Information Literacy Tools - ProQuest Research Companion vs. Credo Information Literacy Modules*
Comparative Review by CCL-EAR Committee Over the course of fall 2016 and spring 2017, members of the CCL-EAR Committee were asked to write a comparative review of two information literacy tutorial products offered through the CCL library consortium: Proquest's Research Companion and Credo's Information Literacy Modules*. Download the full-text of our review evaluation for more detail.
*Since this review was published, Credo has changed the name of the “InfoLit Modules” to “Instruct” during an expansion of their Learning Tools product family. For more information on the renaming of the product, please refer to Credo's press release.
If you have any experience with this product, please leave a comment and rate its appropriateness for use in a community college environment.
† The offers and trials information are password protected. Actual prices are confidential between the vendor and the consortium.
For access contact Amy Beadle, Library Consortium Director, 916.800.2175.
Comments
Kate, Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Based on our review of Credo we felt strongly that while the cost for either purchasing or subscribing to the IL content is high, the value is also high. The product can fill many different instructional needs including brief clips for one-shot sessions, modular lessons that embedded librarians can assign, and a full set of IL lessons that could be used throughout an IL course. '
Although the labor required for customization could be considered an additional cost, we found that a) the existing content is more than sufficient to get started using the product in many different ways, b) when customization is desired, the process is intuitive, and c) the flexibility of the product will make it easier for librarians to achieve other time-intensive goals like program-level learning outcomes assessment and curation of locally created and openly licensed instructional content to which you want to direct students for class-related as well as just-in-time independent learning.
I hope that these additional reflections help to make the comparison review more useful.
Again, thank you for your feedback. I hope you are able to find a tool that works well for you and your students.
I was interested to read this review as my library currently subscribes to ProQuest Research Companion and we haven’t been 100% happy with it and are curious how others perceive/use resources like these.
I was surprised that cost wasn’t discussed more – we trialed Credo in 2014 (not sure if pricing has dropped) but it was prohibitively expensive and I would consider us a well-funded library. How does Credo get 4 stars for cost? The entry for cost for PRC just says “Relatively inexpensive but not the same product as
the competition.” Without even mentioning if it’s a subscription based cost or purchase,etc. Another important factor with Credo is the extensive customization. That’s clearly a wonderful feature, but it does take a lot of staff time and skill which could be considered another type of cost.
I do agree with most of the criticisms of PRC; we’ve been frustrated with the narrow scope, the usefulness of the assessments and the additional tools.
Credo's product has also changed significantly between 2014 and when we conducted the review in late 2016. I looked at it for my own institution in 2015 and at that time it was quite similar to Proquest's Research Companion.
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