What is Needs Assessment

As online education grows, so does the need for institutional support for online students. Information literacy support is one support that is infrequently addressed. Though students are familiar with the Internet, they often do not have the information literacy skills necessary for research. A collaborative effort involving program faculty and librarians was undertaken to address the information literacy needs of students in an online doctoral program. This chapter provides an overview of the first step of this project – an assessment of incoming students’ information literacy skills. The results of the assessment indicate a need for comprehensive instruction to familiarize students with online library resources at the university, access to relevant scholarly databases, quality assessment of such resources, and the use of bibliographic management software. Recommendations are made for higher education institutions and online programs wishing to integrate information literacy support for incoming students.