RDMRose project develops learning materials

JISC have funded the White Rose Consortium of the libraries of the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York and the Sheffield iSchool to develop learning materials about Research Data Management tailored for the needs of LIS professionals.The project, RDMRose, will develop learning materials to be made available as Open Educational Resources (OERs). Learning materials should begin to be available from January 2013. RDM refers to “the organisation of data, from its entry to the research cycle through to the dissemination and archiving of valuable results”.Project web site is at http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/research/projects/rdmrose
Photo by Sheila Webber: White rose.

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ACRL awarded grant for project linking libraries and student success

The (US) Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has been awarded a (US) National Leadership Demonstration Grant by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for the project Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success. The grant funding of $249,330 will support ACRL, in partnership with the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). The funding is for development programmes (in each case a one year programme, over three years, involving teams from a total of 300 libraries). "Librarians who participate in the program, supported by a blended learning environment and a peer-to-peer network, will lead their campus teams in the development and implementation of an action learning project examining the impact of the library on student success and contributing to assessment activities on their campus." http://acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/archives/5817#more-5817
Photo by Sheila Webber: Pyracantha, Hailsham, October 2012

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George Kuh article for discussion in October

The article which the ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group has chosen for October is:
Kuh, G. and Gonyea, R.M. (2003) The Role of the Academic Library in Promoting Student Engagement in Learning. College and Research Libraries, 64(4), 256-282. http://crl.acrl.org/content/64/4/256.abstract
To join the discussion, go to http://connect.ala.org/node/189260
George Kuh is an influential figure in US Higher Education, and I think that this article is still worth reading (whether or not you decide to join in the debate!) The authors took data from the College Student Experiences Questionnaire and compared various sets of questions including the set of questions relating to library use, some key questions to do with satisfaction, and a set of questions which they selected as being a (sort of) match with ACRL standards.
The authors make some pertinent remarks about how important variables to do with previous academic achievement, ethnicity etc. are, when trying to link library use with academic success, something which some other studies gloss over.
The evidence does not support an easy correlation between academic excellence and library use, or library use and (the authors' measure of) information literacy. The final paragraph reads:
"The findings of this study indicate that it takes a whole campus to produce an information-literate college graduate. For this reason, librarians would do well to redouble their efforts to collaborate with faculty members, instructional development staff, and student affairs professionals in promoting the value of information literacy in various in-class and out-of-class activities and to provide students with as many opportunities as possible to evaluate the quality of the information they encounter, on and off the campus."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn arriving, Sheffield, October 2012

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Presentations: Supporting Diverse Student populations

Presentations from the ALISS conference on Supporting Diverse Student populations (held in August 2012) are available. They include:
- Ethnicity and Study Skills: active intervention in the library setting (Suzanne White and Lisa Lawrence, Subject Librarians Coventry University.)
- Using Elluminate to deliver library training to distance/ part time learners (Helen Clough Learning and Teaching Librarian, The Open Univeristy.)
- Library support for International students (Helen Ireland , University of Warwick.)
- Online learning: Can a generic tutorial meet the disparate needs of researchers? (Jenny Coombs- University of Nottingham)
Go to http://www.alissnet.org.uk/Display.aspx?id=10737418259
Photo by Sheila Webber: seed head, Jonkoping, August 2012

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IFLA #wlic2012 Micro-E-Learning in Information Literacy

I'm liveblogging from the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland
The next talk in this session on e-learning and information literacy was Micro-E-Learning in Information Literacy from NICOLE KRÜGER (my phot of her, right). To quote her paper "The term "Microlearning" refers to the acquisition of a given information or learning
material in small units that can be absorbed quickly." She started by explaining why microlearning is useful - with some arguing that some e-learning is too long and ineffective, and microlearning seen as appropriate for digital natives by commentators such as Prensky.
So in her library, firstly they have an online reference service, so that users can interact via chat and email. The librarians aim to give short clear answers, but obviously this short answer may not answer the complete information need.
The second microlearning option is LOTSE, a modular online tutorial. It has multimedia content, interactive learning in a Moodle section. However, the speaker observed that this still might be too macro for the users.
Therefore they tried to merge the advantages of the two services. Thus on the reference desk they still give short answers, but also provide a link to the relevant bit of LOTSE and point out other multimedia content. For LOTSE, there is now a personal tutor available to help people orientate themselves in LOTSE. Further ideas are: making the e-learning content searchable, offering service on Facebook, forums where people can discuss their questions and publication on Youtube.
There were a number of questions afterwards, including one person troubling the notion that you have to acceed to a microlearning approach, when people still need to learn to engage more deeply (this was a point that came to me, too, as I am not happy with teh "digital native" discourse either). The speaker admitted this was a problem, but felt that since IL was so essential and the IL was not compulsory, it was at least a way of getting the information to those who would not otherwise be engaged with IL at all.
I blogged about LOTSE in more detail before: http://information-literacy.blogspot.fi/2010/09/slavic-information-literacy-tutorial-at.html
The full text paper is at: Micro-E-Learning in Information Literacy
Translations: [Français] NICOLE KRÜGER (ZBW - German National Library of Economics, Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel/Hamburg, Germany)

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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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Student retention ACRL discussion

The ACRL Student Retention Discussion Group is discussing the article: Emmons, M. and Wilkinson, M. (2011) "The Academic Library Impact on Student Persistence". College and Research Libraries, 72 (2), 128-149. http://crl.acrl.org/content/72/2/128.full.pdf+html
The discussion takes place throughout August. You can read the comments by visiting the page, and can also join the discussion if you sign up to ALA Connect (free, you don't have to be an ALA member): go to http://connect.ala.org/node/184729
Photo by Sheila Webber: My front door, August 2012

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New report on "evolving value for academic libraries"

Creaser, C and Spezi, V. (2012) Working together: evolving value for academic libraries. Sage. This newly-published report is the outcome of a project for Sage (the publishers) undertaken by LISU at Loughborough University, UK. The report is fairly short (16 pages). The findings are based on investigating some "best practice" at 8 universities: 2 in Nordic countries, 2 in the UK and 4 in North America, plus a questionnaire which was publicised via discussion lists etc. and got 630 responses. There are short sections on "embedding information literacy", "integrated teaching", "other support services", and "integrated research services". There is also a chapter on marketing issues. Recommendations are made for individual librarians (including developing teaching skills), library managers, and the wider institution. I'm not sure there is anything startlingly new here, but the report and the examples it gives could be useful when planning or putting together a case about services. The report is free (you have to give your contact details before downloading the report), downloaded from the "Report" tab on the project blog at http://libraryvalue.wordpress.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: poppies, by the Sheffield tram stop, June 2012

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