20 years of credit-bearing courses: Reflections, takeaways, and next steps

Abstract

The Z. Smith Reynolds (ZSR) Library at Wake Forest University (WFU) has been teaching credit-bearing information literacy (IL) courses since the spring of 2003. What started as a single section of a one-credit course titled LIB100: Accessing Information in the 21st Century has since grown into a much larger and consistently successful elective, credit-bearing program. In the 2021–2022 academic year, we taught 43 sections of credit-bearing courses that enrolled a total of 606 students. Over the past two decades, we have renamed LIB100 to Academic Research and Information Issues and added more than a dozen special topics and discipline-specific credit courses to our regular repertoire. At conferences and in other professional interactions, we are often asked to share more about how we’ve managed to sustain a robust, elective credit-bearing program. As our library celebrates our 20th anniversary of teaching credit courses, we decided to take the opportunity to reflect on our program and share some of our takeaways, best practices, and next steps.