Identify
the local student need
Porter Henderson Library Working Session
From Access to Applied Literacy
A library-led pilot for first-year and new-student success. Review all 21 slides below or enter the focused presentation view.
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Purpose and requested outcome
From Access to Applied Literacy
A Library-Led Pilot for First-Year and New-Student Success
Porter Henderson Library Working Session
Tuesday, July 21, 2026 · 8:00-10:00 a.m.
Lawrence McGaffie, Doctoral Student
Determine whether Porter Henderson Library should help shape and test a small, evidence-generating digital-literacy pilot.
Review
the working Digital Literacy course
Decide
whether a limited pilot is appropriate
Library
- Students
- Faculty
- Advising
- Student success
- Information technology
- Academic support
Agenda
Today's Working Session
The discussion moves from broad evidence to one small, testable local action.
- Purpose and desired outcome
- National evidence and organizational question
- Ram Ready Digital Literacy demonstration
- Pilot design
- Library and faculty discussion
- Decisions and next actions
Business task
The Business Task
How might Porter Henderson Library bring the right partners together to shape and evaluate an engaging, open-source literacy pilot that helps first-year and newly enrolled students apply digital, information, AI, and related literacy skills-without duplicating existing services-and produces enough local evidence to decide whether and how the model should continue?
Need
Is there a locally observable student need?
Fit
Does the course complement existing library and faculty work?
Evidence
What results would justify revision, continuation, expansion, or discontinuation?
Broad literacy ecosystem
Literacy Extends Beyond Reading
The practical question is whether students can understand a task, select a tool, evaluate the result, protect information, and recover when something fails.
Applied Student Judgment
- Digital workflow
- Information and research
- AI
- Cybersecurity and privacy
- Media and misinformation
- Data
- Financial
- Health information
Project catalyst-not sole prevalence evidence: a 2026 EdTechReview commentary on file-handling habits helped prompt the project question.
National evidence
Applied Problem Solving Is Not Automatic
Applied digital problem solving varies across ages and remains relevant to traditional students, returning learners, and adult learners.
16%of adults with more than a high school education were at Level 1 or below in adaptive problem solving.
First-year transition evidence
College Research Changes the Environment
The issue is not that new students know nothing. The environment, tools, and evidence expectations change.
35first-term freshmen interviewed
1,941high school and college students surveyed
30U.S. high schools compared
6U.S. colleges and universities compared
Google-centered search habits
→New college research expectations
→Databases, authority, process, ethical source use
AI-literacy evidence
AI Is Already Part of Academic Life
The institutional question is no longer whether AI will be used. It is whether students and faculty receive practical, assignment-aware guidance.
32%of institutions in the 2026 survey reported a formal central AI policy.
Adjacent financial-literacy signal
Digital Systems Shape Other Literacies
Students increasingly encounter banking, aid, debt, scams, and financial information through digital systems. Digital literacy supports safer participation in those systems.
Different student entry points
One Entry Point Will Not Fit Every Learner
The pilot should test multiple entry points and avoid framing students as deficient.
First-year and first-generation
Students bring meaningful strengths while encountering new research processes and scholarly communication.
International
Credibility judgments can be shaped by prior information environments and unfamiliar U.S. contexts.
Returning and older
Age does not eliminate applied problem-solving needs, and exposure to current tools varies.
Access-constrained
Participation depends partly on devices, connectivity, software, time, accessibility, and support.
Potential coordinating partner
The Library Can Coordinate Without Owning Everything
Porter Henderson Library
- Students
- Faculty
- Orientation
- Advising
- Information technology
- Writing and research
- Accessibility
- Career preparation
- Libraries already teach discovery, evaluation, ethical use, and scholarly communication.
- ACRL encourages collaboration on curricula, assignments, assessment, and student success.
- The pilot can connect existing expertise instead of creating another isolated program.
Coordinate means connect the right partners, clarify roles, and keep a small test moving—not take responsibility for every literacy outcome.
What has already been built
A Working Open-Source Prototype Already Exists
Ram Ready Digital Literacy is ready for structured review as a prototype-not institutional adoption.
20University Digital Literacy Foundations episodes
20AI Digital Literacy quests
40lesson-specific visualizations
Guest modewithout a required account
- Story choices and consequences
- Knowledge checks and explanations
- Achievements and certificates
- Source drawers
- Pilot feedback form
Digital Literacy live demonstration
One Complete Learning Cycle
The prototype turns a short scenario into a choice, consequence, check, explanation, achievement, and feedback loop.
- Choose a profile or generic story
- Read a short scenario
- View a concept and visual
- Make a decision
- See the consequence under that decision
- Complete a knowledge check
- Receive an explanation and achievement
- Submit pilot feedback
What the pilot must learn
The Pilot Is a Question, Not a Conclusion
The pilot should generate local evidence before anyone decides whether to adopt, revise, expand, or stop.
- Can students navigate the course?
- Which lessons transfer into practice?
- Do scenarios and visuals support comprehension?
- Do knowledge checks align?
- Does it work on actual devices?
- Are claims accurate, clear, current, and qualified?
- Does it complement or duplicate services?
- What could embed in courses or guides?
- What would faculty assign?
- What should be removed, shortened, or expanded?
Pilot size
Start Small Enough to Learn
Proposed for discussion-not an effectiveness sample.
Variation to seek
Major · first-generation · transfer · traditional/returning · international/domestic · device · prior AI experience · accessibility needs
Professional review
Emily Haynes · Kim Wirth · library leadership/designee · faculty · accessibility, design, technology, or student-success reviewer
Workload: two or three Foundations episodes, one AI Quest, and the feedback form-about 30-45 minutes.
Pilot timeline
A Six-Week Formative Pilot
Review internally, soft-test, pilot with students, analyze, then make an explicit continue/revise/pause/stop decision.
Proposed-not approved: dates should adjust around library review, recruitment, faculty availability, accessibility review, and any required university approvals.
Evaluation dashboard
What Would Count as Useful Evidence?
Useful evidence combines student experience, learning indications, professional review, and explicit decision criteria.
Draft thresholds for stakeholder discussion-not validated institutional benchmarks.
Adaptive Leadership
This Is Both Technical and Adaptive Work
Technical work
- Fix broken buttons
- Correct content
- Repair navigation
- Improve accessibility
- Validate links
- Configure deployment
Adaptive work
- Decide who owns literacy development
- Clarify faculty and unit roles
- Surface competing expectations
- Avoid duplication
- Let students redefine usefulness
- Integrate or discontinue
- Diagnose
- Coordinate
- Experiment
- Collect evidence
- Interpret
- Adapt
- Integrate or discontinue
A bounded library role
Library Participation Can Scale With the Evidence
Start with the lightest role that can answer the pilot questions, then expand, revise, or stop.
- Option One
Review
Check sources, accessibility, fit, and overlap with existing services.
- Option Two
Co-design
Refine one or two learning cycles and the questions used to collect feedback.
- Option Three
Support a small test
Help connect participants with the right instruction, access, and referral routes.
- Option Four
Interpret and decide
Review the evidence together, then continue, revise, pause, or stop.
These are options, not commitments. A role can remain limited, shift to another unit, or end after review.
Questions for Emily, Aubrey, and Kim
What Do You See From the Library's Perspective?
- Which literacy problems recur in instruction or consultations?
- Which components overlap with current programming?
- Where might a module fill a genuine gap?
- Which courses, orientations, or guides are possible entry points?
- What should not be a library responsibility?
- Which faculty or student-support partners belong here?
- What accessibility, privacy, branding, or policy review is needed?
- What evidence would make a second pilot worthwhile?
- What would create too much maintenance burden?
- Who should own the next step?
Requested decisions
What Is the Smallest Responsible Test?
- Proceed?Limited pilot in principle-or do not proceed
- LiaisonName one library liaison
- ModulesSelect the first modules to review
- RoutesIdentify recruitment and faculty-review routes
- DateSet the next review date
Based on what you have seen, what is the smallest responsible test that would give the library useful evidence?
APA 7 references
References
All evidence sources used in the presentation were checked against their linked source pages on July 16, 2026.