AI performance at citing news

Jaźwińska, K. & Chandrasekar, A. (2025, March 6). AI Search Has A Citation Problem. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/we-compared-eight-ai-search-engines-theyre-all-bad-at-citing-news.php Spoiler alert "We Compared Eight AI Search Engines. They’re All Bad at Citing News."
"We randomly selected ten articles from each publisher, then manually selected direct excerpts from those articles for use in our queries. After providing each chatbot with the selected excerpts, we asked it to identify the corresponding article’s headline, original publisher, publication date, and URL" They were excerpts that would have found the right item with a Google search.
Also, this caught my eye: Scott, L. (2025, March 18). The Last Days at Voice of America. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/first_person/last-days-voice-of-america-voa-trump-kari-lake.php
Photo by Sheila Webber: a few crocuses, March 2025

Webinar: AI and Higher Education teaching

The UK's Information Literacy Group (ILG) have organised a webinar on 1 April 2025 at 15.00-16.30 BST: AI and Higher Education teaching. It is free to CILIP members and £5 to others.
"this event will be an opportunity for Librarians to hear about how others are teaching AI literacy, and how they are engaging with staff and student concerns surrounding AI." The speaker is Michael Flierl (Associate Professor and Student Learning Librarian at Ohio State University, USA) and the session is chaired by Jane Secker (Deputy Chair of ILG and Associate Professor in Educational Development at City St George’s University of London, UK). There will also be short presentations from librarians about their practice with AI in HE.
Register at https://buytickets.at/cilipinformationliteracygroup/1551995

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) in Latin America and the Caribbean

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2024) of the open access Journal of Latin American Communication Research focuses on Media and Information Literacy (the introduction is here): articles (available in Spanish and English) include:
- Challenges for Media and Information Literacy (MIL) policies in Latin America and the Caribbean by Rosa M. González
- Media and Information Literacy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Challenges and opportunities of an unequal region by Silvia Bacher
- The Pillars of Media and Information Literacy in Times of Artificial Intelligence by Janneth Trejo-Quintana, Alexandre Sayad
- MIL and Democracy in Latin America. Lessons from independent journalism: An overview of Mexico and Brazil by Carolina Montiel Navarro, Laura Martínez Águila
- A Continent to be Known - A comparative perspective between two Civil Society Organizations dedicated to Media and Information Literacy (MIL) in Latin America by Manuel-Antonio Monteagudo, Francisco González
- Media and Information Literacy and Alternative Media by Hugo Maguey
- Contemporary challenges of MIL: Towards an education for emancipation by José Manuel Corona-Rodríguez, Guillermo Orozco Gómez
- Media and Information Literacy Research in Latin America by Eva Da Porta, Paula Morabes
Go to https://www.journal.pubalaic.org/index.php/jlacr
Photo by Sheila Webber: bee on rhododendron, March 2025

UNESCO MIL Alliance newsletter

UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Alliance published their newsletter 2 weeks ago. Particularly interesting are the short reports from different regions of the world, highlighting local iniatives past and future.
Go to  https://www.canva.com/design/DAGevXDsUCI/XQf7Z7UfOJkD_Oe-jZuVVg/view?

Media Literacy is Freedom

A short article describes UNESCO's campaign in Ukraine collaborating with Detector Media, Media Literacy is Freedom. It includes videos and "the dissemination of simple media literacy rules and the promotion of critical thinking, delivered by well-known Ukrainian bloggers, actors, and journalists on social media". Story at https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unescos-campaigns-media-and-information-literacy-empower-millions-ukraine-think-critically
Photo by Sheila Webber: daffodil clump, March 2025

Information literacy teaching

For Saturday, a link to a little feature on my friend, & Sheffield iSchool alumna, Dr Syeda Shahid, talking about her work at Towson University, USA, https://www.towson.edu/news/articles/2025/teaching-information-literacy-to-the-next-generation.html
The photo is from 10 years ago taken at the i3 conference in Aberdeen: l to r, Dr Joseph Essel, me, Dr Syeda Shahid, Dr Kondwani Wella

Call for proposals: posters at #WLIC2025

Another IFLA WLIC call! They invite proposals for posters to be presented in person at the conference (taking place in Astana, Kazakhstan, 18-22 August 2025). Deadline is 1 April 2025. From personal experience, the poster exhibition (19-20 August) is very substantial and your poster gets a lot of attention (there are numerous aisles like the one in the photo from 2023's conference). There are always numerous information literacy posters!
The conference theme is Uniting Knowledge, Building the Future and they say
"As IFLA holds the Congress in Central Asia for the first time, we have a unique opportunity to bring all aspects of the profession together to share and learn. The availability of knowledge is essential to building the future of our societies. Libraries share, libraries combine, libraries preserve different formats of knowledge – oral, print, digital.
Please specify how your project or library activities bring together knowledge that contributes locally, regionally or globally to our societal future. Describe what you have done to achieve results through collaboration, partnerships or increasing sustainability?"
More information here https://2025.ifla.org/home/call-for-posters/
Photo credits: Vesna Vuksan (2023). Poster Sessions: 22-23 August 2023. https://flic.kr/p/2oXv7kv - used under a CC BY 2.0 license

Call for papers: Integrating #AI in Information Literacy #WLIC2025

There is a call for papers for the IFLA Information Literacy Section's session at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) taking place in Astana, Kazakhstan, 18-22 August 2025, with the theme Future Ready Libraries: Integrating AI in Information Literacy. Deadline for proposals is March 31 2025.
"Possible sub-themes may include, but are not limited to:
- policies, best practices, and issues with integrating AI information literacy instructionand/or programs in all types of libraries
- strategies to use AI to develop critical thinking and digital literacy skills
- the ethical implications of using AI
- AI literacy and its relationship with information literacy
- AI transforming how communities learn information literacy
- skills and pedagogical approaches needed to incorporate AI into information literacy programs"
"Each presentation will be 10 minutes. There will be a 10-minute Q&A to conclude the one-hour session." At least one of the authors has to present in person at WLIC. Full details at https://www.ifla.org/news/information-literacy-section-call-for-papers-wlic-2025-open-session-future-ready-libraries-integrating-ai-in-information-literacy/
Photo by Sheila Webber: keep off the croci, March 2025

Survey: Learning Analytics in Academic Library Online Instruction

If you are "academic librarians who capture, use data or are interested in learning analytics to support and assess the impact of their academic library online instruction / teaching employed by higher education academic libraries" you're invited take a survey on Use of Learning Analytics in Higher Education Academic Library Online Instruction. It closes on March 15 2025. The research study is undertaken by Simone Laughton, Head of Library & Instructional Technologies at the University of Toronto Mississauga Library, Canada. The survey is estimated to take "approximately 20 – 30 minutes to complete on average" and is at https://forms.office.com/r/uVZxFF1JPj.
Photo by Sheila Webber: crocus in the park 1, March 2025

Review of AI and education

A critical review published by the Ada Lovelace Institute & the Nuffield Foundation in January 2025, focusing on schools, but (I think) with application to other educational levels (and countries) is A landscape review of AI and education in the UK..
"Our aims were to bring greater clarity on the role of AI in schools, to support policy and educational experts to navigate these issues, and to highlight priorities for further research and policy".
Conclusions include " Education-specific AI tools are barely emergent"; "The evidence base is limited on the pedagogical efficacy of using AI in EdTech, whether for general learning and teaching, for SEND or for administration" and "The regulation and governance of AI in EdTech has not kept pace with the evolution of the products, leaving pupils and schools exposed to potentially risky technologies being deployed."
Samson, R & Pothong, K. (2025). Discussion paper: January 2025: A learning curve? A landscape review of AI and education in the UK. Ada Lovelace Institute. https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Ada-Lovelace-Institute-A-learning-curve.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: different type of landscape: crocus are in bloom, March 2025

#IWD2025 celebrating women colleagues

To celebrate International Women's Day, I highlight papers by women colleagues in the Information School, University of Sheffield (all open access). Firstly, a report on health information literacy research that includes my colleagues Dr Pam Mckinney & Dr Laura Sbaffi:
McKinney, P., Sbaffi, L., Cox, A., Bath, P., Robinson, A. & Wiltshire, M. (2024). Health Information Literacy in Marginalised Communities: End of project report: Co-production workshops with the Sheffield Roma, Yemeni and Somali Communities. https://doi.org/10.15131/shef.data.25315672.v1 

Secondly, research on digital inclusion, with authors including colleagues Dr Sharon Wagg, Dr Bethany Aylward & Dr Sara Vannini:
Wagg, S., Vannini, S., Zammani, E., Klyshbekova, M. & Aylward, B. (2024). Digital inclusion network building: a network weaving analysis. UK Academy for Information Systems. Conference Proceedings 2024 https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=ukais2024 "This paper aims to investigate digital inclusion network building as a mechanism for reducing digital poverty. Analysing a rural digital inclusion network in the UK, and drawing on Network Weaving Theory (Holley, 2013), this case study analyses how people’s roles and places play a big part in both the construction and growth of the network, as well as in the advancements of its initiatives. " 

Finally, one on EDI in usability testing, including colleagues Dr Sophie Rutter & Dr Jo McKenna-Aspell:
Rutter, S., Zamani, E., McKenna-Aspell, J. & Wang, Y. (2024). Embedding equality, diversity and inclusion in usability testing: Recommendations and a research agenda. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 188, Article 103278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103278

Alfamed

Alfamed is a network of Hispanic researchers in South America and Europe, focused on media literacy "The main concern of the network is creating collaborative research related to communication and education. Specifically, media literacy of citizenship; education & media literacy" with a cross disciplinary perspective. The website at https://www.redalfamed.org/copia-de-inicio has numerous Spanish-language resources (and also Portuguese, but more Spanish), including, for example, the substantial proceedings of their 2024 conference

Research methods: using GenAI as a tool; Using an online map in interviews; Co-experiencing photos

Glessmer, M. S., & Forsyth, R. (2025). Superficially plausible outputs from a black box: Problematising genAI tools for analysing qualitative SoTL aata. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 13, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.13.4 [SoTL = Scholarhip of Teaching & Learning] Spoiler alert: the authors indeed discovered some problems! Open access - as are the following two articles.

Watson, A., & Kirby, E. (2025). Affective routes in interviews: Participants exploring a digital map as a live elicitation method. Qualitative Research, 25(1), 243-262. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241245961. " In this article we discuss participant-led explorations of a digital story-mapping platform as an elicitation technique in qualitative interviews. This platform is Queering the Map, a community-generated counter-mapping project that digitally archives queer moments in place." Engaging insights, for example in the emergence of "generative silence" in the sessions. 

Rowsell, J. (2025). Affecting photos: Photographs as shared, affective ethnographic spaces. Qualitative Research, 25(1), 207-226. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241246173 Co-experience connects this article to the previous one (in this article, photos, in the previous one, map exploration).
Photo by Sheila Webber: catching the moment when the tree's shadow aligned with the recycling bin.... February 2025