Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education
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The Role of Information Literacy in Higher Education: An Initiative at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco.
Get PDFThis paper, part of which was presented at the 12th annual AMICAL conference at the American University in Bulgaria held in Blagoevgrad, on 29 May 2015, reports on a doctoral research project which explores the meaning and role of information literacy in higher education and lifelong learning. It also highlights an information literacy initiative at a Moroccan university, namely Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, and how its academic library strives to promote it. Living in an age of information tsunami and technological advancement, issues of information access, evaluation, retrieval and effective use, have become significantly critical in our societies. Directing the attention to the issue of information literacy and framing the best practices on how they can be best blended into the learning process of students are of paramount importance. Like other libraries across the globe, Mohammed VI Library at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco has realized the importance of information literacy and has worked in various ways to address this issue. This paper will describe the university strategy of teaching Information Literacy to graduate and undergraduate students in a number of ways. Recommendations to improve and support this initiative, including incorporating information literacy and skills across the university\u27s curriculum, and fostering more effective partnerships between the Al Akhawayn university library and the teaching faculty, will be also discussed in this paper
Informationskompetence som medlæring. Konstruktivistiske og handlingsorienterede læringsforståelser mellem uddannelseslæring og informationssøgning.
Get PDFIn this article we investigate different understandings of learning underlying the interpretation of students’ and researchers’ moves between learning in the university domain and learning processes, usually associated with information literacy, the latter including information managing activities like information seeking. We show that mainstream concepts like information need, “Anomalous State of Knowledge”, information seeking or topic inherit their learning theoretic background from a cognitive constructivist view on learning, dominating the understanding (and implementation) of learning in the domain of higher education. In order to construct a coherent understanding of disciplinary learning and information managing activities, cognitive constructivist assumptions on learning and the nature of information in learning processes are implicitly transferred to the domain of information literacy as well, establishing fields like generic or disciplinary information literacy. The application of cognitive constructivist assumptions on information literacy learning produces, in our opinion, an inadequate characterization of information related activities in the context of higher education, ignoring their unconscious, purely activity based character. In order to link information literacy as emergent, incidental learning to the typically formal and conscious contexts of disciplinary learning we propose a Critical Psychology framework, conceptualizing individual learning as a primarily activity based concept. This move makes the students’ and researchers’ shifts between the two domains understandable and allows reconstructing those movements as instantiations of coherent learning activities.
An Information Literacy Course for Doctoral Students: Information Resources and Tools for Research
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to showcase the information literacy course for doctoral students called Information Resources and Tools for Research. Turku University Library organises this course in collaboration with the University of Turku Graduate School. The course, which was started in 2012, has been organised four times so far, twice in English and twice in Finnish. The course offers training to all doctoral Programs in all of the seven disciplines present at the University of Turku and doctoral candidates of the University. In our presentation we will describe the structure and contents of the course and share our experiences of the collaboration with the University of Turku Graduate School. In addition, we will describe how the information specialists of the Turku University Library have collaborated during the course. We will also discuss the challenges of the course. Based on the course feedback, it can be stated that in general, participants have found this course very useful for their research in the University of Turku
Playful Information Literacy: Play and information Literacy in Higher Education
Get PDFIt is often difficult to address higher level information literacy skills in Higher Education. This paper argues if we see information literacy as contextual rather than an absolute list of competencies, then play can give us a route to developing those higher level skills.It takes a social constructivist approach in defining information literacy, before going on to define play and games as belonging on a wide spectrum between completely free or open play and highly structured games.Using examples from the literature, the paper builds the argument that play is one answer towards meeting the need to develop high level information literacy in students, even though there is limited empirical research into adult play and information literacy development
Information Specialist and ICT Lecturer Co-Teach an Online Course: A New Way and What Students Think About It
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to share a multidisciplinary approach to teaching information literacy (IL) in Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Finland. The paper describes a practical case about the execution of a course ‘Information management and communication’. It focuses on how the information specialist and ICT lecturer collaborate from the planning stage of the course to the evaluation phase, and how the implementation is evaluated. The course combines asynchronous learning in an online learning environment and synchronous online real time co-teaching in a virtual classroom. The described course is the first one the distance learning students attend as they complete their Bachelor’s degree online. The overall objective of the implementation of the presented course was to ensure that students achieve basic computer and IL skills for further studies. Other important objectives were enhancing online socialization, creating a sense of belonging together as a group, building confidence in studying online and using the library’s web services. The objectives were reached with co-teaching and interactive tools during online lessons. Laurea Library has experience from co-teaching with lecturers, and this practical case shows how multidisciplinary collaboration, which benefits all involved, can also be carried out in online learning environments
The Potential for Using Gamification in Academic Libraries in Order to Increase Student Engagement and Achievement
Get PDFThis paper discusses the potential benefits of using gamification techniques to increase student engagement with library resources. It outlines the link between student use of library resources and academic achievement, and suggests that gamification has to potential to increase usage of resources, which may also increase academic achievement. Some early findings from an implementation of a gamification project, Lemontree, are also discussed in which students reported increased usage of library resources and their acceptance of gamification techniques in Higher Education
The Changing Role of Digital Tools and Academic Libraries in Scholarly Workflows: A Review
Get PDFIn this paper, we review the literature on how information literacies are manifested in scholarly workflows for undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars, and the need to support integrating library resources into their knowledge practices, and how available tools support their needs. We argue that research is needed on how libraries and digital tools both support, and indeed teach, knowledge-building practices across the entire lifecycle of knowledge. Finally, we advocate for studying researcher and student workflows as a way to both improve the tools we make available, and more importantly, to inform us on the role(s) libraries can play in the shifting practices of research in an information-rich world
The SEA-change Model in Information Literacy: Assessing Information Literacy Development with Reflective Writing
Get PDFReflective writing is a key professional skill, and the University of Sheffield Information School seeks to develop this skill in our students through the use of reflective assessments. Reflection has been used as a means of supporting Information Literacy development in the Higher Education context and recent pedagogical IL frameworks highlight the important role of reflection. This paper presents an analysis of Undergraduate students’ reflective writing on one module. The writing is mapped against two models of reflection to understand the nature and depth of the students’ reflection and through this understand their Information literacy development, with the overall aim of improving the teaching and learning experience for the future. Key findings are that students did reflect deeply and identified a number of ways in which they felt their IL had developed (e.g. developing a knowledge of specialist sources), ways they could have improved their information literacy practices (e.g. through storing information in a more organised fashion), and ways that we could improve our teaching (e.g. by providing appropriate scaffolding for the activities)
Using peers in a three folded support : student needs and achieving the learning outcomes!
No full textThis poster describes how librarians, teachers and students collaborate at the Faculty of Law at Lund University in order to support the law students to achieve the learning outcomes.The purpose is to highlight the use of peers as a part of the learning support. When The Bologna process took place in 2007, the library introduced a plan on how to achieve the learning outcomes concerning information literacy. Information literacy is an important competence for law students and professionals and is therefore stressed in the learning outcomes. A central feature is that the outcomes should be closely related to the contents of each course so that the students practice information literacy as part of the subject law. To make best use of different competencies the library suggested a three folded support structure. Student teachers give database instructions for solving course assignments; subject teachers and librarians work together in lectures concerning document cultures and law practices; librarians are responsible for lectures concerning problem solving and information seeking. The faculty has a long tradition of hiring students to assist in teaching on a basic level. One reason to use peers in teaching is that students are close to the learning process and are familiar with difficulties. The students also have other perspectives on the topics being taught, which can be useful in their teaching (Biggs & Tang, 2011, p. 147). The information lectures have very often a high amount of participants, which sort of confirm the teaching organization. The library is responsible for coordinating the information literacy and work in close relation with the student teachers and the subject teachers. The librarians repeatedly discuss with the subject teachers and the student teachers about the learning outcomes and the assignments on the course. Exercises and questions for the students are jointly developed. The librarians also write manuals for the lectures given by librarians and student teachers.We believe this way of organizing support is one way to enhance student learning both in information literacy and in subject learning. References Biggs, J. B. & Tang, C. S-K. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university: what the student does. 4th, [rev.] Ed.. Maidenhead: Open University Press