[643] in resnet
IT Competency Assessment and Training
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stan North Martin)
Fri Jan 11 13:48:21 2002
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Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20020108164536.00b14d28@stan.mail.ncsu.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 13:40:11 -0500
Reply-To: Resnet Forum <RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu>
From: Stan North Martin <stan_martin@NCSU.EDU>
To: RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu
Hello Colleagues,
I am attempting to gather information about schools who are actively
assessing their undergraduate students' IT skills and providing training to
them in the cases where they do not meet minimum competencies.
If your institution is doing this, or any variation of it, could you
provide me with:
- web page(s) or an overview outlining what your campus is doing in this
area (including type of assessment being carried out and how the training
is being provided)
- if not obvious on the web pages, a contact of who is responsible for, or
at least involved with, this process at your school.
I am creating a reference list of these resources and if folks are
interested in it, I will post a URL once I have gathered more.
A host of schools have taken the NRC's report on FITness--Fluency in
Information Technology--and used it as a basis for curriculum overhaul
(e.g. George Mason's Technology Across the Curriculum initiatives), or for
providing supplemental training resources for their students (e.g.
University of Washington and the University of New Brunswick with online
tutorials).
As for what's going on at NC State....
We currently have a very loose "Computer Literacy" component as part of our
General Education Requirement for undergrad graduation. Fulfillment of the
requirement is pushed down to the individual colleges and is carried out in
a variety of ways.
Our current concern, however, is based on providing earlier intervention
for incoming students. For several years we have received anecdotal
evidence that somewhere around ten percent of incoming freshmen do not have
the basic computer skills needed to carry out faculty members' growing
expectations for technology use in and out of the classroom. Comfort with
these tools has been a contributing factor to early student success and
retention.
We are hoping to address this issue through an assessment tool implemented
during New Student Orientation in the summer, or even before orientation
for students with access to an Internet connection. The goal would be to
provide training for those who need intervention even before students begin
their studies, or at least during the first couple weeks of the semester,
while not wasting the time of the majority of students who don't need this
basic level of training.
So...any resources, suggestions, or ideas you have on this topic would be
most appreciated.
Thanks,
Stan
PS: Sorry for the cross-posts to a couple of lists.
Stan North Martin stan_martin@ncsu.edu
ResNet Coordinator, Information Technology (919) 515-1348
North Carolina State University http://www.ncsu.edu/resnet
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