The iSchool Equation

The latest essay in the Project Information Literacy Provocation series (number three) was published on 9 June 2021, by Kirsten Hostetler, entitled The iSchool Equation. The strapline is "Librarians are increasingly being looked to as one solution to the spread of misinformation, but are iSchools producing graduates who possess the teaching skills to tackle this growing problem?"

The essay is here https://projectinfolit.org/pubs/provocation-series/essays/the-ischool-equation.html and there are some suggested discussion questions here https://projectinfolit.org/pubs/provocation-series/essays/discussion-questions/ischool-equation-dq.html
Spoiler alert - the author concludes that library students are not being adequately prepared for teaching, and makes some good points. However, she does focus entirely on the situation in the USA, something that was not obvious from the title (I'm in an iSchool! and I'm not in the USA! - in fact there are more iSchools outside North America than within it - see https://ischools.org/Directory). 

I will add a link to Kirsten Hostetler's PhD dissertation, as that is also interesting: Hostetler, K. (2020). Designing for the One-Shot: Building Consensus on Design Processes for Academic Librarians. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/stemps_etds/112/
Photo by Sheila Webber: rose, June 2021

Webinar: Talking with the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance Awardees #MILCLICKS

There is a free webinar on 24 June 2021 at 16.00 CEST (which is, e.g., 15.00 UK time): Talking with the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance Awardees. "This webinar will gather the six awardees of the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance Awards 2020. During the webinar, the awardees will share their inspiring journeys in the field of media and information literacy (MIL), what the MIL Alliance Award means to them and/or to their organizations, their upcoming projects related to MIL, as well as recommendations to other stakeholders to ensure success of MIL initiatives. The webinar will also provide an opportunity for the members of the MIL Alliance and others to dialogue with the awardees." More details about the awardees here. Registration at https://on.unesco.org/3zMEXqL

New open-access articles: Misinformation; Social media literacy; Social bots; Selective belief; Motivations for sharing

The latest volume (no. 15, 2021) of the open-access journal International Journal of Communication https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/issue/view/17 includes
- “One Big Fake News”: Misinformation at the Intersection of User-Based and Legacy Media by Aya Yadlin, Oranit Klein Shagrir. "We show how online mediated spaces that are considered aggressive and counterproductive should also be understood as facilitators of calls against misuse of public resources and manipulations spread in society. We thus suggest that alongside legacy mainstream media, user comments can become part of the solution for the prevalence of disinformation in our current digital media ecosystem."
- Developing a Perceived Social Media Literacy Scale: Evidence from Singapore by Edson C. Tandoc  et al. "Through a series of 4 studies (focus group discussions involving social media users and 3 nationally representative online surveys) conducted in Singapore, we identify 4 types of competencies in which social media literacy can manifest: technical, social, privacy related, and informational. ... based on the qualitative results, we developed and tested a perceived social media literacy (PSML) scale through a series of 3 national online surveys, where we found disparities in PSML based on socioeconomic factors."
and the issue has a special section on Comparative Approaches to Mis/Disinformation
- Electronic Armies or Cyber Knights? The Sources of Pro-Authoritarian Discourse on Middle East Twitter by Alexei Abrahams, Andrew Leber.
- Motivations for Sharing Misinformation: A Comparative Study in Six Sub-Saharan African Countries by Dani Madrid-Morales et al
- When Machine Behavior Targets Future Voters: The Use of Social Bots to Test Narratives for Political Campaigns in Brazil by Rose Marie Santini, Débora Salles, Giulia Tucci
- Fighting Zika With Honey: An Analysis of YouTube’s Video Recommendations on Brazilian YouTube by Jonas Kaiser, Adrian Rauchfleisch, Yasodara Córdova
- Belief in or Identification of False News According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Chi-Ying Chen, Mike Kearney, Shao-Liang Chang. One of their findings from this quantitative study was "information literacy was not a moderator for any informational cue. This reveals the urgency of improvements in literacy education, especially when considering the roles of individuals as media gatekeepers in SM." However, the 3 items used to measure IL were "I can search for online information when I need to; I contribute to online discussion in the form of writing comments when I need help; I verify online information when I am not sure about its authenticity."
- Selective Belief: How Partisanship Drives Belief in Misinformation by Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Burhanuddin Muhtadi
Photo by Sheila Webber: floribunda, June 2021

Keeping Up With . . . Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

There is a new information sheet in the Association of College & Research Libraries' Keeping up with series: Keeping Up With . . . Trauma-Informed Pedagogy. It outlines what this means for learners and teachers, and has links to readings and resources: https://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/trauma-informed-pedagogy

Register for the LILi 2021 Virtual Conference #LILiConf2021

You can register for the free Virtual 2021 LILi Conference (LILi is a group based in California, USA, which focuses on lifelong information literacy), which takes place on 9 July 2021 10.00-15.30 US Pacific time (which is, for example, 18.00-23.30 UK time - so after a short break you can go straight from FestivIL to LILi ;-)  Places are limited and you must register by 1 July 2021 at https://forms.gle/LuLyAB6xPGhdG8W1A  The theme of the conference is What You Don’t Know & Are Afraid to Ask: Teaching Ourselves & Others

Invitations will be sent out the week of the conference to those who registered. The current list of conference sessions is on a padlet with pins on a map that you can click to (in most cases) get a short astract of the talk: https://padlet.com/eriosalvarado/1dlvn74joairwqs8 The final schedule will be posted on the LILi website: https://lili.libguides.com/lili/home. See also the LILi Community Agreements Draft, where they aim to create an inclusive, respectful, and actively engaging environment for all of their virtual and in-person events.

Course: search usability

The UK electronic information Group (UKeiG) is repeating the half-day online course on Search Usability from 2pm-5pm UK time on 14 July 2021, led by Tony Russell-Rose. "This course explores the fundamental concepts and principles of User-Centred Design for information search and discovery and demonstrates how to apply them to a range of practical contexts. Participants will learn how to differentiate between various types of information-seeking behaviour, develop an understanding of key dimensions within the search user experience, and discover how to apply UI design principles to commercial search applications. The session includes an opportunity to apply these skills to a range of practical design challenges." Costs: UKeiG/CILIP members £50 + VAT; Non-members £75 + VAT; Employer Partner staff £65 +VAT. Details and booking https://www.cilip.org.uk/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1526194&group=201314

Photo by Sheila Webber: cow parsley, May 2021

New articles: Everyday information behaviour; youths' perceived information literacy; quality judgements

There is a new issue (volume 26 no. 2) of the open access journal Information Research. Articles include:

- Ning Zhang, Qinjian Yuan, Xin Xiang, and Kuanchin Chen. What can you perceive? Understanding user’s information quality judgment on academic social networking sites
- Muhaimin Karim, Shahrokh Nikou, and Gunilla Widén. The role of youths’ perceived information literacy in their assessment of youth information and counselling services
- Muhammad Asif Naveed, Syeda Hina Batool, and Mumtaz Ali Anwar. Resident university students’ everyday-life information seeking behaviour in Pakistan
- Olubukola M. Akanbi and Ina Fourie. The information source preferences and information monitoring behaviour of pregnant women in Pretoria, South Africa
Go to http://informationr.net/ir/26-2/infres262.html  

Also, one article from the previous issue that I found particularly interesting was: Lee, L., Ocepek, M.G., & Makri, S. (2021). Creating by me, and for me: investigating the use of information creation in everyday life. Information Research, 26(1). (It looks at use of shopping lists and pinterest boards) http://InformationR.net/ir/26-1/paper891.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: young beech leaves, May 2021

Looking forward to our #FestivIL panel! The UK agenda for Information Literacy Research #FOILResearch

I had a great zoom call this morning (how often can you say that!) with fellow members of FOIL: Forum on Information Literacy, a collaboration of academic researchers based at UK institutions, working our initial draft of a research agenda for Information Literacy in the United Kingdom. This will be the topic for our panel session at FestivIL by LILAC (if you have a ticket - they are now sold out - our session is at 11am UK time on 7 July 2021 - the programme is here).

I am chairing the panel, and the other FOIL members, who will form the panel on the 7 July, are: Dr Pam McKinney (a colleague in the Information School, University of Sheffield; Professor Annemaree Lloyd, Dr Alison Hicks and Dr Charlie Inskip from University College London, Bill Johnston from University of Strathclyde, Dr Drew Whitworth from Manchester Institute of Education, Manchester University, and Dr Geoff Walton from Manchester Metropolitan University.
We are putting together a document with position statements and ideas on the focus for IL research in the UK, and aim to collaborate with others to develop it further. I will be posting more about this in the future!

Recent articles: Constructive alignment; metaliteracy; health literacy;

In volume 62 issue 1 of Journal of Education for Library and Information Science (a priced publication) https://utpjournals.press/toc/jelis/62/1:

- Using Constructive Alignment to Support Metaliteracy in International Classrooms by Schuster, Kristen; Stewart, Kristine. "Drawing on the first author's observational research and the second author's expertise in metaliteracy, we present a case study of international postgraduate students in an interdisciplinary department. The authors synthesize their different areas of work to describe how a fusion of metaliteracy, constructive alignment, and learning oriented assessments (LOA) facilitates student engagement with theories of knowledge organization and extensible markup language (XML) data-encoding standards. "
- Vital Signs: Health Literacy and Library and Information Science Pedagogy in the United States by Garwood, Deborah A; Poole, Alex H. "This research employs content analysis to explore the current state of health literacy training ¡n LIS programs. First, we define and contextualize health literacy. Next, we posit a health literacy framework comprising five attributes based on the American Library Association's (ALA's) core competencies and relevant scholarship. Third, we examine 118 health-related courses offered by 53 LIS programs in the United States and Puerto Rico. Only 38 courses in 25 LIS programs incorporate one or more of the five attributes. "
- The Information Literacy Framework: Case Studies of Successful Implementation by Adle, Morgan. (Review of the book which looks at the ACRL IL Framework: Julien, H., Gross, M. & Latham, D. (2020). The Information Literacy Framework: Case Studies of Successful Implementation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefiel.

Photo by Sheila Webber: wisteria, May 2021

3D Virtual Worlds for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning (slides and links) #MINDSETS

Today I gave a presentation for the OneHE Mindsets Information Digital & Media Literacy thematic network, on 3D Virtual Worlds for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning. 

Embedded below are the slides, and the references, and a number of other links etc. are at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jszFFUIPralN3B5T4z5pUpRbxdW9vL3NN7rs8Iz6RVo/edit?usp=sharing I will add the link to the recording when I get it.

 

3D Virtual Worlds for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning from Sheila Webber

Webinar: 3D Virtual Worlds for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning

Tomorrow, 14 June 2021, at 3pm UK time (which is, for example, 10am US Eastern time) I will be presenting a free webinar: 3D Virtual Worlds for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning for OneHE Mindsets Information Digital & Media Literacy thematic network.
Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/3d-virtual-worlds-for-professional-development-and-lifelong-learning-tickets-157018980999.
"3D immersive environments have now been used for well over a decade for learning, play, commerce, therapy and more. In this event, our presenter, Sheila Webber, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, will give an introduction to ways in which virtual worlds are used in education and for personal & professional development, and where the benefits and issues lie.
Sheila will go on to focus on the opportunities for professional development, drawing on her own experience as leader of the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable, an international educators’ discussion group that has been meeting weekly in the 3D virtual world Second Life (trademark Linden Lab) since 2008, and as a founder member of the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium. Most recently the hype is about 3D virtual realities using VR goggles, but people can also be immersed in what happens on their screens: this emerges from research, but also practical experience, with the continuing rise in computer gaming, including educational sandbox games such as Minecraft."
Hope to see you there!

Photo by Sheila Webber, taken in the 3D virtual world, Second Life, 2021

Free new online books on education and social media from University College London #openacces @UCLPress

A few years ago I highlighted UCL Press (University College London) andd its open source pdfs of books to do with social media - notably focusing on social media in different countries of the world - (which can also be bought in printed form) https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/media-studies. It also has books in the education field https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/education. I will highlight a few from both of these collections:

- Garvy, P. & Miller, D. (2021). Ageing with Smartphones in Ireland: When life becomes craft. UCL Press. https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/media-studies/products/171340 (an ethnographic study).
- Walton, S. (2021). Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Italy: Care and community in Milan and beyond. UCL Press. https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/media-studies/products/171345 (an ethnographic study).
- McConlogue, T. (2020). Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education: A Guide for Teachers. UCL Press. https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/education/products/111601
- Scott, D. (2021). On Learning: A general theory of objects and object-relations. UCL Press.  https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/173793
- Savva, M. & Nygaard, L.P. (2021). Becoming a Scholar: Cross-cultural reflections on identity and agency in an education doctorate. UCL Press. https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/education/products/130873 (It has chapters from mature students from different parts of the world, on a professional doctorate programme (EdD).
- Brown, N. & Leigh, J. (2020). Ableism in Academia: Theorising experiences of disabilities and chronic illnesses in higher education. UCL Press. https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/education/products/123203
Photo by Sheila Webber: floribunda rose and bee, June 2021

Recording: Open Access, Infodemics and Libraries - Exploring the Global Equity of Science #EmergingInternationalVoices

There is a recording of the IFLA #EmergingInternationalVoices webinar that took place on 26 May 2021: Open Access, Infodemics and Libraries - Exploring the Global Equity of Science. Tina Purnat (WHO), Victor Ejechi (StatiSense, Nigeria), Dr Feda Kulenovic (University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina), Professor Yasar Tonta (Haceteppe University, Turkey) and Dr Dasapta Erwin Irawan (Universiti Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia) discussed issues such as open access, going beyond fact checking, the role of libraries as regards disinformation, and the need for people to pay attention to their "information hygiene". The recording is at https://youtu.be/fPwwVFtQ3c0 and there is a good blog post summarising key points at https://www.ifla.org/node/93930
Photo by Sheila Webber: pink hawthorn tree, May 2021

LIS Pedagogy Chat: Teaching Advocacy Skills

The next LIS (Library & Information Science) Pedagogy Chat is on 18 June 2pm US EST (which is, e.g., 7pm UK time), and the topic is Teaching Advocacy Skills, introduced by Sonya Durney (University of New England, USA), followed by an open discussion. Register at: https://www.lispedagogychat.org/schedule-registration

Photo by Sheila Webber: aquilegia, May 2021

Vote for the FestivIL award #FestivIL @InfoSchoolSheff

The UK's Information Literacy Group has put up a list of nominations for the Leading Light FestivIL 2021 Award, and you can vote for your favourite candidate! Go to https://medium.com/festivil-by-lilac/awards-940c5b3e3700 to see the list of nominees and read about what they have done for information literacy (which is interesting in itself). Then follow the link to vote (anyone can vote) - deadline 30 June 2021. This award is sponsored by my Department - the Information School at the University of Sheffield, UK.