Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education
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Working together – integration of information literacy in educational programs at Blekinge Institute of Technology
No full textPrevious experience, literature reviews, as well as continuous contacts with the Schools of Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) have led us to assume the following statements for the Information literacy (IL) education at BTH: Information literacy is a generic skill which should be taught as a compulsory part of the educational programs The integration of the teaching of IL in the educational programs is necessary to achieve qualitatively good results concerning IL The Schools of BTH are responsible for the IL education of students The library can, together with the Schools, create and offer IL modules adapted to the educational programs Today IL education at BTH is quite extensive, but also irregular and highly dependent on contacts with individual teachers, which makes IL education vulnerable. In order to bring this problem to light, and inspired by the Borås model (presented at Creating knowledge VI), as well as Sydostmodellen, the library at BTH contacted the Board of Education during the winter of 2012, and presented a plan on how the library and Schools at BTH could cooperate in order to integrate IL education within all educational programs. Suggestions regarding content, extent, progression, timing, assessment and learning outcomes of the IL education are the focal point of the presented plan. As the first result of the proposal, the library has been commissioned by the BTH Quality Assurance Council to review the situation regarding IL education at BTH together with the educational program directors. In cooperation with the programs, the library should also make a plan for each program on how to integrate IL education as a part of generic skills. At the conference, the following themes were addressed and discussed during our presentation: sustainability of IL education, collaboration within the academy regarding IL education and how integration of IL education at university educational programs is reflected in research on IL in general
High school teachers and librarians in cooperation throughout the Information Search Process
No full textAt Hulebäck\u27s Upper Secondary School, one fundamental goal is \u27learning to learn\u27. An essential prerequisite for this is information literacy. We show how teachers and school librarians by cooperating in developing assignments can improve student\u27s information literacy based on Carol Kuhlthau\u27s Model of the Information Search Process. The model of the ISP describes actions, thoughts and especially feelings of students involved in complex inquiry tasks. Some of the stages of this process are perceived as both confusing and frustrating and difficult for students to work through on their own (Kuhlthau, Caspari & Maniotes, 2007). There is a great need for guidance and intervention throughout the ISP and in our experience the teacher - librarian collaboration is key when it comes to developing tools to support the student in each stage. In this presentation we focus on practical examples of exercises from our everyday work, based on the role of emotion as students engage in research. Our aim is to enhance each student\u27s own awareness of the learning process by focusing on knowledge construction rather than product construction. "Information literacy is a way of thinking rather than a set of skills." (Kuhlthau, Caspari & Maniotes, 2012). This method also provides a useful framework for both students and teachers which we find leads to increased fulfillment of curricula. ReferencesKuhlthau, C. C., Caspari, A. K. & Maniotes, L. K. (2007). Guided inquiry: learning in the 21st century. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited. Kuhlthau, C. C., Caspari, A. K. & Maniotes, L. K. (2012). Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited
Making information literacy online come alive
No full textExperiences from creating an online course for Public Health students This paper aims to present the development of an online course in which teachers and librarians cooperated closely to create a syllabus that aims to allow students to fulfill the following goals: learn how to find, search and critically examine information about Public Health Arenas, acquire referencing and citing skills, practice in giving and receiving constructive feedback. Setup The librarians created a lesson for the course with the following content: short film clip to enhance focus on the importance of being able to find and evaluate proper information in the work life, lecture on ways to think in order to enhance information searching skills, tutorial for a major database, collection of links to sites on reference management and reference management programs. In the course there were Information literacy (IL) tasks especially aimed at finding scientific articles and managing references for writing a paper. The IL tasks were written by the teacher and librarian together. Grading and feedback were done by librarians. Results The first time the setup did not work very well. When students handed assignments to the librarian, few seemed to have followed the instructions. Few students referred to searching in databases, and few had actually found and chosen relevant scientific articles for their assignments. The students were not able to examine the reference management of their peers in an acceptable manner. A plausible explanation is that since they couldn\u27t manage their own references well, they couldn\u27t examine their peers performance either. In preparation for the next round (fall 2012), the teacher and librarian got together to come up with a way to help the students perform better. Together they evaluated the IL task setup, and came up with the idea that the IL part, where the students were to describe how they found relevant material to work with, had to precede the actual writing of the paper, and could be assessed as a separate task by the librarian. This would ensure that students would not write papers based on substandard sources, but on articles approved by the teachers. The information search became a separate task that was to be handed in and approved by the librarian before the students could start writing their papers. The lectures, film and tutorial were left untouched. The reference management was still peer examined and evaluated by the librarian. The difference in results was remarkable. Information searching skills, reference management skills and the overall subject skills were improved compared to the previous course. Allthough the teaching librarian and teacher noticed a remarkable difference from one semester to another, and the teacher saw remarkable change throughout the course in managing sources, the number of students in the fall 2012 were too few to actually draw any firm conclusions. In spring 2013 there are more students taking the course and it will be interesting to see how they perform
Developing library e-learning courses - how to make a fruitful collaboration?
No full textThe University Library of Stavanger has made three interactive library courses. Two of the courses are in Norwegian, Vitenskapelige artikler i sykepleiefaget (Scientific articles in nursing), and Kildebruk og litteratursøk (Information literacy: How to search and cite) and one in English, Writing thesis, using sources. The purpose has been to help students developing skills in information literacy, to fulfill the demands required by the Norwegian ministry of education and research. The courses are available at the library\u27s webpage. Their purpose is to be a supplement to ordinary library courses. The courses consist of text, films, interactive tasks and voiceover. We have made subject-specific courses, which cover different faculties at the University. We believe that the students at a university seek to identify themselves with the profession they aim to become a part of through their studies, and hopefully they develop an attachment to the library. The course Writing thesis, using sources is primarily aiming towards engineering students, but it will also be useful for other student groups. The university has many foreign students in different engineering disciplines and levels. They sometimes have a bachelor\u27s degree from a country with an academic culture that is different from ours. The course is written in a clear and concise language. The students can listen to the text, or read it. The cooperation between the library and the academic staff has varied during the development of the courses. We had close contact with two members of the Department of Health Studies during the whole process of the first course, Vitenskapelige artikler i sykepleiefaget (Scientific articles in nursing).They gave us advice about content and definitions. There has been less cooperation with academic staff during the two other courses. Cooperation with NettOp (The University\u27s department for web-based education) has been outstanding. NettOp has guided us on subjects like software, layout, technical support, interactive objects and pedagogical advice, like how to write for students. We also invited students to give feedback on the courses. The process has been informative, and we have developed new skills. At the same time there have been challenges, such as software issues and lack of collaboration with academic staff. Maintaining the courses is very time consuming. We would like to meet other colleagues in higher education interested in e-learning courses and exchange experiences. Discussions may be about matters such as: Do we really need interactive courses? Should the courses be subject-specific or general in content? How can we include academic staff in a better way? Could students do the job? Could several universities cooperate to make interactive courses? Could we borrow content from each other? How do we know whether the courses are used or not? What about the learning process and outcome for the students? How do we best promote the courses? Experiences with different software and use of devices. Discussions should be conducted in groups consisting of max 8 participants. The results from the discussions could for example be published on UBIS\u27 blog.  
User Perspectives of Reference Management Software in a Context-Based Learning Situation
Get PDFScientific writing is an important aspect of the student\u27s education. Writing requires the student to give reference sources in a proper manner in accordance with a certain style. Experience has found that the process to deal with different styles requires time. Critical thinking is a fundamental requirement in scientific work and as such requires no detailed knowledge about different styles structure. Today\u27s technology makes it possible to facilitate scientific writing using reference management software. The current reference management tools available are license-based and others are available free through the Internet. In recent years, social media, such as Facebook, Blogs and Wikipedia have received increasing attention. The discussion, in educational settings, has touched on the pros and cons, but also on the potential opportunities using social media in educational settings. Social media creates opportunities for communication, which in turn affects learning. This learning can be described as collaborative. Illeris (2007) points out that such learning refers to activities where a group of people strive to learn and develop something together. Thus, it is the technical possibilities that facilitate communication and learning. From an educational point of view Vygotsky appears to be central in terms of pedagogy and technology. His theoretical argument is based on a sociocultural perspective where people learn from each other and are believed to be active in its social context using technology as a helpful instrument. Individual knowledge thus grows between individuals (Vygotsky, 1978). The teacher\u27s role, based on Vygotsky\u27s sociocultural perspective, is to encourage good learning environments, and thus use existing technology in the educational setting. With this background, the purpose of this study was to examine two different reference management software tools, Zotero (a social media free downloaded from Internet) and EndNote (license based), and how these can help to encourage positive learning environments that are connected to the new generation of students. A pedagogical implementation was conducted in spring 2010 for all students (semester 1) in occupational therapist and physical therapist programs. The methods used were interviews as well as a questionnaire. The material was analyzed according to content analysis. The result showed three categories: Usability, Accessibility and Learning Situation. These illustrated the students\u27 perception of how easy, convenient and time saving it is to use reference management software tools. Accessibility describes the technical requirements associated with the tool and learning situation is described by the increased communication through networking and the students feel that they\u27re willing to use the tool in different contexts in the future. Based on the results, we noted that students are positive about the use of reference management software tool. From the results we can conclude that it is crucial to select a reference management software tool which fulfills the requirement of availability. This study shows that neither EndNote nor Zotero meet the requirements regarding the availability of an optimal learning situation. As an educator it is most important to take into consideration, when using technical devices, that the student feels competent when using devices. This is advantageous for the student by offering them a sense of security and continuity in the learning process. ReferencesIlleris, K. (2007). Lärande [Learning] (2. ed.). Lund: Studentlittertur.Vygotskij, L. S., & Clole, M. (1978). Mind in society; the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard U.P
Discover collaboration: Collaborative learning from the implementation of a discovery system
No full textBackground Lund University Library purchased and implemented a new discovery system in the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. Historically there has been no collaboration between the digital library unit and the pedagogical unit at the University Library. The conditions for the implementation were quite difficult; an extremely tight time frame, changes of the member of staff, high demands from the library network, a bad relation with current system supplier, a dependency of the current system and its functionalities. What to do? In order to reach trustworthiness and to make sure that we have a learning perspective in all the processes we initiated a close collaboration between the digital unit and the pedagogical unit and formed an implementation group. We also initiated a close and active collaboration between the implementation group and an expert group formed by members from the faculty libraries i.e. the super user group. Activities We had four workshops about pedagogical issues regarding discovery systems. The workshops turned out to be a forum for a dialogue between the digital library, the pedagogical unit and the teacher librarians. They resulted in an action plan which was integrated in the implementation process. We also invited colleagues to informal discussions about the pedagogical use of the discovery system. We encouraged all teaching librarians to share their educational materials on our intranet. Conclusion We found the collaborative strategy fruitful and not only did it result in a closer collaboration between the digital library and the pedagogical unit but also with the library network. Due to several reasons we conducted a new tender of a discovery system during 2012. The tender resulted in a new system with a different supplier. In the implementation started in the autumn 2012, we implemented the experiences and learnings gained by our previous implementation
Information Literacy Education for University Undergraduates: A case study in a Library initiative in University College, Cork, Ireland
Get PDFIn Ireland, there is an identified need to address the inconsistency that exists in Undergraduate Education at entry to university level. This article aims to provide a roadmap of generic skills teaching which in turn will form the foundation of a Teaching for Understanding (TFU) framework, as developed in " Ten Years at Project Zero: A Report on 1993 - 2002", Harvard Graduate Studies School of Education, in the 1990s (HGSE, 2003). Thus, at UCC, a structured, comprehensive and collaborative approach was used to develop a programme which would initially begin within the Library, but would also form the nucleus of, and have the potential to become, an all-inclusive Information and Communications Technology (ICT) type, university-wide, credit bearing module. To contextualise our model we will firstly look at the prevailing background to our project and review some of the existing literature and international standards on Information Literacy (IL).  
How does assessment affect learning: an example from a chemistry PhD-course in scholarly communication
Get PDFAssessment of students in the learning process may have several reasons (knowledge assessment, ranking etc.). One reason presented in this article would be to use the assessment as a way to enhance learning. At Stockholm University Library, PhD-students in Chemistry annually partakes in a library course, where they have to write a mandatory essay and, from 2012, review a fellow student\u27s essay. Comparing and discussing the former and the new ways of assessing, this article aims to discuss assessment as a way to enhance learning
The value and impact of cross professional collaborations in developing student information and academic literacy skills at Sheffield Hallam University, UK.
Get PDFThe paper is jointly written by an academic and librarian and discusses the value and impact of two examples of cross professional collaboration at Sheffield Hallam University. The collaborations addressed information and academic literacy skills development of 640 students across four years and involved a librarian, an academic, an academic skills tutor and an e-learning expert. The paper includes analysis on the value and impact of cross-professional collaborations in developing student information literacy (IL) and academic literacy skills. It concludes with discussion of lessons learned and best practice recommendations
Services and library space designed for various learner groups: Case Kaisa House at the University of Helsinki
Get PDFIn our paper we describe examples of how our new university library supports learning by providing new services in a new building. The examples can be applied in other contexts and in existing libraries.