Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Recent articles: cultural capital; assessment and professional legitimacy; financial literacy

The latest issue of open access publication College and Research Libraries (volume 80, No 5, 2019) includes the following:
- Reframing Information Literacy as Academic Cultural Capital: A Critical and Equity-Based Foundation for Practice, Assessment, and Scholarship by Amanda L. Folk. "Within the past decade, academic librarianship has increased its focus on critical librarianship and assessing student success, as well as undergoing a complete reconceptualization of information literacy. However, our assessment and scholarship related to information literacy and student success largely neglects the persistent racial and social-class achievement gaps in American higher education. This article draws upon a critical social theory commonly used in higher education research—cultural capital—to consider the ways in which information literacy as threshold concepts may enable or constrain success for students whose identities higher education has traditionally marginalized. Finally, Estela Mara Bensimon’s equity cognitive frame is introduced to consider the ways in which we can ground our practice, assessment, and scholarship in our professional values of equity and inclusion."

- A Seat at the Table: Information Literacy Assessment and Professional Legitimacy by Robert Detmering, Samantha McClellan, Amber Willenborg. "This qualitative study explores academic librarians’ perceptions of and experiences with information literacy assessment, focusing primarily on issues of professional identity, agency, and power. Findings from in-depth interviews reveal that instruction librarians view teaching as integral to their professional identity and use assessment to legitimize that identity, both personally and at the institutional level. While this suggests that assessment has the potential to elevate the status of librarians on campus, the interviews also highlight ongoing professional and organizational tensions that hinder assessment efforts and inhibit librarian agency. The authors recommend more transparent communication, among other strategies, to address these challenges."

- Library Support for Student Financial Literacy: A Survey of Librarians at Large Academic Institutions by Lauren Reiter, Bronson Ford
Go to https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/issue/view/1132/showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: Circular Quay, Sydney, Australia, July 2019

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Webinar recordings: Communities of practice; Infolit in health sciences

Two webinar recordings. Firstly, the latest webinar from the Information Digital and Media Literacy Mindsets group (held on July 4 2019) was Communities of practice for staff development in information literacy, presented by Clare McCluskey-Dean."This webinar offered an overview of a project at York St John University (UK). Based on interviews and a survey carried out for doctoral research, a community of practice in information literacy was discovered, covering academic and professional staff across the institution." The recording is at https://youtu.be/iQ4uwE1MM7w

Secondly, on June 19 2019 Credo Reference held a webinar entitled Information Literacy in Context—Expanding Foundational Skills Instruction into the Disciplines, which focused on information literacy in the health sciences. It was delivered by Jonna Peterson, senior clinical informationist at Northwestern University, USA, and Amanda DiFeterici, instructional librarian and product manager at Credo Reference. Go to https://youtu.be/-BdCtMI4ISE
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cablecar, Taronga Zoo, Sydney, July 2019

Monday, July 29, 2019

Recent articles: Rubric for syllabus analysis; games to teach IL; School/Uni partnership; Students' everyday info seeking; digital literacy

The latest issue of priced publication Reference Services Review is Volume 47 Issue 2. It includes
- Revealing instruction opportunities: a framework-based rubric for syllabus analysis by Melissa Beuoy, Katherine Boss ("The purpose of this paper was to develop a rubric based on the ACRL framework to analyze departmental syllabi")
- Chat reference: evaluating customer service and IL instruction by Julie Hunter, Samantha Kannegiser, Jessica Kiebler, Dina Meky
- The power of partnerships by Christy Groves (partnership between a university in the USA and a local school)
- Commercial tabletop games to teach information literacy by Carl O. DiNardo, Mary J. Snyder Broussard
- Development of a framework for digital literacy by Julia Feerrar
- On their own terms by Elizabeth Kocevar-Weidinger, Emily Cox, Mark Lenker, Tatiana Pashkova-Balkenhol, Virginia Kinman (research investigating how first-year students conduct everyday life research)
Go to: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0090-7324/vol/47/iss/2
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sunset, Sydney Harbour Bridge, July 2019

Friday, July 26, 2019

#LOEX2019 conference presentations; faculty; research; wonderment; design thinking

Presentations are available from the LOEX (US information literacy) conference that took place in May 2019. Lots of interesting items, including:
- Blazing a Trail for Literacy Exploration through Design Thinking, from Julia Feerrar (Virginia Tech -- Head, Digital Literacy Initiatives) and Miko Nino (Virginia Tech -- Instructional Design & Training Manager) (presenetation and handout)
- Amazing Races Spanning from Outdoor Instruction All the Way to Virtual Reality from Felicia A. Smith (Stanford University -- Head of Learning & Outreach) (presentation)
- Braving the Wilderness: Using Text Analysis and Encoding to Teach Students about Literature Reviews from Sandy Hervieux (McGill University -- Liaison Librarian) and Katherine Hanz (McGill University -- Liaison Librarian) presentation)
- Creativity and Wonderment: Applying Waldorf Education to Information Literacy Instruction from Paul Worrell (McKendree University -- Reference and Instruction Librarian)
- "The Times They Are A’Changing": Information Literacy Instruction, Faculty Ownership, and Student Success from Alexandra Hamlett (Guttman Community College, CUNY -- Information Literacy Librarian) and Meagan Lacy (Guttman Community College, CUNY -- Information Literacy Librarian) (presentation)
- Uncovering First-Year Students’ Conceptions of the Research Process from Brianne Markowski (University of Northern Colorado -- Information Literacy Librarian) and Rachel Dineen (University of Northern Colorado -- Information Literacy Librarian) (presentation)
Go to http://www.loexconference.org/sessions.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sand and sea, Manly Beach, Australia, July 2019

Thursday, July 25, 2019

LILi conference

It is not too late to register for the FREE Friday, August 2nd 2019 LILi Conference, 9:30 am - 2 pm: "Creating Connections: Extending Our Instructional Reach Through Collaborations & Community Partnerships", taking place CSUN, California, USA.

The conference will include "Empowering Comunidad: Latino Civic Engagement" (15-20 min. presentation), "Down the Rabbit Hole: YouTube in the Age of Misinformation and the Road to Absolution" (5-10 min. lightning talk), "Implementing a Cultural Competence Framework Into Information Literacy Instruction" (Poster), and more. You can find the complete schedule here: https://lili.libguides.com/LILI2019

Monday, July 22, 2019

Online course: Addressing Misinformation and Fake News: Resources and Strategies

From Library Juice Academy, an online course running from 5 to 30 August 2019: Addressing Misinformation and Fake News: Resources and Strategies. It is led by Sarah Morris and costs US $175. More information at http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/190-misinformation.php
"The overall goal of this course is to empower participants with a deeper understanding of what misinformation is, with strategies they can use to address misinformation with patrons, and with a sense of how libraries and librarians are uniquely suited to tackle misinformation with patrons and to empower patrons with the literacy skills they need to deal with misinformation themselves."

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Recent articles: digital literacy; mobile infolit; refugees; Complementary medicine information seeking

- Spires, H. (2019). Critical Perspectives on Digital Literacies: Creating a Path Forward. Media and Communication, 7(2). https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/issue/view/125
- Pinto, M. et al. (2019 ). Scientific production on mobile information literacy in higher education: a bibliometric analysis (2006–2017). Scientometrics, 120(1), 57–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03115-x
"This paper offers a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production on Mobile Information Literacy in Higher Education published between 2006 and 2017, taking into account papers covered by Web of Science, Scopus, Library and Information Science Abstracts, Library and Information Science and Technology Abstract, and Education Resources Information Center. Bibliometrics, as an integral part of research evaluation methodology, helps us to identify the subject’s evolution over the period studied. In this research we aim to: (a) identify the most relevant journals that publish literature in this field, (b) calculate the authors’ average productivity and identify the most productive authors, and (c) discover the most significant trends in this academic field, through statistical and co-occurrence word analyses of the titles and the keywords used to index papers. The bibliometric results of this research provide a snapshot of the literature on Mobile Information Literacy that highlights the most relevant journals, authors, and trending keywords."
-Pandey, S. & Ilavarasan, P.V. (2019). People, information and culture: Locating forms of capital by Afghan Sikh refugees in India through ICTs. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 146, 331-338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2019.06.005
"For refugees, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are as important as physical infrastructure... The refugees are building the cultural capital by sharing information in Facebook in the host countries... The refugees negotiate their state of vulnerability by seeking accurate information through text messages and Whatapp groups... The refugees relive and build socio-cultural identities through the Facebook and the Whatsapp."
- Barnes, L. et al (2019). Complementary medicine products information-seeking by pregnant and breastfeeding women in Australia. Midwifery, 77, 60–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2019.06.011
"The objectives of this study were to identify and explore pregnant or breastfeeding women's sources of, and rationale for seeking complementary medicine products information, the types of information sought, and how women felt their health care practitioners can help them receive information that meets their needs. ... A qualitative research design consisting of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions was conducted. Data were thematically analysed. Participants also completed two validated health literacy screening tools. ... Twenty-five women (n=7 pregnant, n=17 breastfeeding, n=1 both pregnant and breastfeeding) who currently used complementary medicine products participated. ... Twenty-four participants had high health literacy according to the validated screening tools. Around half of the participants had used complementary medicine products for most of their lives and 17 had used complementary medicine products to resolve or manage complex health conditions in adulthood or childhood. Women sought complementary medicine products information from three main sources. 1) Practical and safety information on complementary medicine products was sought from health care practitioners and published research; 2) health care practitioners were also sources of information on reasons for complementary medicine products recommendations and physiological actions; and 3) sharing experiences of complementary medicine products use with other mothers appeared to help women understand what to expect when taking complementary medicine products, support social-emotional wellbeing and encourage participants to look after their own health. Participants strongly expressed the desire for their mainstream biomedical health care practitioners to be more informed in, and open to, complementary medicine product use in pregnancy and breastfeeding."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Glenelg beach, July 2019

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Slides: Media and Information Literacy: creative and critical engagement across the curriculum and beyond #RBE2019

Today I delivered a workshop Media and Information Literacy: creative and critical engagement across the curriculum and beyond university life at the Research-Based Education conference at the University of Adelaide, Australia, together with Bill Johnston. These are the slides



This was the abstract: The aims of this workshop are: to unpack UNESCO’s “composite concept” of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) and its relationship to research-based learning (RBL), and to stimulate participants to reflect on how MIL could enhance learning for citizenship.
Literature already links Information Literacy (IL) and IBL/RBL e.g. Lupton (2017), McKinney (2013): Levy & Petrulis’ (2012) framework for students’ IBL can be used to scaffold development of both disciplinary understanding and IL. However, MIL adds an extra dimension to IL, enfolding concepts of intercultural awareness, social justice and critical engagement with media. These aspects are vital at a time when misinformation challenges democratic society by promoting false knowledge claims and underpinning populism and hate speech (European Commission, 2018). Johnston, MacNeil & Smyth (2018) also identify that a Freirian critical pedagogy is a necessary component of the concept of an inclusive, open, information literate, digital university. A rich discourse is developing around the MIL concept (e.g. via GAPMIL and Global MIL week), but focused primarily on schools (e.g. Wilson et al., 2011) and opportunity exists to explore MIL in the Higher Education context.
References:
Johnston, B. MacNeill, S. & Smyth, K. (2018). Conceptualising the Digital University: intersecting policy, pedagogy and practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
European Commission. (2018). A multi-dimensional approach to disinformation: Report of the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/final-report-high-level-expert-group-fake-news-and-online-disinformation
GAPMIL: Global Alliance of Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/media-development/media-literacy/global-alliance-for-partnerships-on-media-and-information-literacy/
Levy, P. & Petrulis, R. (2012). How do first-year university students experience inquiry and research, and what are the implications for the practice of inquiry-based learning? Studies in Higher Education, 37(1), 85-101.
Lupton, M. (2017) Inquiry learning: A pedagogical and curriculum framework for information literacy. In D. Sales & M. Pinto. (Eds.) Pathways into information literacy and communities of practice: Teaching approaches and case studies. (pp.29-51). Chandos Publishing.
McKinney PA (2013) Information literacy and inquiry-based learning: evaluation of a 5 year programme of curriculum development. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 46(2), 148-166.
UNESCO. (no date). Media and Information Literacy: a composite concept. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/media-development/media-literacy/mil-as-composite-concept
Wilson, C. et al. (2011). Media and Information Literacy curriculum for teachers. UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001929/192971e.pdf

Monday, July 15, 2019

Cocreating using Echo360; Group drama to develop intercultural competence; Researchers in residence #RBE2019

My last liveblog today from the Research-Based Education conference at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Harrison Lees and Dalestair Kidd talked about employing students to co-create learning material with Echo360, in modules that they had already taken. The student creators gave feedback that they had benefited with having the additional interaction with lecturers, and it helped them understand the subject more. The students who were using the student-co-created Echo360 activities gave mainly positive feedback, appreciating actitivities like quizzes. Echo360 has inbuilt note taking software, and one message was to make students aware of this, also to introduce the activities early on so they get used to using them. This was part of the University of Adelaide's Students as Partners initiative, and students get paid: this was seen as important, so students did not feel exploited. The student presenters also urged academics to be receptive to students' new ideas and to follow up with the student.
Kayoko Enomoto and Richard Warner (University of Adelaide) presented on Living the language: an innovative group drama project for students to step into the shoes of others. They were talking about a group project designed to develop employability skills in an undergraduate module in a Japanese programme. They were aiming to develop discipline specific skills, intercultural competence, teamwork/ communication skills and critical thinking and research skills. Intercultural competence is seen as important to enrich linguistuc competence (although it was highlighted that the concept of IC is the subject of debate).The speakers identified the difficulty of "selling" group work to students (something that has come up in most of the sessions at the conference so far!). A four stage loop model of intercultural competence by Deardorff was used.
In this project, groups of 4-5 students (in a class of about 60, with different disciplinary backgrounds) had to write a drama scenario in Japanese, which focused on a selected socio-cultural issue. A list of issues was given, from which the students chose; examples are shut-ins, maternity harassment (forcing women to resign when they get pregnant), the ageing population. The students have to do searches for evidence for their dramas, using search skills and critical thinking. The drama format enables the "shoes of others" element.
Students are not necessarily interested in socio-cultural issues when they start the module (they might just want to learn the language). Bringing in Japanese exchange students was one strategy to motivate interest, and video presentations from previous cohorts were shown. The groups had to draw up a group contract, and do a storyboard (using a template), and these counted towards the final mark, as did the final drama (which they had to perform). There was an element of peer assessment. Student feedback indicated that the exercise did contribute to the development the tutors wanted, and also that some quieter students performed enthusiastically in the drama element.
Finally, Brendan Bentley (University of Adelaide) talked about Researchers in residence. This is an initiative in a Masters of Teaching degree. The student, who has to produce a 20,000 word dissertation, is placed with an employer (school) to undertake context-relevant research. This may be the same school as where the student does a placement, but not always. Bentley stressed the importance of having a programme coordinator who can main good connections with employers and understands the needs of the schools and thus the research questions that need to be pursued. It was also important to understand the skills that the preservice teachers do (and do not) have. The data that is analysed by students in usually secondary data. An executive summary of the research is given to the host school, and findings are presented at a conference of fellow students and other stakeholders.

Beyond books and articles: designing digital capabilities for the future #RBE2019

More liveblogging (so, instant impressions) from the Research-Based Education conference at the University of Adelaide. Fiona Mariner (University of Adelaide, Digital Learning Coordinator in the library) talked about Beyond books and articles: designing digital capabilities for the future. They had taken a face to face course in the Faculty of Arts, and turned it into an online module. It was a colaborative effort with the library, the course coordinators and the Learning Enhancement and Innovation team.
It "started as a problem of numbers" with not enough librarian-hours available, but also there seemed to be opportunities when going online. The team wanted to do more in terms of developing digital capabilities, and an online module gave a more flexible format. The university has developed a digital capabilities model (based on JISC's work). The underpinning concepts were metaliteracy (as mentioned before at various times on this blog, developed by Jacobson and Mackey); transferable skills in terms of scaling up, or transfering from one context to another (important on the Arts foundation course that this was targeted at); learner-centred design.
The students themselves are diverse, since it includes mature students, distance and oncampus students, and students from different faculties. The team aimed at backwards design, and identified a variety of learning outcomes. Based on those, they developed an assessment sheet, which aimed to encourage scaffold students progress towards carrying out a research/essay assignment and also get them to reflect on their progress and activities. The learning material included videos, activities and supporting material.
The topics covered went from finding and discovering existing knowledge, through critically evaluating, referencing and presenting in different ways. Although there was positive feedback from academics, the online module did not get systematically integrated into the class.
They have got some feedback from a separate group of students. There was positive feedback on a number of aspects, but the team got useful feedback e.g. that the students didn't navigate in the way expected, and they wanted more activities. Next time, they will involve students in the process a lot earlier. They also want to offer more support and liaison with academics. They would like to work more closely e.g. with the writing centre. They also feel they may need to have two online modules: one to be integrated into class, and the other self-paced.
Photo by Sheila Webber: catching thr tram from Glenelg this morning (apologies, I wasn't in a good place to take photos during the session)

A large scale capstone research course connecting students to researchers and careers #RBE2019

I'm going to do a bit of liveblogging from the Research-Based Education conference I'm attending at the University of Adelaide, Australia. As usual, these are my instant impressions of what was said. Nichola Thompson talked about development of a capstone research placement course in the final year of an undergraduate Health and Medical Sciences degree. The course has about I think) 300 students per year. The capstone course involves joining a research group in a research topic relevant to their major interest. They had 55 projects in the last year. The projects vary e.g. they may be lab based, systematic reviews, using existing data sets. The research is supported by core modules (online) concerning research methods, ethics etc., and support in areas such as using the research literature. In semester 2, activities include a journal club. There are multiple modes of assessment e.g. recording a presentation about the research, and presenting a final poster on the research, as well as reports and marks associated with the core modules. The students have been very positive about this initiative, but there are challenges. These include finding enough projects and willing researchers to lead them, costs of the lab projects, perception that some of the projects are more challenging/interesting than others, the marking load (and quality assurance of marking). Some students are uncomfortable with projects with no "right" answer, or don't want to commit enough time, or don't see the relevance of research to their future careers. The researchers may not be used to engaging with undergrad students, so expect a higher a level of skills and may not be used to engaging with unmotivated students, and might also expect that they only get the "top" students, and workload. I asked, and they did involve the librarians!

Friday, July 12, 2019

Online course: Incorporating Sustainability into Information Literacy

Library Juice Academy are running a short online course 5 o 30 August 2019: Incorporating Sustainability into Information Literacy, Library Programs, and Library Organizations. The course is run by Sharon Radcliff and costs US $175. "In this course, participants will learn about the history of sustainability as a discipline and set of practices, and explore it through readings, visual material, exercises, and online discussion. Students will create a final project plan for a program, policy, or lesson, incorporating various principles of sustainability, in order to benefit students, library patrons, the organization, and/or the community." For more info and registration go to https://libraryjuiceacademy.com/192-sustainability.php
Photo by Sheila Webber: outside Adelaide Airport, July 2019

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Recent articles: Career fair information; Library anxiety; learning outcomes

Volume 45 issue 4 (2019) of the priced Journal of Academic Librarianship includes the following articles:
- Undergraduate students' experiences of using information at the career fair: A phenomenographic study conducted by the libraries and career center by Ilana Stonebraker, Clarence Maybee, Jessica Chapman
- Library Anxiety among Undergraduate Students: A Comparative Study on Egypt and Saudi Arabia by Ahmed Maher Khafaga Shehata, Mohammed Fathy Mahmoud Elgllab
- An exploratory study of the relationship between the use of the Learning Commons and students' perceived learning outcomes by Esther M.W. Woo, Alexander Serenko, Samuel K.W. Chu
Contents page at https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/the-journal-of-academic-librarianship/vol/45/issue/4
Photo by Sheila Webber: Astilbe on campus, July 2019

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Cartoon video series on misinformation and online resilience #maddiesonline

Konstantina Martzoukou (Robert Gordon University) has created free video cartoon series on online safety and misinformation for schools, aimed at "school children (9-12 years old) to illustrate the dangers of online bullying and teach through animation online information evaluation. 'Maddie is Online' #maddiesonline is a free educational resource which narrates the everyday life story of Maddie, a fictitious 10-year-old girl, who goes through some troubles while connected online." Series 1: Misinformation is at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUx8jQ1MCcQTOHIGwzFHWFi8fF67oUtf and Series 2: Online Resilience is at https://youtu.be/nK_wHBlzyLA?list=PLlUx8jQ1MCcSdsaCHy05u1WCpht6Ky95Q . Dr Martzoukou would also like to partner with schools and libraries to pilot the cartoon videos.

Tuesday, July 09, 2019

Online Nation (UK) 2019

At the end of May, Ofcom published a new report Online Nation, with a great deal of information about the information and media habits of the UK population. It brings together Ofcom's rich research. Home page at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/internet-and-on-demand-research/online-nation/narrative
Pdf at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/149146/online-nation-report.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber, taken in second Life (TM Linden Lab)

Monday, July 08, 2019

New articles and reports: digital literacy in schools; information literacy needs of graduate students; health literacy estimates

Polizzi, G. and Taylor, R. (2019) Misinformation, digital literacy and the school curriculum. Media Policy briefs (22). London School of Economics and Political Science. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101083/ (open access). This is a useful summary of related recent UK policy developments and has "a non-exhaustive list of organisations, ordered alphabetically, that provide teaching resources on aspects related to textual analysis and evaluation, media representation, misinformation, the media and the internet".
It is advocating a focus on digital literacy and it is more than disappointing that libraries are only mentioned when the authors are quoting others (apart from a mention in passing of The British Library).

Zhao, S. (2019). A Study of Graduate Students’ Information Literacy Needs in the Electronic Resource Environment. PhD thesis, University of Windsor, Canada. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/7747/ (open access) "This study examines the information literacy skills of graduate students at the University of Windsor. The study encompassed a quantitative survey questionnaire administered to 137 graduate students and a qualitative component that involved semi-structured, open-ended focus groups with 17 graduate students. ... This study demonstrates that participating graduate students had only a basic understanding of information literacy skills—significantly less than the level required by the Association of College & Research Libraries. They need more information literacy training, potentially through an information literacy credit course or through intensive one-on-one instruction. Particularly, increasing the collaboration between libraries and faculties to integrate effective library-led information literacy into graduate course instruction would greatly benefit graduate students’ research and overall academic success."

Zawilinski, L. L., Kirkpatrick, H., Pawlaczyck, B., & Yarlagadda, H. (2019). Actual and perceived patient health literacy: How accurate are residents’ predictions? The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine. (early online publication) https://doi.org/10.1177/0091217419860356 "The purpose of this study is to replicate and extend the findings of previous research by examining residents’ ability to predict health literacy levels in patients and to use a newer validated measure of health literacy. A total of 38 patient encounters were included in this study. Patients were administered the Health Literacy Skills Instrument-Short Form to assess health literacy levels. Twenty resident physicians conducted visits with study participants and were asked to predict the health literacy of their patients. ..... residents accurately identified about 60% of patients with good health literacy; 40% of the time they overestimated the patient’s actual ability to comprehend health information. Conversely, in slightly more than half of visits (53%) where the patient had inadequate levels of health literacy, our resident physicians’ judgments were accurate. This would seem to indicate that physicians may need coaching regarding which patients might need modifications of education or management delivery plans to improve patient understanding."
Photo by Sheila Webber: these cherries tasted nice, July 2019

Friday, July 05, 2019

Call for proposals: Critical Librarianship and Pedagogy Symposium

The call for proposals for the 3rd Critical Librarianship and Pedagogy Symposium, organised by The University of Arizona Libraries and to be held in Tucson, AZ, USA on March 12-13, 2020, is now open. The deadline is August 1, 2019 and registration will open on September 1 2019. The conference is free, funded by the University of Arizona Libraries; and the UA iSchool will provides two US $500 scholarships to offset expenses. The application form is here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdP7XZYNbFKSHcgdJKIdY0LcbeVtaFsr-t2N3HWYVR7ptiytg/viewform. Last year's site is here: https://claps2018.wordpress.com/ (there isn't a website for this year conference yet).
Photo by Sheila Webber: wild roses, July 2019

Thursday, July 04, 2019

Media and Information Literacy #cilipconf19

I'm at the CILIP 2019 conference in Manchester. The University of Sheffield Information School has an exhibition stand, and I spent most of today on that (together with six of our great students). However, I did go to the last session yesterday, on Media and Information Literacy.

Nicola Aitkin (Head of Counter Online Manipulation, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) talked about Improving audience resilience to disinformation through media and information literacy. She started by introducing the general background: for example why people are spreading disinformation, the online environment and the “audiences” (including vulnerable audiences). She identified media and information literacy as being vital. They wanted people to be confident and critical in the way they engaged with online information. Aitkin identified that a lot of existing resources are aimed at children, and the number of resources aimed at young people can be bewildering.
The government had committed to a media literacy strategy in the Online Harms white paper and have just finished the consultation process. Aitkin stressed that “the conversation hasn’t finished” and they were keen to reach out to people and organisations who, in particular, can help them engage with more difficult to reach populations. They have also had media literacy round tables.
They have a pilot advertising campaign currently running on Facebook and Twitter aimed at 18-35 year olds with the strapline “don’t feed the beast”. Aitkin said that week they published guidelines aimed at teachers (I haven't traced that yet).

The 2nd talk was from Dr Sangeet Bhullar (Director, WISE KIDS), who talked about promoting digital literacy and digital wellbeing for children and young people. She talked about the Internet as being like a city, and whereas a parent wouldn’t drop a child in a city, they may not prepare their children for the risks of the city of the Internet. The internet differed from a physical city in offering connection to more people, things and spaces. Bhullar felt it was too narrow to position it as a safety issue. It was important to know about the legislation that could be used in this context (which is not just legislation brought in to combat cyber bullying). To illustrate the current risks, Bhullar played a deepfake video which put words into Obama’s mouth.
She also mentioned some of her own research in this area: Rethinking responses to children and young people’s online lives at https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/273226 and the Wise kids generation 2000 research project
Bhullar felt that teachers are not spending enough time listening to young people talking about what they do and value online. It was important for people to recognise risk and not be afraid of the Internet, so they could take advantage of the internet’s benefits. She saw the three key things as being pillars of development: Digital literacy, digital citizenship, character and wellbeing.
She finished by outlining the he role of librarians.

The third presentation was from Philip Russell (Deputy Librarian, Technological University of Dublin) about the be media smart campaign, an initiative from Media Literacy Ireland, which is a collaboration of various organisations, including the Library Associationof Ireland. It was built on the idea – what if we could get people to care as much about where their information comes from, as they do where their food comes from. The TV ad reached half a million and radio ads 2 million people, and there were social media ads and news stories picking up on the campaign. About 30-40 libraries supported the campaign. The cross sectoral approach was important and libraries being involved was significant.

Tuesday, July 02, 2019

Health Information Week #HIW2019

This is Health Information Week 2019 in the UK. The NHS library and knowledge services: page about the week is at https://kfh.libraryservices.nhs.uk/patient-and-public-information/health-information-week-2/ and they also have a page about evaluating the week's impact https://kfh.libraryservices.nhs.uk/category/quality-and-impact/ The Twitter stream is at https://twitter.com/Healthinfoweek
Today's focus was Mental health; and patient stories and I selected a few relevant articles:
Fergie, G., Hilton, S. and Hunt, K. (2016). Young adults' experiences of seeking online information about diabetes and mental health in the age of social media. Health Expectations 19(6), 1324-1335
https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.12430 (open access).
"Forty semi‐structured interviews were conducted with young adults, aged 18–30, with experience of diabetes or CMHDs. Data were analysed following a thematic networks approach to explore key themes around online information‐seeking and content consumption practices. ... Although participants primarily discussed well‐rehearsed approaches to health information‐seeking online, particularly reliance on search engines, their accounts also reflected active engagement with health‐related content on social media sites. Navigating between professionally produced websites and user‐generated content, many of the young adults seemed to appreciate different forms of health knowledge emanating from varied sources. Participants described negotiating health content based on social media practices and features and assessing content heuristically. Some also discussed habitual consumption of content related to their condition as integrated into their everyday social media use."

Riebschleger, J., Grove, C., Costello, S., and Cavanaugh, D. (2018). Mental Health Literacy for Children with a Parent with a Mental Illness. Journal of Parent and Family Mental Health, 3(1). https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/parentandfamily/vol3/iss1/1 (open access). This is a short article with advice and examples.

Buchanan, S, Nicol, E. (2019). Developing health information literacy in disengaged at-risk populations: Insights to inform interventions. Journal of Documentation, 75(1), 72-189. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2018-0086 (priced article)
"A qualitative in-depth case study. The participants were a team of UK Family Nurses providing outreach support to young expectant mothers from areas of multiple deprivations, and the mothers themselves. The data collection methods were observation, survey, interviews and focus groups. ... Information needs of mothers are multiple, and not always recognised as information problems, or revealed. Several felt overwhelmed, and actively avoided health information. There is low awareness and/or use of state sources of online health information. Family nurses provide an important information intermediary role, but are unfamiliar with IL concepts and models; consequently, there is limited evidence of client transitions to independent information seeking, or underpinning pedagogical practices to achieve such goals."

Monday, July 01, 2019

Call for proposals OERS in libraries

Following up on the OER theme: The International Journal of Open Educational Resources (IJOER) has a call for proposals for a special issue on Open Education Resources & Libraries. Proposals are due by July 3 2019 (I did only just get a notice about this) and full papers due by August 7 2019 (so a tight turnaround too!). Topics of Interest include: OER Collaborations between Librarians and Faculty; Incorporating Open practices and Open Educational Resources in library; Assessment of OER and/or OER Grant programs; Library support for OER; OER and open pedagogy; OER and collection development; Demonstrating the value of OER. For more details and the proposal submission form, go to: https://forms.gle/SioYfKMzU8USUoPe7

Online Educational Resources #OERs

This came out 6 months ago, but Esther Grassian just highlighted it - there is a useful introduction to Online Educational Resources (OERs) (with lots of links etc.) in the December 2018 issue of Library Instruction Round Table NewsTech Talk: Online Educational Resources by Billie Peterson-Lugo (on pages 5, 9-14). It is in the pdf of the whole issue: http://www.ala.org/rt/sites/ala.org.rt/files/content/archive/2018dec.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: mock orange, June 2019