We invite your institution to consider participating in the Fall 2006 implementation of the First Year Information Literacy in the Liberal Arts Assessment (FYILLAA) online survey.

We are still finalizing an agreement with a data center that will collect the data, send the individual data set to each school and do the comparative analysis report. The grant funding covers this cost. Your costs involve the time your library, IT staff, and your institutional research staff may spend organizing and completing the steps described in the paragraphs below, or in analyzing your local data. At this point we are still uncertain if we can handle all the schools that may be interested. We will ask for a statement from you about how you will insure a good level of participation. Otherwise, the results cannot be used in the comparative data set.

By June 5 please respond to Carolyn Sanford if you are interested in continuing with FYILLAA.

Timeline:

• June 5 Confirmation of interest
• June 30 Documents signed and returned
• July 15 Participation fee due
• By July 31 NITLE testing each school’s information
• August – September Survey implementation – 3 week window
• September 15 All surveys completed
• Dates under negotiation - to be determined soon:
  • Comparative results available
  • Individual data sets sent to schools

Documents to Review:

Please review these documents before deciding if you plan to join FYILLAA. The documents are available for download along the right side of this page. If you choose to participate, you will be sent paper copies of these documents to be filled out and returned by June 30, 2006.

• The “Understandings Regarding the Use of Data Collected in the First-Year Information Literacy in the Liberal Arts Assessment” document outlines how the data will be shared and establishes guidelines for using shared data responsibly. One of FYILLAA’s guiding principles was to provide users access to comparable data with the understanding that that data was not to be shared outside of the consortium of participants. By agreeing to participate in FYILLAA, you are agreeing to share your institution’s data with other participants and you are agreeing to abide by the data sharing guidelines articulated.

• The “Participation Agreement and Registration Form” states that by electing to participate in this project, you acknowledge that your data will be shared with other institutions and that your will abide by the data sharing agreement. Because of the nature of this data sharing agreement, we’re asking that a senior officer at your institution (Dean, Provost, or President) be responsible for signing the participation agreement.

• The “FYILLAA IT form” is necessary because FYILLAA schools will be launching the survey at different times. It is very important that the IT staff at NITLE know your timeline for launching and closing the survey so they can ensure everything is ready on time.

• The "FYILLAA IRB Application" is a copy of Carleton’s Institutional Review Board of Research on Human Subjects application and approval letter if you decide you are serious about participating. As the hosting institution of this project, our IRB process broadly covers the FYILLAA project. However, it is important to check with your own IRB to determine what requirements they have for student learning outcomes research using instruments developed externally.

• The "FYILLAA Survey Exerpts" contains selected questions from the FYILLAA survey and a list of lessons learned from our first year. You will be sent the full survey if you choose to participate in the project.

We look forward to working together with you on the FYILLAA project. If you have any questions about this project, please contact Carolyn Sanford through email, or phone: (507) 222-4266.