+ Learning information literacy must always be intrinsically rewarding.

+ Success at information problem-solving encourages further information problem-solving.

+ Information problem-solving should be student-centered within the context of curricular goals. Learners search best about topics they choose.

+ Resource-based teaching works best when teacher-librarian partnerships flourish.

+ Research must be purposeful: to fulfill a need or to create a product that will be used.

+ Students learn to research by researching many different kinds of questions using a wide variety of strategies from a vast field of sources.

+ Information literacy supports a wide range of problem-solving: it is a powerful tool.

+ Research flourishes in a supportive environment.

+ Students need help to become aware of their own research process: how they develop and use inquiry strategies.

+ Students need opportunities to share this awareness with other learners and to compare, explore, observe, and absorb successful search strategies of their peers.

- Treat high quality as an option. The students will too.

- Provide too few guidelines. Students may stray from their task, be counterproductive, and feel apprehensive about unclear expectations.

- Provide too many guidelines. There will be no creativity or higher-level thinking skills or growth to measure.

- Assess everything in sight. This will overburden your time before, during and after a task. Students will be so distracted by assessment that the goals of the task will be eclipsed.

- Assess trivia. Your appraisals wonÍt test what youÍre trying to teach. Never assess an information problem that is significant as well as engaging.

- Try only one format of innovative assessment. You'll never find out how "form follows function." Your student profiles will also be skewed.

- Let students assess their peers without instruction or observation. They'll get out the poison pens or else enjoy gossiping.

- Concentrate on end products. Then students won't have a self-adjustment opportunity and you won't get a picture of their process skills.

- Forget assessing non-routine information problems. Assume students can apply their routinized skills flexibly.

- Accept student choices without justification. Then you won't discover misunderstood concepts or have the opportunity for follow-up probing.

- Use invalid rubrics. Avoid deciding just what is exemplary or sufficient or inclusive for a skill on a specific level.

- Just read and watch. Innovations in assessment isn't like ice skating, which requires putting on the skates and getting onto the ice before you really understand.

- Keep your assessment tool from covering what you wanted to measure. Your students will naturally under-emphasize what is not covered.

- Be negative in describing possible researching difficulties or problems in rubrics. Treat them as mistakes or faults, not as points on a continuum or as opportunities for growth.

- Collect no assessment examples that appeal to you. Follow or adapt no colleague's efforts. Keep no journals - highlight no insights or successes. Recognize no strengths to emphasize.

- Trust assessment as an end in itself. Then its use can't participate in supporting and improving student learning.