Minutes from Student IT Fluency task force meeting 3/20/01

     JoAnn M Burke ,
     *Julie Long ,
     Julie Storme ,
     Karen Chambers ,
     *Tom Bonnell ,
     *Dan Mandell ,
     Doug Tyler ,
     Gerry Gingras ,
     *Peter Smith ,
     *Patrick White ,
     *Georgeanna Rosenbush ,
     *Mary Connolly ,
     *Sue Wiegand ,
     Dick Jensen 

The meeting opened with a review of the draft of the survey prepared by Julie Long and Dan Mandell. We made the following changes in the cover sheet:

1. Make Fluency Rubric lower case in the first and third paragraphs.
2. Put "resource" before list in the first line of paragraph 2.
3. After "workplace," on the second line of paragraph 2 delete "including," pluralize graduate schools, add the clause "and life-long learning," and take the 's' off "requires."
4. On line one of paragraph 4, we discussed changing "following statements" to "following nonexhaustive list of IT fluency expectations."
5. Change the last two lines of paragraph 4 to read "components or assignments that require or encourage students to grow their information fluency."

Note: Even though we did not discuss changing the first sentence of paragraph 3, I think we should be specific about what we expect the liaisons to distribute (i.e., the rubric, the grid, the list IT fluency expectations, and the category list that we decided to adapt from George Mason University to replace the list of learning goals for course assignments (See below)) and also what we expect them to return to us by the end of the semester (i.e., the filled-in grid from each member of their department).

We next discussed the list of IT fluency expectations, and I don't recall any changes to what was written. Peter suggested including some expectations concerning concepts, perhaps adding a section such as:

"Students understand the societal impact and limitations of technology and the impact of technology on their major discipline. They know how computers work, how the internet works, and how information is stored and retrieved. They have wrestled with the ethical concerns raised by the widespread use of technology.

Students have a "can do" attitude when it comes to handling problem situations which have technological solutions."

We asked Tom to read over the list of expectations and suggest rewording which would make it clearer and more likely to be useful to liberal arts faculty.

The group had a long discussion on the appropriate design for the grid which faculty will fill in. Tom asked what will be the organization of the resource list that we are preparing for students and advisors. He recommended that we use these organizational categories to prepare an indexed list of identifiers and descriptions that faculty could use to categorize their course assignments regarding which aspects of IT fluency they enhance. Julie recommended the George Mason report at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0041.pdf (specific goals on page 7). Peter will prepare this Glossary of IT Identifiers from our rubric, using the George Mason list as a model.

We revised the grid to give it the following column headings:

Course Name	Course Number	IT Identifier Code	Assignment	Comment

The IT Identifier code will be a letter or letters that best identifies the IT fluency category the course assignment enhances. We will have a code 'X' which will indicate that none of the IT Identifiers apply and the faculty member needs to use the Comment column to explain how the assignment enhances IT fluency.

Julie will revise the cover letter, expectation list, and grid with help from Tom and then email it to all of us. Peter will prepare the Glosary of IT Identifiers, pass it by Dan and Julie, and email it to everyone for comment. We will meet again on Tuesday, April 3 at noon in Room B11. We set the meeting for the liaisons for noon, Friday, April 6, in Room 303 in Haggar. The CFAI (possibly with help from IT) will provide box lunches for the participants.

If there are any additions or corrections to these minutes please contact me.

Peter