Abstract

The Institute for Human Communication (HCOM) at California State University Monterey Bay is a learning outcomes-based institute for the humanities. We do not have departments at CSU, Monterey Bay. Instead, fourteen faculty from philosophy, English, creative writing, rhetoric, history, communication, anthropology, linguistics, women's studies, cultural studies, African-American studies, journalism, Chicano/a studies, and film studies comprise an interdisciplinary institute called Human Communication.

In each and every one of our courses, we assess one or two major learning outcomes as designed by the entire Institute. Through individual and aggregate portfolios, as well as through Senior Capstone projects and presentations, we assess for every graduate of the Institute a total of eight (8) Major Learning Outcomes:

MLO 1: Critical Communication Skills
MLO2: Research Skills
MLO3: Relational Communication Skills
MLO4: Philosophical Analysis
MLO5: Critical Cultural Analysis
MLO6: Comparative Literary Analysis
MLO7: Historical Analysis
MLO8: Creative Writing and Social Action

Each faculty member is a coordinator for ongoing development, and assessment of one major learning outcome.

Renée Curry, Project Facilitator and also Director/Associate Professor of the Institute for Human Communication at CSU Monterey Bay, proposed that the information competency project involve attendance from the entire Institute along with leadership and participation by our librarian, at a two-day retreat in July of 2001. The most significant goals of the retreat were to infuse information competencies into the Institute's major learning outcomes, to articulate in writing exactly which information competencies will be achieved in accordance with the Institute's major learning outcomes, and to development assessment activities that will render student knowledge more visible to us. Through thorough examination of the interconnections among the information competencies and our eight major learning outcomes, and through the development of learning activities, we were able to deliver curricula that provide ongoing practice with the development of information competencies. It was imperative that the entire Institute faculty be involved because the major learning outcomes are all requirements for the students and because the major learning outcomes are all intricately involved with one another.

Overall, of course, our main objective and interest is in assuring that our students are information competent when they graduate. At this retreat we designated the courses best suited to satisfying particular information competencies; we also developed course activities and assignments suited to the pedagogy and learning outcomes of the specific courses. During this retreat, we not only developed syllabi that highlighted the competency activities, assignments, and pedagogies, but also we studied and expanded our current assessment tools to include the measurement of student information competency skills. Our goal at the retreat in this regard was twofold:

1. To design assessment apparatus that will evaluate the competencies attained within each designated course.
2. To create an exit assessment, most likely one intricately connected to our senior capstone projects, that will demonstrate student ability to maintain information competency skills over time as well as to evaluate and implement the skills pertinent to a senior-level research project.

The fall semester 2001 was our implementation semester. During this semester, every faculty member of the Institute put into action our information competency activities, assignments, and assessments. Of particular concern to us was not only our assessment of the activities we have put in place, but also whether the students can identify and articulate the information competency skills that we are striving to make visible and achievable to them. Throughout our implementation semester, the entire Institute met twice a month with Bill Robnett and Pam Baker, our librarians, for discussion and revision of our individual information competency goals and their relationship to our major learning outcomes. At the end of the semester, we created a set of activities, assignments, and assessment tools that were tested in the classroom and evaluated by the students, to disseminate to our campus community. We also developed this web site which we hope communicates our work in the area of information competency and that solicits further discussion and analysis of our endeavors.