SAILS is a knowledge test with multiple-choice questions targeting a variety of information literacy skills. The test items are based on the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. The Build Your Own Test (BYOT) option allows you to select the test questions that are presented to your students from our validated item bank of 162 questions. Institutions from any country can use the BYOT option. This will allow you to create your own individual scores test.
Each BYOT administration can have up to 50 test questions. You can choose to collect standard demographics for class standing and major and optionally include up to ten custom demographic questions, each with up to 50 response options. The demographic and custom questions are in addition to the 50 test questions you can choose.
You can view the test question bank by ACRL Standard or SAILS Skill Set. All of the test questions in the group you are viewing are displayed for you to select from. You can add questions to and remove questions from your test as often as you like up to the point that you start testing. For details, see the BYOT Tutorial.
Administering and taking the SAILS assessment requires very little technical expertise. Schools register, customize the test-delivery system, and make payment online. If testing the maximum number of test questions, most students will finish within 40 minutes. You may view the question format on the sample questions page. Please also review the Terms of Use.
A data file showing how each student answered the demographic questions and how they scored on each question will be produced once you stop testing. The data file is in csv format and can be opened with any data analysis tool, including Excel. See sample data file. You can also download a custom PDF document containing the test items you selected. Just as with our other testing options, pricing is per-student and only those students who complete test are included in your charge.
Because this is a custom test, no benchmark data are provided.
If you are interested in using SPSS to analyze your BYOT data, you can download our Basic Guide to Analyzing Individual Scores Data with SPSS PDF document.