L6 5 3

=Information on the ability of students to use digital information facilities guides training and support resourcing. =

Evidence
There is an ongoing need to monitor the use of e-learning and ICTs for course delivery because there is as yet no consensus about what constitutes quality e-learning (Usoro & Abid 2008). These authors state that, ‘effective quality strategies, initiatives and tools are very important for convincing lecturers and other stakeholders to adopt e-learning’ (p. 80). Kidney et al. (2007) believe that, ‘a quality online course would be the direct result of a course creation process that included quality assurance strategies’ (p. 18).

To improve e-learning outcomes it is important to learn from past mistakes, according to Ehrmann (2002), who argues that tracking progress is not only necessary to stay on course but also to identify solvable problems that can attract fresh resources (p. 55).

Validation of e-learning processes and resources is a significant stage in the full cycle of organisational learning that describes success in terms of ‘student performance, student satisfaction, staff experience, and cost effectiveness, as judged in relation to the original intentions’ (Salmon, 2000, p. 236). Salmon discusses validating as one of six activities in the iterative process of creating an effective learning organisation infrastructure that enables ‘the system to learn about itself’ (p. 237).

Resources
Kidney et al. (2007) believe that, ‘a quality online course would be the direct result of a course creation process that included quality assurance strategies’ (p. 18). This is exactly what is described by Abdous (2009) in a pilot programme.

California State University implements a multi-year assessment of info literacy skills. This is because it is important to actually assess info literacy. Furthermore, it is important to establish processes for assessment of student competence. Then we can acquire data to target the development of info competence instruction.

(Snavely 2001) In addition to assessing all students’ basic information literacy skills, faculty and librarians should also work together to develop assessment instruments and strategies in the context of particular disciplines, as information literacy manifests itself in the specific understanding of the knowledge creation, scholarly activity, and publication processes found in those disciplines.