The Project SAILS tests were developed soon after the Association of College and Research Libraries adopted the “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education” in 2000. The Standards received wide attention and many academic libraries and their parent organizations embraced all or part of the Standards as guideposts for their information literacy programs.
The Standards were structured so that each of the five standards had performance indicators, and each performance indicator had outcomes. Subsequent to the publication of the Standards, a task force created the objectives for many of the outcomes. (See “Objectives for Information Literacy Instruction: A Model Statement for Academic Librarians.”) The resulting combination of standards, performance indicators, outcomes, and objectives served as the foundation of the SAILS tests, with test items based on most of the objectives (or for cases in which no objective was written, on outcomes).
Since 2006, hundreds of colleges and universities have used the SAILS tests to measure the information literacy knowledge of their students. The Cohort version of the SAILS test was released in 2006 with the Individual Scores version becoming available in 2010. More recently, the Build Your Own Test (BYOT) option went live in 2016.
Carrick Enterprises assumed responsibility for the continued operation of Project SAILS in 2012. Since that time, we have repeatedly stated our intention to continue offering the SAILS tests as long as they prove useful to the higher education community. That promise continues to this day. The Association of College and Research Libraries rescinded the “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education” earlier this year, but we stand by our commitment to offer the SAILS tests well into the future. We know that many institutions want a long-term solution to information literacy assessment and SAILS is one such solution.
The SAILS tests will be available as long as they are needed. We continue to monitor how well the test items perform, to make updates to test items, and to improve the underlying systems. If you would like to discuss how the SAILS tests can help you and your institution, please contact us.