Loughborough University Library: Open Journals
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FestivIL 2021
Full text linkConference report for Day 3 of FestivIL, which took place 6-8 July 2021 online in the place of the postponed LILAC conference
A blended approach to design education through clinical immersions and industry partnerships in design for healthcare
Full text linkContemporary design education seeks to prepare students for the workplace through studio-based learning that replicates real world practice. Design problems in the workplace have become increasingly complex and one example of this is within the area of design for Healthcare, which requires multidisciplinary collaboration between various stakeholders to build knowledge in order to create new products, services systems and spaces. The complexity of these roles creates challenges for design educators in preparing students for the work place. This paper presents a hybrid approach to address this challenge by presenting a real-world approach to design education. This entails a bottom-up approach to facilitate design research in a clinical setting to gather rich insights and needs of the clinical setting along with a top-down industry collaboration with sponsored briefs to guide students through the requirements of developing solutions in a heavily regulated field. The paper outlines examples of this process and how it was achieved in a blended model that was predominantly online in response to the changed environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The advantages of this model are threefold, students gain deep knowledge and skills through collaborating with a variety of stakeholders within health care, they gain the opportunity to validate their designs through testing and feedback with these partners and lastly students develop the connections to create opportunities for further partnerships and employment
An An Administrative and Faculty Autoethnographic Analysis of Shifting Modalities of Pre-service Technology Education Programming During the Onset of COVID-19
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our collective normal patterns of behavior in almost all aspects of our personal and professional lives. While many K-12 and post-secondary subject area curricula lend themselves more easily to a migration to online and remote learning, technology education faces unique challenges. This research paper sought to understand the challenges, benefits, and lessons learned through an analysis of the process of re-organizing a pre-service technology education diploma for remote, blended, and face-to-face learning during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigation followed a collaborative autoethnographic methodology as the authors constructed two narratives based on their roles of administering and instructing in a pre-service technology education diploma program. An interpretive descriptive analysis suggests a number of challenges associated with the organizational changes, but also a number of positive outcomes related to the instructional shifts. Challenges included maintaining equitable access to physical materials and technologies for all students, scheduling issues related to changing pandemic rules and regulations, and a loss of social presence with students. Benefits included more student autonomy, less dependence on group work for technical skill development, and the development of alternative delivery models for pre-service technology education that could be used to expand program offerings to non-traditional students
Enhancing students’ professional information literacy
Full text linkCreating information literate students and future employees is an expected outcome of a tertiary education. This paper shares insights from a successful collaboration between an academic and three university librarians to create an online learning module designed to develop students’ professional information literacy capability: identifying business information types, searching online databases, and evaluating quality using a new indigenous-informed evaluation approach. Student learning was measured using reflective tasks and assessments. The paper challenges teachers and librarians to consider ways they can collaborate to explicitly embed information literacy (IL) skills development into large disciplinary courses, particularly during the transition into tertiary learning, to enhance lifelong learning capability and meet future workplace IL demands
Book review of Xu, L. (ed.). 2021. Engaging undergraduates in primary source research
Full text linkThis review examines the book Engaging Undergraduates in Primary Source Research, a collection of essays edited by Lijuan Xu
A flipped classroom approach to teaching search techniques for systematic reviews to encourage active learning.
Full text linkThis project report describes the rationale for moving a one-shot library teaching session on advanced searching for systematic reviews to a flipped classroom approach (e-learning ahead of face-to-face teaching) and the process this took. It examines the e-learning and active learning elements designed to support learners engage with challenging threshold concepts including subject headings. Learner feedback during, immediately at the end of each session, and in response to a follow-up impact survey is considered. Overall, learner feedback on the flipped classroom was very positive and teachers reported improved learner outcomes (formative in-class informal assessment). Areas identified for development are presented. The report extends the body of research on the use of the flipped classroom in information literacy and provides evidence that active learning techniques can be successful in increasing learner engagement and achievement even in a one-shot setting
Evaluating confidence in information literacy
Full text linkThis paper reports an approach to addressing library anxiety by evaluating user confidence in information literacy using a red/amber/green “traffic light” tool. It discusses the development of the tool which takes elements of a more complex toolkit and adapts them for library use. It then outlines the learning from use of the tool, discusses potential pitfalls with its use and considers the benefits of adopting this innovation
Global Design Studio: Advancing Cross-Disciplinary Experiential Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Full text linkThe COVID pandemic forced universities worldwide to shift to remote and online formats of teaching delivery. In design education, this shift has impacted Experiential Education (EE) pedagogical approach to studio teaching, an approach that gives students an opportunity to apply theory to a concrete experience in a reflective manner and provides cross-disciplinary learning opportunities. This paper discusses Global Design Studio (GDS), a collaborative cross-disciplinary teaching initiative between three design disciplines across three continents: Industrial Design in Australia, Interaction Design in Canada, and User Experience Design in Germany. The objective was to develop a support framework during emergency situations to facilitate cross-disciplinary EE to design students. This paper discusses the three teaching experiences as case studies that offer opportunity for deep analysis and reflection of challenges and enablers to EE education in the shift from traditional design studio to remote and online delivery. While navigating COVID-19 barriers to EE education, GDS aimed to achieve these objectives by sharing resources, ideas, and expertise across the three universities. Each unit dedicated the entire academic term to a first exploration of GDS through a semester-long project ‘Interactive Mannikin for children to learn CPR techniques’. This article discusses the context and outcomes of EE teaching and learning experiences at each unit. This paper also reviews the lessons design educators learned about: inter disciplinarity, inter-intra-cultural issues, group working, timing, remote collaboration, and proposing a GDS model for cross-disciplinary EE. 
Information-Wise
Full text linkAt Maastricht University (UM), the importance of information literacy (IL) is widely recognised – students require structured support in dealing independently with (academic) information, and encouragement to develop creative and critical approaches when faced with complex questions and sources. IL is especially significant in a problem-based learning (PBL) environment such as that offered by UM, which advocates a constructive, contextual, collaborative, and self-directed approach toward learning and knowledge creation.
The project Information-Wise launched in February 2019 and resulted in an evidence-informed IL programme for bachelor students. The ADDIE model (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation) was adopted to organise the development process of the programme. The analysis phase was conducted by gathering qualitative and quantitative evidence. Two literature reviews and a university-wide survey with responses from over 600 bachelor students and about 100 staff teachers resulted in recommendations for an IL programme at UM. The design phase consisted of the development of an IL framework that embraces the PBL vision of UM. The framework consists of four dimensions: 1) Resource Discovery, 2) Critical Assessment, 3) Organising Information, 4) Creation & Communication. In order to translate the conceptual research outcomes and framework dimensions into educational practices, the project team created a developmental rubric with intended learning outcomes (ILOs). In the development phase, a five-step piloting approach was used to design teaching activities and assessments that support students in achieving these rubric ILOs. The constructive alignment approach helped to align these activities with the content of the subject courses in which these pilots took place. Part of the IL programme is an online curriculum consisting of generic and discipline-specific online modules. For the implementation phase, this report presents Do’s, Don’ts, and Don’t knows, which outline the future integration of the IL programme into faculty curricula. The evaluation phase still has to be done
Knowing and doing
Full text linkThis study touches upon three major themes in the field of information literacy (IL): the assessment of IL, the association between IL knowledge and skills, and the dimensionality of the IL construct. Three quantitative measures were developed and tested with several samples of university students to assess knowledge and skills for core facets of IL. These measures are freely available, applicable across disciplines, and easy to administer. Results indicate they are likely to be reliable and support valid interpretations. By measuring both knowledge and practice, the tools indicated low to moderate correlations between what students know about IL, and what they actually do when evaluating and using sources in authentic, graded assignments. The study is unique in using actual coursework to compare knowing and doing regarding students’ evaluation and use of sources. It provides one of the most thorough documentations of the development and testing of IL assessment measures to date. Results also urge us to ask whether the source-focused components of IL – information seeking, source evaluation and source use – can be considered unidimensional constructs or sets of disparate and more loosely related components, and findings support their heterogeneity