Information literacy for off-campus students

The following article has been published in Libri Volume 57, Number 3, September 2007 which we have online access to via the catalogue. The direct link is http://www.librijournal.org/subs/2007-3pp140-164.pdf. I have only read the conclusions and recommendations so far, and they aren't unexpected, but this article would be interesting reading as we consider how we can support users at a distance.

Developing Information Literate Off-Campus Learners: Pedagogical
Issues and Current Practice ROBERT NEWTON

Abstract. This study examined the potential and actual roles that
academic librarians play in supporting the development of information
literate off-campus learners. It reviews the literature, concentrating
in particular on issues related to the institutional context in which
off-campus learners are supported and the teaching role of the
academic librarian. A series of 12 interviews and a questionnaire
survey of 70 academic librarians provided the basis for a detailed
analysis of the current situation in Scotland and a Web survey was
used to confirm key findings, extending the study to include academic
librarians across the United Kingdom. The research concludes that the
most critical issue to be addressed is the integration of academic
library professionals within course teams. These librarians are
willing to become involved in teaching and to take responsibility for
the delivery of information literacy courses for off-campus learners,
but in order to do so effectively they must operate and interact with
students within the same learning space as the academic staff.

Suzie

Information Literacy Strategy Plan 2007/08

I've drafted a new implementation plan for this academic year which you can see at S:\Staff\Academic Support\Meetings and Action points\Info Lit strategy\Info lit strat plan 0708.doc

Please have a look at it and add your comments /ideas to this post here on the blog. If you want to add or change text in the plan please use Track Changes and put a note in the blog to alert us all to the changes.

We'll finalise the plan in the first part of our Info Literacy meeting on Friday 14th September so I'd be grateful if you could post your comments by Thursday 13th.

Many thanks,
Heather

A recent posting on lis-infoliteracy highlighted a short article on the absence of literature searching skills among experienced and novice researchers in academia, which provides evidence of the need for more training in this area. It draws on findings from the 2006 Research Information Network survey as well as the author’s own experience in running information retrieval workshops at the Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice (formerly Queen Mary, now KCL)

Gomersall, A. (2007) Literature searching: waste of time or essential skill? Evidence & Policy, 3 (2) 301-308

I've printed a copy and put it in the black box in the FSL office.

Suzie

Article on infolit and Blackboard

There's an article in the latest issue of Journal of Academic Librarianship entitled
'Integrating Information Literacy into Blackboard: Building Campus Partnerships for Successful Student Learning'
See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00991333 - article 5.

Christine

Just had a quick look at Phil's blog and found a link to this interesting article on the BBC about FaceBook and how it is being used by students and the reactions of Universities etc:

Facing up to Facebook


Caro.

Here are some interesting Web 2.0 resources for people to play with from Phil Bradley’s course:

Pageflakes: This allows you to create your own homepage. Use the flakes to add RSS feeds, e-mail, to do lists, calendars, bookmarks etc

Bloglines: If you want a simple RSS reader Phil recommends this tool, use it to add feeds from sites such as the BBC or to rerun internet searches on tools such as Google.

CustomSignGenerator: This is the site that I’ve been using to find possible images for our tip of the week marketing campaign.

Del.icio.us: Share bookmarks either from person to person or just from machine to machine.

Literature Map: If you liked a book by one author see what else this site thinks you might like (not sure I agree with all the answers).

Slide Share: Store Powerpoint Presentations on the web for easy access and the ability to share with others.

For more info about these and others resources try Phils website and blog or take a look at the documentation in the black boxes in the FSL’s office.

Caro.

Article on teaching with Blackboard

There is a new journal out called 'Communications in Information Literacy' available at http://www.comminfolit.org/

In this, its first issue, there is an article about the use of Blackboard in teaching sessions:
DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ INFORMATION AND RESEARCH SKILLS VIA BLACKBOARD at http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php/cil/article/view/Spring2007AR2/12

As always there seems to be a lot more support at the institutional level as they incorportaed a summative assignment into the process, but there may still be something we can take from this.

LKJ

Hi All,

Further to Christine's message, Moira's blog contains a link to the following article on interactive teaching techniques that's really interesting and gives some practical examples of quizzes etc that we might want to try. I quite like the Boolean crossword!

Games for teaching information literacy skills

Another fun tool I've come across recently at LILAC is Library Bingo (Andy Jackson, University of Dundee). This works by asking students to write down a list of say 5 things that they would expect to find in the Library. We then start to bring up a list of resources, starting with some of the more obscure, until some one shouts "house!". As well as giving us the opportunity to advertise the range of resources available, by asking at the end if anyone has anything we haven't mentioned, it also provides a way of monitoring user expectations. I'm hoping to try this out with foundation students during next years induction.

Caro.

Information Literacy - making a difference

Hi folks
I attended this event in Newcastle on Monday 2 April. It was organised by Moira Bent as part of her NTF project. The morning was taken up by a workshop presented by Christine Bruce (Queensland University of Techology) on her 'Six frames for Information Literacy' and there were 3 speakers in the afternoon. Have a look at Moira's blog - http://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/moira.bent - for her short write-up. I'll be putting the documents in the black files shortly.
Christine

When I attended the Teaching Information Skills workshop in February run by the Higher Education Academy, I received a booklet which is called "Celebrating excellence - six years of the NTFS" (National Teaching Fellowship Scheme). I've put it in the black box as it's interesting to read the kind of work people are doing for the NTFS. SK

I think it might be useful for us to think about a response to the National Info Lit Framework for Scotland recently published in draft form at:
http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/documents/DRAFTINFORMATIONLITERACYFRAMEWORK4.pdf

Pages 38 onwards are interesting to look at, especially in light of our listing of info skills for different levels. What is perhaps an area of concern is the level of skills students are expected to have for Highers. Do our students not yet have these skills or are we going over old ground?

LKJ

Just a couple of things for people to take a look at from this years LILAC Conference. I'll give a full report at our next Information exchange meeting:

Information Literacy module from Edge Hill: this module is hosted on their VLE and makes use of informs tutorials and self assessment quizzes, Edge Hill have kindly offered to provide access until the 13th April. I'll e-mail everyone with the URL and password.

Jane Falconer from the London Health Libraries also advertised free access to the CLIST repository of learning sets .

EBSCO was advertising free access to a number of resources including Dynamed, LISTA and the Teacher Reference Centre. If anyone is interested in having these added to our users profile please contact Steve the EBSCO rep. For more information please see the following EBSCO webpage.

Finally the big launch this year was for LolliPop an online IL course aimed at enquiries desk staff. The material is going to be made freely available and a link LolliPop should be appearing shortly on the Information skills website

Please let me know if you would like any further information on any of the above.

Thanks, Caro.

Just reading the JISC Tech Watch report: What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education by Paul Anderton. It is available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/services_techwatch/techwatch/techwatch_ic_reports2005_published.aspx

It contains some useful descriptions of new services/technologies, raises the issue of whether this is a new phase of the web or not and highlights some interesting issues (the big 6) behind Web 2.0:
1 Individual production and User Generated Content
2 Harnessing the power of the crowd
3 Data on an epic scale
4 Architecture of Participation
5 Network effects, power laws and the Long Tail
6 Openness

Definitely worth a read to feed into our learning curve about this area of development.
Laura

Information Fluency at St Martin's

Dear all,
I have just received some material from James Fraser at St Martin's on their Information Fluency framework, which I heard about whilst attending the "Teaching IL effectively in HE" course in Carlisle last Monday.
The pack includes a brochure, the St Martin's Teaching and Learning Strategy '06-'09 (which I believe officially recognises the IF framework), the IF annual report '05/'06 and a document on learning outcomes.

I will place these documents in the black journal boxes once I've had a look at them, and will also send round my write-up of the above event in due course.

Cheers,

Nicola

Peter Godwin article

I've printed off the Peter Godwin article "Information Literacy in the Age of Amateurs" from ITALICS. Caro has bagged first look after me but after that we'll put it in one of the black boxes behind Nicola's desk. HDM

New Developments on WoK

I've added the print material from the WoK update session that I attended in Leeds in January to the Black Box. Please let me know if you need the URL for the online training. CB

Recognising the Need conference, staffs uni

I have added a series of papers from this conference (May 2006) to the black folder. LKJ

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