Loughborough University Library: Open Journals
Not a member yet
1614 research outputs found
Sort by
A qualitative investigation of the digital literacy practices of doctoral students
Full text linkAcademic libraries are currently part of a landscape where there is a rapid growth of digital technologies and electronic resources and they have responded to this by developing their research services. Some of the most specialised and complex research in higher education is conducted by doctoral students and the effective use of digital tools and skills is often crucial to their research workflow and success. The need for digital literacy has been further emphasised during the global pandemic of 2020-21 which has required the maximisation of online working and digital skills to ensure the continuation of education, services and research productivity. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative research study in a UK university exploring factors influencing differences in the digital literacy skills of doctoral students. The literature included has been updated as digital skills and technologies are a constantly changing area of research.
Due the complex nature of doctoral research, it was difficult to draw definite conclusions about the many factors which influence the digital literacy practices of research students. Students interviewed in the study discussed their approaches to and understanding of information, digital and media literacy (Jisc, 2016) but the influence of demographic factors such as age, discipline and gender could not easily be evaluated. All students in the study appeared to be under time pressure and required a high level of organisation and this was assisted by digital skills and proficiency and access to robust hardware and software. They believed they were largely self-taught and some required appropriate training at the point of need to increase their research productivity. This paper will explore how evidence-based practice and engagement may be used to understand the digital practices of doctoral students and to inform the development of research services within academic libraries. 
Is It To Feel Each Limb Grow Stiffer, Is It To Feel The full Potential Of A Life?
Full text linkA drawing practice based on conversation with others is, by its very nature, a constantly evolving one and one that follows the changing nature of conversations as they unfold. At the time of the original ‘Drawing Matters’ symposium, conversations about migration, immigration, and related stories were central to the author’s practice, these issues of course still continue and drawings completed by the author continue to reflect on these difficult global events. In fact, one of the artist’s animations that responds to these issues was selected for the 2018 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.
However, as an individual, the artist is getting older and, as this very natural process becomes more noticeable –– more aches and pains, a growing awareness of mortality and, of course, more conversations with people of a similar age –– their drawings, artwork, and community engagements have reflected these things. In particular, their recent work has begun to embody issues that have emerged from their research into aging and memory, both as practice-based drawing research and as research undertaken as part of a community group that has been looking at how to manage the aging process. 
‘Informed’, ‘active’ and ‘engaged’? Understanding and enacting information literacy from a UK citizenship perspective
Full text linkInformation literacy (IL) has been considered by Library and Information Studies (LIS) research and praxis to be vital in helping citizens be ‘informed’, ‘active’ and ‘engaged’ within society. LIS discourse has explored different conceptions of citizenship and its relationship with IL within the paradigm of liberal democratic societies. Critical IL approaches have in turn promoted a citizenship of personal agency, empowerment, challenging the status quo and the pursuit of social justice, as well as focusing on what has been termed ‘political literacy’. However, critical information literacy has also problematised some of the approaches to citizenship found in LIS discourse. Despite the complexity of the subject, empirical study into these issues is still severely lacking. This research moves to start addressing this need by investigating how IL is understood and enacted from the perspective of UK citizenship. Using a qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews with five UK citizens based in Oxford, UK, in the summer of 2019, it set out to establish the relationship between IL and citizenship in a personal context. It was found to be understood and enacted through the development of socially-constructed personal citizenship information landscapes, oriented to a personal sense of citizenship, agency, motivation and empowerment. These personal landscapes challenge some of the established IL paradigms of ‘informed’, ‘active’ and ‘engaged’ citizens, as well as related concepts of information ‘wealth’ and ‘poverty’. They also raise questions of the role of personal ethics in decision making as citizens and potential tensions with ‘acceptable’ norms. These findings help to further problematise the dynamic between IL and citizenship, and challenge LIS research and praxis not just to promote specific values and goals, but also to work towards a greater understanding of the personal contexts shaping that dynamic
A Literature Review on The Use of Music in Architectural Design Education
Full text linkIn order to improve creative thinking in architectural design education, it is useful to interact with other disciplines such as music. There are many works of this interdisciplinary approach between architecture and music in the literature. These studies focus on new methods of creating forms with music for basic architectural education. The common aim is using music as a creative perspective for designing forms before proceeding to architectural design. Various structural forms designed by students are examined within these studies. It is concluded that designing with music could improve students’ imagination and could be benefit to architectural design education. Furthermore, these approaches could be improved, not only in basic form design, but also to be applied in an entire architectural project from space to façade. Music could be used as an inspiration to be transformed into a product, an interior or an architectural structure, and this could be useful for architectural design studio courses. Therefore, this review aims to underline the benefit of music in architectural education by examining the existing studies in the field, and it is a preliminary research for the further study of a method of designing with music
Training the trainer to embed IL into curricula
Full text linkAcademic libraries have long recognised the benefits of integrating information literacy into disciplinary curricula. One model that addresses the common problems of sustainability and scalability of such efforts is the train the trainer model, where academic librarians serve as faculty developers. Improving faculty development efforts requires understanding the methods and strategies of librarians engaged in this work. Using an action research methodology, this paper investigated the experiences of librarians and disciplinary instructors participating in a course redesign program at a large, public university in the midwestern United States, in order to identify effective strategies for engaging with disciplinary instructors about information literacy. Findings include focusing on pragmatic, contextual ways in which students will need to use information in the future, providing professional development opportunities for librarians to further develop faculty development skills, and prioritising strong collaborations between librarians and other academic units