Posters at #WLIC2012 searching tutorial and course development

I will have a few posts over the next few days covering a few of the 190(!) posters at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Firstly, here is one by Terje Blasternes at the University of Stavanger, Norway: Searching scholarly information and citing sources: e-learning courses in information literacy.They cover searching and evaluation: the tutorials (in Norwegian) are at http://www6.uis.no/Fag/Learningspace_kurs/UBiS/UBiS_kildebruk/index.html

Secondly, a poster by Sarah Bordac and Carina Cournoyer of Brown University, USA: Lining up the guideposts: integrating media and information literacy frameworks for first year university students. They have examined a range of existing standards and frameworks (as listed on the poster), and found that none of them gave exactly what they wanted. However they have drawn on them to develop their own framework, and are currently at the pilot stage.

I found a libguide on searching at Brown by Sarah Bordac here: http://libguides.brown.edu/research and you may also be interested in a list of resources drawn up by an intern at Brown University.

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Information literacy for multicultural populations

Next week is the IFLA conference being held in Puerto Rico. I'm not attending the main conference, but I just arrived in Puerto Rico to attend a UNESCO meeting and one of the section meetings of the IFLA Information Literacy Section.

I'll be missing some interesting sessions next week, but one good thing is that there are many papers up on the IFLA website. In this post I'll highlight the session which has been organised by the Information Literacy Section with Library Services to Multicultural Populations and the Special Interest Group on Indigenous Matters. The session theme (taking place on 15 August) is The importance of information literacy for multicultural populations: needs, strategies, programs, and the role of libraries

- Indigenous cultural models in information literacy delivery including programmes for Maori and Pasifika students at New Zealand universities by LORIENE ROY and VIRGINIA LUEHRSEN (School of Information, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA) and SPENCER LILLEY (Massey University Library, Palmerston North, New Zealand)

- Information literacy is a two-way street by DENICE ADKINS and BROOKE SHANNON (University of Missouri, Columbia, USA)

- Strengthening social inclusion in multicultural societies through information literacy by ESIN SULTAN OGUZ and SERAP KURBANOGLU (Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey)

- Information literacy in a multicultural society: the role of libraries in present Bulgaria by EVGENIYA RUSINOVA and GEORGETA NAZARSKA (State University of Library Studies and IT, Sofia, Bulgaria)

- Creating learning commons: a study of University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus experience of information literacy competencies integration into the university curriculum by SNEJANKA PENKOVA and LOURDES CÁDIZ (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico)

- "Usted y su biblioteca" (You and your library): an information literacy program for adult ESL students by MILLY C. LUGO (Santa Ana Public Library, Santa Ana, CA, USA)

- Indigenous Rarámuris as university students: challenges for the information literacy by JAVIER TARANGO and PATRICIA MURGUÍA (Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico) and JESUS LAU (Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, Mexico) (also in Spanish)

- Digital training supports the social integration of immigrants in Norway by TORD HØIVIK (Library and Information Science, Oslo University College, Oslo, Norway)

Photo by Sheila Webber: Roses, Hailsham, August 2011

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LILAC report: Using Cross-Cutting Groups to Enact Information Literacy Strategy #lilac11

This is a report on an afternoon sedssion from the last day of the LILAC (Information Literacy) conference 18-20 April 2011 in London, UK (though the picture is from a workshop on the first day). The session I'm writing about is Using Cross-Cutting Groups to Enact Information Literacy Strategy: A Comparative Case Study of Norway and the UK from Sheila Corrall (University of Sheffield) and Maria-Carme Torras (University of Bergen). This is the abstract. They identified the shift from a focus on operational matters to strategic development of information literacy. It has been shown that it is quite common to use cross-institutional task forces to approach this, but there is little research on this, so they thought it would be useful to compare what happened at the University of Bergen and at Sheffield University. They started by giving some background about both universities.
They were able to draw on an evaluation of Sheffield's Centre for Inquiry based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences project (specifically, an initiative within that, the Information Literacy Network (ILN), were able to use minutes from meetings etc. at Bergen University and engaged in a reflective dialogue. Sheila said a bit more about the ILN (which I was involved in and have blogged about before), which raised awareness of IL in the university. Activities incuded workshops for academic staff (as part of developing learning and teaching strategies), presentations (internal and external) and gathering good practice. We felt that at the end of the CILASS project information literacy became part of university vocabulary, and involving both Information School staff and librarians was valuable. IL is now mentioned in various strategy documents at Sheffield University.
Maria took over to talk about the Library Teaching Group at Bergen. It consists of representatives from each of the seven branch libraries, with both less, and more, experienced staff. This group was focused on embedding IL, working on approaches to teaching and developing materials, identify ways of evaluating teaching and to collaborate with other groups. Continuing Professional Development is also a role of the group.
As a result, the library at Bergen has become more visible as an educational partner (with people outside the library), they have developed a good deal of tailored information literacy education, and also created a community of practice around the changed approach toIL. They also feel they have triggered an organisational change, with a research support group being formed, and a teaching and research support position being created.
In terms of institutional strategy, at Sheffield University IL has been identified as an objective for student learning in the Learning Teaching and Assessment Strategy, and it is one of the graduate attributes. It is also now a key theme in the Library strategic plan, and two departments developed their own plan for IL.
At Bergen, the University stated that integration of IL and ethics should be prioritised, something which is reinforced by recommendations at the national level, although a weakness is that it is not monitored closely. Also they have been involved in consultations on key strategies and institutional plans and policies.
The value of having a dedicated staff member was highlighted (for coordination, keeping momentum, carry out specific initiatives etc.): there had been one at Sheffield (in CILASS), and there will be the new position at Bergen. At Sheffield, strategic alliances with learning support staff, students and "early adopter" academics was important. Maria highlighted collaboration with the University Centre for the Study of the Sciences and Humanities and with the Division of Academic Affairs (particularly around academic integrity). Also they have collaborated with the Teacher Development Programme to develop a course in research ethics for university staff (although funding for this is not yet secure).
In terms of professional development, Sheila mentioned that this included spreading development to IT and paraprofessional staff, not just the subject liaison libarians. At Bergen, there have been continous plans and specific courses.
Enablers at Sheffield included academic endorsement of IL, institutional opportunities, and team working, and restraints include the loss of momentum when the CILASS project finished. At Bergen enablers included the quality of the members, the diversity of membership, support of the library director and restraints included lack of ownership by other staff, the ambiguous status of the group and (as at Sheffield) competing demands on time.
In both cases the groups moved their original mandates. Having regular meetings and someone dedicated to drive things forawrd was valuable. Project funding can also have a disproportionately large effect.

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Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education (volume 2 no. 1, 2010) is a special issue containing informative abstracts of papers (in Norwegian) from the conference held in Stavanger 2010, focusing on IL in higher education. It can be accessed at https://noril.uib.no/index.php/noril
Rune Brandshaug, Hege Faber, Almuth Gastinger, Tove Knutsen : Fagreferentenes rolle under nye rammebetingelser
Pål Magnus Lykkja: Samarbeids- og innovasjonskultur i fagbiblioteket
Tove Rullestad, Anne Sissel Vedvik Tonning: Fagreferentens rolle
Mariann Løkse: Undervisning i informasjonskompetanse: Hva gjør vi og hva synes studentene?
Eystein Gullbekk, Maria-Carme Torras: Det nasjonale kvalifikasjonsrammeverket: muligheter og utfordringer for bibliotekets undervisning
Susanne Mikki : Bibliometri og forskningsstatistikk ved Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen
Jan Engh: Elektronisk sikring?
Hege Faber, Solveig I. Taylor: Er søking i google nok?
Ellen Nierenberg: En liten høyskole som tenker stort: tiltak mot fusk og plagiat ved Høgskolen i Hedmark
Sigrid Gimse: Business information literacy: informasjonskompetanse ved Handelshøyskolen BI
Alexandra Angeletaki: Which educational role can Libraries play in a University learning environment?
Tone Gadmar: Å lære å kommunisere vitenskap: et innblikk i et masterkurs ved kjemi ved universitetet i Oslo. Utfordringer og erfaringer
Hege Folkestad: Modulbaserte kurs for PhD-studentar ved Matematisk-naturvitskapleg fakultet, UiB
Solveig Greve: Hva med de gjenstridige dokumentene? Fagreferentrollen i spesialsamlinger
Ingunn Rødland: Fagreferenten – arbeidsoppgaver og forventninger
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield University under the snow 10 days ago.

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Evidence Based Practice

At the start of the week I blogged about the Norwegian tutorial Search and Write (available in English and Norwegian). At the Creating Knowledge conference in Turku, Finland, Therese Skagen (University of Bergen Library, Norway) talked about this project in the context of Evidence Based Practice (EBP) and use of projects to develop EBP. She identified some challenges to EBP including time allocation, dissemination (within and outside the library), competences (in research and planning), and resources. Management needs to be supportive, and you need to believe that research can be of value to the organisation.
She suggested trying out EBP in a small area of the library service to begin with. Therese saw gains from EBP in terms of, for example, your own learning, strategic understanding or (organisationally) increased quality of service and better morale.
She went on to talk about the project of making the Search and Write tutorial. It was EBP as they did research beforehand and took an evidence based approach to developing and evaluating it (including drawing out lessons for future project work). Three university libraries collaborated on teh project: University of Bergen, Bergen University College, and Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.
To start with they researched information searching and academic writing, plus they looked at experience from practice within 4 university libraries. They managed to get funding (I think from the Norwegian Open University): someone I was talking to here noted that the fact is that projects which get some proper funding (whether from inside or outside the institution) do have more of a chance of being successful.
A work group for Search and Teach was formed to work on the tutorial; group members came from the 3 different libraries, so they had to "form" as a group. They also had an advisory group with faculty memebrs and other librarians. As well as the actual tutorial, there is a handbook for librarians (in Norwegian) sok & skriv for kursholdere (handbook for librarians) and there will be an article on the pedagogical considerations in the next issue of Communications in Information Literacy (volume 2 issue 1 I assume).
Challenges included the amount of time needed to develop the tutorial, cooperation with partners outside project (someone in the audience, from another university, said that the work group had done a good job of communicating), marketing, and updating the pages (a challenge for the future).
Positive aspects were: success (and experience) in applying for funds, influence on decision making, larger understanding of how the organisation works, developing their role as educators and other professional development.
Someone in the audience asked why the group hadn't used a virtual learning environment - the answer was that this was because the 3 universities developing it had three different systems! I must say I'm grateful, as in its current open form on the web it can be used by everyone.
There is some further information about the project in English at: www.ub.uib.no/prosj/DK/english.htm
Photo by Sheila Webber: Loistokari island, Finland, where we had the conference dinner, August 2008

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Search and write

I have just travelled to Finland for the Creating Knowledge V conference, where I will be presenting 2 papers, and I intend to blog some of the experience. Being in a Nordic country it's a good time to promote a nice resource Search and write, or in the original Norwegian Søk & Skriv (the resource is in both languages). There is a basic information literacy tutorial and one more focused on the dissertation process - the latter has a week by week account of the progress of the student, Oda, as she refines her research question and gets to grips with the literature. I like that it says that "Both searching for information and writing are creative processes and the search for information is an integral part of thesis writing." http://www.sokogskriv.no/english/index.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: my washing enjoys the breeze, Port Julia, Australia, July 2008.

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