Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet: PhD thesis

A French-language thesis on schoolchildren's concept of internet searching has just been put online.
Cordier, A. (2011) Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet : Le cas d'élèves de 6ème et de professeurs documentalistes. UNIVERSITÉ CHARLES DE GAULLE – LILLE III. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00737637
I did not really spend enough time with it (considering my moderate French language skills) to give a good account of what it is about, but I think it is an investigation into 11-12 year old French schoolchildren's experiences of searching the internet, contrasting this experience with what the school librarians have as their goal for information literacy teaching. The latter are urged to pay more attention to the pupil's practice with information and technology.
This is the French abstract "L'objectif de ce travail est d'apporter une meilleure connaissance des imaginaires, représentations et pratiques non formelles développées par les élèves de 6ème sur la recherche d'information sur Internet, et d'effectuer un parallèle et une confrontation avec les pratiques de formation mises en oeuvre par les professeurs documentalistes. Pour ce faire, une étude qualitative, combinant entretiens semi-directifs et observation distanciée, a été menée au sein de trois établissements scolaires français. L'adoption d‟une éco-posture pour analyser la recherche d‟information sur Internet permet de considérer les pratiques de recherche et de formation de manière située, en tenant compte des contraintes opérées par les espaces d'action identifiés. Le sentiment d'expertise personnellement ressenti en matière de recherche sur Internet joue pour les deux types d'acteurs un rôle fondamental à la fois dans l'appropriation de l'outil et dans l'appréhension des séances de formation. L'étude révèle un écart important entre les pratiques de recherche ordinaires des élèves et les pratiques prescrites par les professionnels."
Photo by Sheila Webber: yet more anemones, October 2012

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IFLA #wlic2012 >Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants?

Liveblogging at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Next up is Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants? (Form@doct: Designing innovative online tutorials for PhD students in France) presented by Marie-Laure Malingre.
This concerned online training of PhD students, a collaboration of several universities in two regions of France. There were 3 main starting questions, about the nature of information literacy for PhD students, whether e-learning was appropriate/better for PhD students and which resources and tools were appropriate.
The project was stimulated by a number of factors including new higher education frameworks and the move to the virtual campus.
They had carried out a study in 2007 which had revealed some of the issues - such as the patchy nature of current coverages, the need for personalised, flexible learning. One challenge was having several approaches in the same tool, another was supporting distance learning without sufficient human resources, and also there was the issue of forming a link betwen clasroom and distance learning.
They had to decide whether they would try to cover all material comprehensive, or be more selective, also there was the balance of practical and theoretical material. There was disagreement over the latter point, so both practice and theory is included. In terms of the balance of general and specific, the material is first of all generic, but with disciplinary material inserted appropriate. There is a hierarchical arrangement, with strong granularity, so specific items can be identified and used. The 4 main ways of accessing are Tree Structure, FAQ, Search Engine and Tag Cloud.
Overall a key problem is that one of lack of human resources to develop and support the resource. However, there have been 89,000 consultations of the 40 guides. The FAQ has had increasing use, and has become a way of accessing the content. They have had some suggestions from learners of resources to be covered, and some individual questions submitted to the FAQ.
I asked whether the doctoral supervisors had been involved, and it was emphasised that the doctoral colleges had indeed been involved in development and understood the value of the material.
Full text at Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants?
Translations: [English version here] MARIE-LAURE MALINGRE and ALEXANDRE SERRES (URFIST de Bretagne et Pays de la Loire, France) with ALAIN SAINSOT and HERVE LE MEN (Service commun de documentation, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France)

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Information literacy meets E-learning: let’s talk about interconnections and outcomes #wlic2012

At the IFLA World Library and Information Congress on 13 August, in Helsinki, is the session Information literacy meets E-learning: let’s talk about interconnections and outcomes. You have to register for the conference (11-17 August) to attend, but there are full-text papers online already here: http://conference.ifla.org/ifla78/session-93. I will be attending the conference, so I will blog the session here, too. The session is organised by the IFLA Information Literacy Section and E-learning Special Interest Group. The papers are:
- An online information literacy course for undergraduates: early experiences: ANNE WADE and JOANNE LOCKE (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada) and PATRICK DEVEY (eConcordia, Montreal Canada)
- Micro-E-Learning in Information Literacy:NICOLE KRÜGER (ZBW - German National Library of Economics, Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel/Hamburg, Germany)
- Proliferating Information Literacy - e-Learning delivery mode extends reach to IL learners in Singapore: GEE MIAW MIIN (National Library Board, Singapore)
- Embedding e-learning into Science and Engineering Graduate Information Literacy Course: WU MING, WANG CHUN, WANG LI, JIN YING and MA XIAOMIN (National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China)
- Form@doct: quels apprentissages en ligne pour des doctorants?:MARIE-LAURE MALINGRE and ALEXANDRE SERRES (URFIST de Bretagne et Pays de la Loire, France) with ALAIN SAINSOT and HERVE LE MEN (Service commun de documentation, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France)
- Information literacy interconnections using a virtual learning environments: DAVID V. LOERTSCHER and BLANCHE WOOLLS (San Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA)
- Designing an interactive virtual learning environment (VLE) with a learner centered approach: LI WANG (The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand)
- E-Learning in Information Management Education in Sri Lanka: discussion of the impact of information literacy: NAMALI SURAWEERA, CHERN L. LIEW and JOCELYN CRANEFIELD (School of Information Management, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand)
The main conference website is at http://conference.ifla.org/ifla78
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hydrangea, Sheffield, August 2012.

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La culture de l'information en reformation

Olivier Le Deuff's thesis (2009) is available online (in French), dealing with the concept "La culture de l'information" including its relationship with information literacy and transliteracy.
Le Deuff, O. (2009) La culture de l'information en reformation. Université Rennes 2. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00421928/en/
Photo by Sheila Webber: my cherry blossom, April 2010.

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Young People and Emerging Digital Services

A recent publication, presenting a survey of about 5,000 young people from 4 countries (France, UK, Spain and Germany), is:
Lusoli, W., & Miltgen, C. (2009). Young People and Emerging Digital Services. An Exploratory Survey on Motivations, Perceptions and Acceptance of Risks (JRC Scientific and Technical Reports; EUR 23765 EN). Sevilla: EC JRC IPTS. http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=2119
It surveys attitudes and behaviours with electronic identification systems. They found that young people were aware and concerned about risks, although they have low awareness of data protection laws and varying understanding of different kinds of technology, and it also identifies young peopel as "Web 2.0 experts". However, there were different attitudes and behaviours in different groups by country/ gender.
Photo by Sheila Webber, Euphorbia, March 2009

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Information Literacy at the cross-road of Education and Information Policies in Europe

A new book: Basili, C. (Ed) (2008) Information Literacy at the cross-road of Education and Information Policies in Europe. Rome: CNR. (ISBN: 978-88-8080-096-5)
Chapters are: Information and education policies in Europe: key factors: influencing information literacy academic policies in Europe (Basili); Theorems of Information Literacy (Basili); Development of information-related Competencies in European ODL Institutions (Virkus); Information literacy programmes in higher education in the Czech Republic: The path of theory and practice (Landová et al); France: the courage to say "Documentation" (Reggiani); Information literacy activities in Germany between the Bologna process and the web 2.0 (Hapke); Joined Planning and Development - Customized Solutions: the North-Rhine-Westphalian Network on Information literacy (Nilges); Information literacy as National Assets: Individual and Cooperative Activities (Katsirikou); Information literacy education of pupils and students in Poland - diagnosis of the educational situation (Cisek et al); Information literacy and Romanian Higher Education System (Rapeanu); The European Area of Higher Education (EAHE), Information literacy and Learning & Research Resource Centers: a triangle of excellence for the development of library services in Spanish universities (Cuevas Cerveró & Vives i Gràcia); Information literacy from the learner's perspective: a UK study (Andretta)
Main information is here: http://www.cnr.it/sitocnr/Iservizi/Pubblicazioni/
Catalogopubblicazioni/Catalogo.html?voce=13&id=612
The price is 20 Euro and the order page is here:
http://www.cnr.it/sitocnr/Iservizi/Pubblicazioni/
Catalogopubblicazioni/ComeAcquistare.html (unfortunately it is payment by bank transfer)

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Information Literacy in history

Here are my notes on the two other presentations in the same session as our research presentation at conference, L'education à la culture informationnelle [Education for/in information culture], held in Lille, France October 16-18 (as mentioned in the previous post).

1) David Del Testa (a US academic/historian) et Abby Clobridge (Librarian): D’internautes aux historiens : une pédagogie hybride pour colmater l’observation et l’analyse dans un cours d’histoire aux USA [Internauts to historians : a hydrid pedagogy for developing observation and analysis in a US history course]
This described how students had chosen, digitised and catalogued World War 2 posters. This developed students' information literacy skills, and also helped their development as historians, using real historical documents and reflecting on the documents’ context and provenance. It was a collaboration between a history academic (the course leader) and librarian at Bucknell University, USA.
There is material similar (I think, more detailed) to what was presented at http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/aclobrid/portfolio/nercomp08.htm
This web page includes links to a ppt and to documents mapping learning outcomes to those of Middle States and ACRL for information Literacy.

2) Jean-François Courtecuisse : Les pratiques documentaires des étudiants face aux présupposés méthodologiques des disciplines [Students’ information behaviour and disciplinary suppositions about methodology]
This was a description of a study of the information behaviour of history students, based on interview data. They were predominantly using the internet (generally a limited range of sites) and books, neglecting other potentially valuable information sources. There seemed to be an absence of awareness/discussion about the nature of the literature and search tools. Some students said they were cautious about using the internet because they knew it might have unreliable information.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Old Lille, October 2008.

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L'education à la culture informationnelle: Report 1

This time last week I had just given my keynote at the conference, L'education à la culture informationnelle [Education for/in information culture], held in l’Université Charles de Gaulle Lille3, Lille, France. I had limited internet access whilst in France and have had a very hectic week, so I have not had the time to blog about it. However I will be making up for that with a few posts, with my own reflections and also drawing on those who could undertsand the proceedings better than I (most of the contributions were in French, unsurprisingly, and my French skills need much improvement). There is basic information about the programme etc at: http://ertecolloque.wordpress.com/

The colloquium was originated by ERTE (Erté Culture informationnelle et curriculum documentaire): there is more information (in French) about their projects and research here: http://geriico.recherche.univ-lille3.fr/erte_information/
Other French information and library organisations were also involved in the conference.
To borrow from the English-language call for papers "The primary objective of [ERTE] is to propose solutions for improving information literacy education in school and at university. The program has brought together several research laboratories and academic institutions, and the project team includes researchers, library and documentation professionals, teacher training specialists, and school librarians, as well as school teachers and university faculty from all academic disciplines."

A very interesting part of this is exploring the meaning of concepts such as information and une culture informationnelle - so exploring things at a conceptual level as well as (or even, more than) the practical. I would say that they concept information culture does not even exist, as such, and indeed this was one area that one of the researchers is exploring. Additionally, there is debate about what words you use to describe the concept of information literacy: la maîtrise de l’information is now most commonly used, with obvious overtones of mastering the skills/knowledge required. This will be discussed a bit more in a future post.
Photo by Sheila Webber: a peek at the conference venue

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