Picture this: students acting as judges in a copyright case or measuring fair use to determine if the unlicensed use of a copyright-protected work on a beloved consumer item is permissible. They’re debating the trickle-down effects of licensing rights on costs of textbooks. They’re communicating findings about a topic and why the sources used are appropriate and authoritative.
These are examples of real-world applications of library research course material that make information literacy real and relatable to students.
Like critical thinking, written communication and quantitative literacy, information literacy is essential for all.
It’s an average fall Thursday on West Virginia University’s Morgantown campus, four years after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The leaves are turning, and the air feels crisp. But it’s not an average day of class for students in the modernized, hybrid Introduction to Library Research course, ULIB 101.
Students filter into a Libraries classroom and settle into their seats, likely the same comfortable spot they selected on the first day of class. However, they were not able to settle in for long.
Photo of WVU students in a hybrid ULIB 101 class participating in experiential learning activities.
Terra Rogerson, associate university librarian in WVU Libraries’ Research Support & Engagement (RSE) Department, kicked off class with a request.
“If you’re wearing jeans, please stand.” A handful of students stood from their seats.
“If you’re wearing jeans and sneakers, please stand. In other words, if you are currently standing but do not have sneakers on, sit,” Rogerson continued. Two students wearing sandals sat as their classmates observed the changing dynamics amongst their peers.
“If you’re wearing jeans or sneakers, please stand.” The same unlucky two wearing sandals stood once more, along with another handful of students who were wearing sneakers, but not jeans.
The fundamentals of Boolean search language conceptualized, Rogerson rearranged students and split the class into teams to host a game of Database Battle in which the teams raced to find a particular article or journal using their new tools.
Adapting to evolving societal and student needs
“Like most things during the pandemic, ULIB courses went fully virtual,” said WVU Libraries’ Head of Student Success & Instruction (SSI) Department Kelly Diamond. “There was a lot of anxiety from both students and faculty about being in the classroom, so we kept the course online because that was what was needed at the time. But slowly, things started to shift.”
Now, WVU Libraries is evolving post-pandemic and experimenting with novel instructional modalities to see what best centers student learning needs, wants and success.
“Our job as librarians and educators is to educate,” Diamond said. “We are preparing students to be successful in life by providing meaningful experiential learning opportunities that build essential skills and align with societal needs.”
At their core, ULIB courses are about students achieving information literacy outcomes. Every ULIB course is aligned to one or more frames from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.
“Information literacy is important in today’s world,” Diamond said. “One of the things we try to teach our students is everybody has bias, and all information has bias. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, wrong, good or correct, or that we can’t use it. We must think about the agenda.”
Challenges to student success rising out of the unique situation the pandemic created — such as difficulty fostering awareness of and engagement with essential services and resources, reaching students with information about accessing support and cultivating inclusivity and empathetic spaces — are the result of burgeoning human-centered student needs.
Librarians have a unique lens on information literacy. While professors are able to articulate disciplinary expectations around information, librarians are experts on the economics, the politics and the technologies that drive and move information. Librarians are vital in helping faculty find ways to deepen student understanding and critical thinking around information in their classes. Karen Diaz, dean, wvu libraries
Why hybrid?
According to a peer-reviewed 2022 literature review of at least 25 studies over nearly two decades published in the Journal of Computing in Higher Education, online dropout rates are consistently and significantly higher than dropout rates for face-to-face courses, with online attrition being 7–20 percentage points higher than face-to-face courses.
“There are students who appreciate having face-to-face contact with their instructor,” Diamond said. “But a lot of students also want virtual components because they have the flexibility to do certain assignments from wherever that don’t necessarily need to take place in the classroom. Those are the students that sign up for hybrid ULIB, and that’s why we saw an impressive 63% and 75% initial fill rate for fall I and fall II in 2024.”
Seeing an opportunity to address student success challenges head on in new ways, librarian faculty met student needs with new options for various learning preferences, easier access to faculty and feedback, experiential learning and real-world application of course material.
Hybrid ULIB caters to the students who thrive in a traditional classroom setting as well as those who need autonomy to learn and find environments outside the classroom that work for them. In-person components offer more variety of engagement and methods for instruction than online-only environments. Meanwhile, online components offer additional avenues of expression for students who find speaking up uncomfortable, as well as easy access to referenceable coursework, class notes, discussion boards, etc.
For both learning preferences, hybrid offers a comfortable outlet to absorb knowledge as well as an opportunity to embrace discomfort and learn in new ways.
“In online asynchronous ULIB courses, I’ve noticed a lot of the questions students ask are concerns that could be more easily answered, or even preempted, by in-person demonstrations,” said Miranda Smith, assistant university librarian in WVU Libraries’ SSI Department. “Many of the problem areas students experience are concepts that synchronous learning resolve.”
Other in-person, synchronous modalities like experiential learning activities — for example, the Boolean search ice breaker and Database Battle — offer faculty critical opportunities to provide instant assessment.
“The amount that body language or student attention can tell an educator is invaluable and something that’s really missing from online-only learning,” said Catherine Fonseca, assistant university librarian in WVU Libraries’ SSI Department. “Experiential learning activities are great for seeing if students are getting it. They are helpful for me as an educator, but also for students to get real-time feedback not only from me, but their peers as well.”
“Even if a student provides a great online discussion response to their fellow students, it’s not as personable. There’s no opportunity to go back and forth in the moment,” Smith said. “Having moments where students are required to partner up or form small groups, talking to each other, working through challenges and bouncing ideas pushes students to evolve their way of approaching a problem or topic. That dynamic goes beyond what I’ve seen achieved in any of the asynchronous sections I’ve taught.”
Impacting community and student success
In its first semester after the pandemic, 90% of students enrolled in hybrid ULIB 101 passed the course, with 79% of students earning a B or better and 64% earning an A.
“I learned about Boolean operator terms and specific databases. They’ve really come in handy in my plant science class,” said Ryan Dowell, a first-time student majoring in horticulture. “The overall environment of the class made it easy to speak and ask questions as well. The final project was also nice; a little bit of personalization goes a long way.”
Hybrid ULIB 101 was also open to high school students last fall, who took the class for college credit, getting a head start. But some had no experience with libraries or information literacy at the start.
“It challenged me to think about my assumptions and expectations around what prior knowledge students are coming into class with and how they can apply what they’re learning,” Smith said. “I usually try to apply modules to a topic or assignment students are looking into for their major or another class. And so, I had to think more in terms of how to relate class content to real-world, everyday searching scenarios.”
“The hybrid class gave me time to finish all my schoolwork and juggle classes,” said Lucia Vargas- LaCasella, a dual enrollment high school student. “It allowed me more time to relax and thoroughly examine my work a few times before submitting. The teachers were extremely helpful, and I’ve used a lot of what we learned in my other school assignments.”
Hybrid ULIB’s next evolution
Customization of coursework to student majors, career paths and topic interest areas can only go so far in a multidisciplinary elective. WVU Libraries is committed to information literacy, research learning and preparing students to be successful.
“We can go further if given the resources — STEM, social sciences, humanities. Information literacy in an AI world!” Diamond said. “Because a WVU Health Sciences faculty member anecdotally noted her students who enrolled in and passed ULIB 101 were better writers in the class, we collaborated with Health Sciences to develop a ULIB course specifically for health sciences majors. This is an example of what’s possible.
“In order to be successful, students need to be able to parse information, understand what is reliable and identify what is accurate. That’s a skill everyone needs.”
“I really believe in ULIB and its student success impact,” Fonseca said. “This is why all the effort to evolve and constantly improve ULIB instruction is worth it. The information literacy and research skills students learn in this class are transmutable across disciplines.”