Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education
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Mapping Staff Competencies for Information Literacy Interventions
No full textInformation literacy (IL) is a key strategic objective for academic libraries. Many academic librarians are involved in designing, developing and delivering IL programmes, using both classroom teaching and e-learning methods. IL has also become a priority at institutional level and some universities and colleges have formal policies and strategies to integrate and embed IL in the curriculum. IL interventions also happen informally at enquiry points and reference desks, when queries offer ‘teachable moments’ for library staff to help students develop information skills and understanding while solving their information problems. Research shows that such instruction features strongly in both face-to-face and virtual reference transactions, but few IL policies and strategies cover this frontline personalised IL support. Similarly, most discussion of staff training and development for IL education has centred on the teaching roles and pedagogical knowledge of professional librarians, with limited discussion of the competencies needed for frontline interventions by paraprofessionals or assistants. This workshop promotes an inclusive holistic model of IL education and library workforce development. It will investigate the skills and knowledge needed by frontline staff to contribute effectively to the IL mission of academic libraries. It will focus on the learning support needed by students from different educational, social, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, with particular reference to postgraduate students, as a group typifying this diversity. The facilitator will review IL interventions and library staff competencies discussed in the literature. Participants will discuss typical queries or problems presented by different categories of postgraduate students and then identify the skills, knowledge and understanding required by frontline staff to provide an appropriate service response. The skillsets identified will be compared with those of teaching librarians to determine similarities and differences in the types and levels of abilities needed. Participants will gain insights to inform IL strategies, service planning and workforce development
Evaluation and Assessment in Information Literacy: WASSAIL as a tool to support diverse methods
No full textIn the higher education Information Literacy context, there is growing interest and requirements for evaluation of librarian teaching and assessment of student learning. This session will explore these issues and use WASSAIL as a sample tool to consider for these purposes. WASSAIL is open source software developed at the Augustana Campus Library of the University of Alberta to support the evaluation and assessment requirements of Augustana\u27s Information Literacy program. WASSAIL was the 2010 ACRL Instruction Section Innovation Award winner. Session participants are requested to bring laptops to interact with WASSAIL in the hands-on part of the workshop. Participants can bring questions they would like to enter into evaluation or assessment tools, or sample questions will be provided. A diversity of methods will be discussed: evaluation tools such as end of "one-shot" questionnaires and general surveys, as well as assessment methods such as in-class quizzes, pre-/post-tests, and more
Information literacy, diversity and the role of reflection in creating knowledge
No full textDiversity in higher education calls for process oriented information literacy (IL) practitioners rather than source oriented practitioners. They must be generalists because e.g. students with different backgrounds to a higher degree bring multi- and interdisciplinarity into the situation of creating knowledge and problem solving. It is a situation where counselling is about how to prioritise and combine the multidisciplinarity rather than knowing a subject in depth. The purposes of this workshop are: To facilitate answers to the challenges IL practitioners meet in their work in an educational environment characterized by diversity To go through a process from pedagogical reflection to practical ideas about teaching or counselling. The participants will be challenged on their pedagogical awareness, competencies and creativity and on their understanding of information literacy. The participants will not be given the answers, but in order to live up to the concept of a workshop, we must all work and participate in the exploration for answers. The workshop will be a mix of understandings of IL, investigations of diversity and creating knowledge, pedagogical tools, examples of teaching materials, theoretical concepts and creative processes. We will deal with the following questions: How does IL fit into the process of creating knowledge? How should we look at information literacy? As a defined set of skills, qualifications and competencies or as a readiness to handle certain intellectual or academic situations? Does diversity mean the end of information literacy standards
Publishing Literacy for Researchers
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to present an example of teacher-librarian collaboration (TLC) in a highly diverse branch of geography as a part of bachelor\u27s seminar teaching. One can say that everything is geography if the phenomenon in question is delimited in a certain region, place or space. Thus every other discipline provides its methods, paradigms and information sources into the use of geography. This obviously presents a challenge to the librarian as he tries to support the geography students\u27 information seeking. The topics can vary between cellular biology applications to sociological perception which also means a large variety in information needs. In our paper we aim to describe different approaches of collaboration this kind of variety requires based on the experiences and feedback gathered in a project, the aim of which was to integrate information literacy (IL) into the academic curriculum. Collaborating with teachers with different backgrounds and from different scientific traditions can be challenging for the librarian. Not only the information sources, databases and methods are different but it is the whole approach to the science that is different. Thus it is fairly obvious that the competence of a single librarian or a teacher is not sufficient for an effective IL instruction. The key here is the collaboration when librarian\u27s information literacy and teacher\u27s academic subject competence complete each other. A successful TLC gives opportunity for both marketing the idea of information literacy and the competence of a library professional. It may also increase the efficiency of teaching and studies and even shorten the time for a student to graduate. Especially in the case of seminar teaching TLC seems to give a valuable opportunity to instruct the students\u27 seminar thesis along the way. In 2008, Kumpula Campus Library launched a project to integrate the IL teaching into the academic curriculum and to enhance the collaboration between the campus library and academic staff. The aim of our case project was to support the bachelor level students in their work of their bachelor\u27s thesis. The librarian participated in the bachelor\u27s seminar by giving a lecture about information literacy and a personal guidance in the students\u27 information seeking process. The main idea was to make a timely intervention in order to give the best possible support to the academic writing across the curriculum. The importance of a timely intervention is well described in the classical text of Carol C. Kuhlthau (1993). The students came from the department of geography in the faculty of science of the University of Helsinki. The personal guidance session was conducted together with the seminar teacher to support both academic writing and information seeking process. After the seminar, the effect of the IL teaching was evaluated by a feedback questionnaire
Piloting a National Online Tutorial in Slavic Information Literacy: The LOTSE-Slavic Studies Project at Bochum University Library, Germany
No full textThe presentation describes the Library Online Tour and Self-Paced Education (LOTSE) project for Slavic Studies (LOTSE-Slavistik) at Bochum University Library, Germany. LOTSE Slavic Studies is an open access online tutorial that provides German-speaking students and researchers an introduction to the most important resources in Slavic languages, literatures and cultures. The tutorial was developed at Ruhr University Bochum by the University Library in cooperation with the Slavic Department / Lotman Institute. It constitutes one module within a group of LOTSE modules (Business and Economics, Education, Engineering, Ethnology, Geography, History, Medicine, Music, Netherlands Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, Spanish Studies, Sociology, Theology). All LOTSE modules are embedded in larger subject portals, which are themselves under the umbrella of the online German national clearinghouse of subject portals, Vascoda. The pedagogically-designed LOTSE module Slavic Studies is intended primarily for students and can be used as a stand-alone e-learning tool or as an element of an integrated Slavic information literacy course. The presentation sets the broader historical and institutional context for the project, describes the content and layout of the LOTSE tutorial and summarizes how it has been used in recent undergraduate courses on Slavic information literacy
Business information literacy: informasjonskompetanse ved Handelshøyskolen BI
No full textFor å bli en informasjonskompetent student innenfor en internasjonal akademisk handelshøgskole, er det spesielle ferdigheter man må opparbeide seg. Det er ikke de samme kravene til hva en må kunne ved Odontologisk fakultet som ved BI, så heller ikke i bibliotekets sfære.De ferdighetene vi er på jakt etter å utvikle hos våre studenter er generiske for handelshøyskoler verden over, men allikevel er begrepet ”Business Information Literacy” et ganske nytt begrep, og som så mye annet hentet fra USA.Vi synes det er et spennende begrep, all den tid det definerer hva som er kravene, utover den enkelte handelshøyskoles sfære. Vi tror at det kommer til å etableres en standard for denne kompetansen i USA snart, men før dette er klart har vi sett på hva begrepet betyr for oss. Det har nemlig ledet oss mot en særegen undervisnings- og bibliotekpedagogikk.Tilføyelsen ”Business” til begrepet informasjonskompetanse kommer selvsagt på toppen av den generelle definisjonen, som vi også ”bekjenner” oss til og prøver å utvikle hos våre studenter og faglige. Begrepet springer ut av BIs fagområder der kravene til ”Business Information Literacy” kan innebære: Kunne innhente emnespesifikk fag- og forskningslitteratur i relevante bibliografiske kilder Kunne innhente makroøkonomiske data nasjonalt og internasjonalt Kunne innhente forbrukerdemografiske data Kunne innhente data typiske for markedsanalyse Kunne innhente data innen bedrifts- industri- og bransjeanalyse Kunne innhente finansielle data Kunne bruke juridiske kilder Kunne inkorporere funn i egne oppgaver etter akademisk standard Hva gjør vi for å utvikle disse ferdighetene hos våre studenter? Hvilke tiltak setter vi verk? Hva gjør handelshøyskoler verden over? Mange bibliotek utvikler i dag elæringsmateriale for å kunne nå det store antall studenter. Dette er også underveis hos oss
Hva med de gjenstridige dokumentene? Fagreferentrollen i spesialsamlinger
No full textSpesialsamlinger er samlinger av ”gjenstridige dokumenter”, dvs. dokumenter som er sjeldne, unika eller upubliserte og derfor ofte er fysisk bundet til eierinstitusjonen. Det er typisk at slike samlinger mangler moderne standarder for metadata og felles nasjonale katalogiseringsverktøy. Eierinstitusjonene har et kulturansvar for bevaring og tilgjengeliggjøring av disse dokumentene overfor en bredere allmennhet enn et fagbiblioteks ”primærbrukere”. Fagreferentens oppgaver vil være preget av dette. Bevaring, sikring og produksjon av digitale fulltekstdokumenter er sentralt. Det er også typisk for slike samlinger at en har en betydelig backlog. Det vil være fagreferentens oppgave å løfte fram ukjent kildemateriale, gjennom digitaliseringsprosjekter og forskning. Fagreferentens viktigste oppgaver vil da være mer rettet mot samlingspleie og formidling av egne samlinger og mindre fokus på andre institusjoners samlinger. Slik vil også undervisningen av studentene bli preget av arkivpresntasjon av innhold og forelesninger om teoretiske og praktiske forhold knyttet til å arbeide med spesielle materialtyper og mindre til utvikling av vanlig informasjonskompetanse. Denne situasjonen vil forandre seg hvis/når institusjonene blir enige om utvekslingsformater og mengden av digitale fulltekstdokumenter øker. Utfordringene for spesialsamlinger vil også være fagreferentenes utfordringer; I en stadig mer elektronisk verden, kan arbeidet med de fysiske samlingene lett bli marginalisert, selv om nettopp den tekniske utviklingen kunne løse mange problemer for de gjenstridige dokumentene. Men slik prioritering krever store ressurser, høy kompetanse, engasjement og politisk gjennomslagskraft. Kostnadene er høye, og konkurrerer budsjettmessig med galopperende elektroniske utgifter for hele biblioteket. Spesialsamlingenes fagreferenter kan bli en minoritetsstemme i bibliotekenes moderniseringsprosess, til skade for bibliotekenes totale faglige tilbud
Teacher-librarian collaboration (TLC) in a highly diverse branch: supporting information literacy of geography students
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to present an example of teacher-librarian collaboration (TLC) in a highly diverse branch of geography as a part of bachelor\u27s seminar teaching. One can say that everything is geography if the phenomenon in question is delimited in a certain region, place or space. Thus every other discipline provides its methods, paradigms and information sources into the use of geography. This obviously presents a challenge to the librarian as he tries to support the geography students\u27 information seeking. The topics can vary between cellular biology applications to sociological perception which also means a large variety in information needs. In our paper we aim to describe different approaches of collaboration this kind of variety requires based on the experiences and feedback gathered in a project, the aim of which was to integrate information literacy (IL) into the academic curriculum. Collaborating with teachers with different backgrounds and from different scientific traditions can be challenging for the librarian. Not only the information sources, databases and methods are different but it is the whole approach to the science that is different. Thus it is fairly obvious that the competence of a single librarian or a teacher is not sufficient for an effective IL instruction. The key here is the collaboration when librarian\u27s information literacy and teacher\u27s academic subject competence complete each other. A successful TLC gives opportunity for both marketing the idea of information literacy and the competence of a library professional. It may also increase the efficiency of teaching and studies and even shorten the time for a student to graduate. Especially in the case of seminar teaching TLC seems to give a valuable opportunity to instruct the students\u27 seminar thesis along the way. In 2008, Kumpula Campus Library launched a project to integrate the IL teaching into the academic curriculum and to enhance the collaboration between the campus library and academic staff. The aim of our case project was to support the bachelor level students in their work of their bachelor\u27s thesis. The librarian participated in the bachelor\u27s seminar by giving a lecture about information literacy and a personal guidance in the students\u27 information seeking process. The main idea was to make a timely intervention in order to give the best possible support to the academic writing across the curriculum. The importance of a timely intervention is well described in the classical text of Carol C. Kuhlthau (1993). The students came from the department of geography in the faculty of science of the University of Helsinki. The personal guidance session was conducted together with the seminar teacher to support both academic writing and information seeking process. After the seminar, the effect of the IL teaching was evaluated by a feedback questionnaire
Scope of information literacy support provided by university libraries in the Czech Republic: state of the art report
No full textThe diversity of university libraries in the Czech Republic is currently not represented by number of foreign students with different social or cultural background, as these numbers are relatively low in the meantime. The real diversity is introduced by variety of approaches to information literacy education and amount of professional services provided to students and teachers as well as to the academic staff in general. In the paper the system of university libraries in the Czech Republic will be shortly presented as well as the main conceptual and legislative documents whose influence on the shape of information literacy education may be recognized as critical. The level of information literacy among students will be presented based on data acquired in surveys from 2004 and 2005. Baseline facts and information on key players in the field of information literacy at university libraries in Czech Republic will be given (e.g. Information Education and Information Literacy Working Group, IVIG). On the basis of information literacy surveys from 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2008 the diversity, scope and progress of information literacy support provided by university libraries will be presented in detail together with the main educational tools (face-to-face and eLearning courses) and approaches used in Czech university libraries. Paper focus as well on the information literacy projects which affects the environment of information literacy education at Czech universities (e.g. portal on information literacy INFOGRAM, conference of the Czech information literacy working group IVIG). In conclusion current projects and their assumed impact will be mentioned (e.g. National Cluster of Information Education in the Czech Republic). Even though there is number of successful ongoing projects in the field of information literacy in the Czech republic, we are still facing a considerable number of problems which may need to be carried out by a reasonably targeted information literacy initiative. The main problems, aims and possible solutions will be foreshadowed in the paper
Learning possibility with Google Wave in a mixed cultural landscape
No full textGoogle Wave, launched in 2009, can generate a wave, which is a kind of conversation between users and at the same time a document. The conversation can be made of text, pictures, videos, maps, and more. This poster will show some possibility Google Wave give academic libraries to support research, and to help and engage cooperation between teacher and student. Google Wave have the possibility to enable co-writing in different language, and maybe across cultural boundaries, since the system translate seamless between languages while the user is writing. Possible scenarios will be presented. The first one is based on the property Google wave have to rewind and play again the discourse of the participants. With this context we will explore the possibility academic libraries have to develop wave modules for courses. Another scenario will try to introduce the “Wave librarian”, who is a new role academic libraries can fill with help from this new shared service. The University of Oslo is cooperating with other Universities in developing countries, especially in Tanzania. An interesting scenario for the University Library could be if this new tool can help to overcome problems in the communicative landscape of culture and language and give new learning possibility. Using well known didactical framework (Bjørndal, Lieberg 1978) and discussions of learning in library (Sundin 2005), we will stress the Google Wave services to find out if it can really facilitate learning in a new way