports. 

To assess the effectiveness of Transy’s library instruction for the (non-FYS) intro to upper level courses, the library has relied on casual feedback with students and instructions, in addition to the biennial survey of students, which was last conducted in May 2024.  Beginning in Fall 2025, the librarians will ask students to complete an exit ticket at the conclusion of a library instruction session, and they will ask the course  instructor to complete a brief survey that will be emailed to them immediately following a session.  

To assess the effectiveness of the Digital Liberal Arts instructional  program and to determine the next steps to improve educational technology instruction, the DLA committee created a student exit survey and a faculty exit survey to obtain feedback about educational technology instruction at the end of each session. These surveys will be administered beginning in the Fall 2025 semester.