We ask that instructors of tagged Information Literacy (IL) courses take extra care in ensuring that students are clearly aware of their grade status not just for the course, but for the IL component, too. We note that of all courses that our students take, a tagged IL course is the only one they’ll experience for which two separate grades are reported, and we know that many students are confused by this and assume that if they’re passing the course, they’re passing the IL tag, too.
Even with clearly stated standards and a rubric that indicates current status, we would like to encourage proactive communication, directly related to passing status, whenever it looks as though a student may be in jeopardy of not passing the IL tag.
Background Regarding our “Tagged” Courses
Starting with Fall 2021, students may meet the Information Literacy (IL) component, within the Additional Requirements category, of our general-education curriculum in one of two ways:
- Successful completion of COAS-Q 110 Introduction to Information Literacy (the only option previously); or
- Successful completion of the IL component of another course that has been specifically tagged with the IL attribute (new starting Fall 2021).
Both components of the Additional Requirements category, i.e., Information Literacy (IL) and First Year Seminar (FYS), can now be met via “tagged” courses.
The purpose of tagging is to allow a requirement to be met by a specific offering of a course but not necessarily by every offering of it. For example, all offerings of GEOL-N 190 (VT: Geology of the National Parks) have been approved to meet the Natural World component of the Common Core category, but only some offerings of this course have also been tagged to meet FYS.
There is a notable distinction, however, in how tagging is implemented for FYS vs IL:
- FYS: A single grade is reported for the course, and when a student earns a passing grade the FYS requirement should be met and reflected on the student’s AAR.
- IL: Two grades are reported, with one being for the main course and the other for the IL component, which is listed as Requirement Designation (RD) in the grade roster; it can be reported as either “Satisfied” or “No Satisfy.”
Accordingly, with a tagged IL course, it is possible for a student to pass the course, yet not satisfy the RD for the IL tag (and vice versa). When the IL tag has been successfully completed, however, it should be indicated on the student’s transcript, plus the student’s AAR should indicate that IL has been satisfied.