Free stuff on Online site

Just got an email from Online Information about new content (mostly podcasts, some free, some priced, and the odd white paper) being available each month. This month the theme is social media. There are free podcasts as follows: Wikis and the lightweight software revolution (presentation by someone who sells wikis): The value of social media in 21st century organisations (round table discussion chaired by Euan Semple) : Enterprise wikis and employee collaboration (talk by JP Rangaswami, formerly Head of Alternative Market Models at DrKW and now CIO at BT Global Services, he has a blog at http://confusedofcalcutta.com/)
I listened to some of the latter (part of the problem of podcasts is they are difficult to skim!) and he does give some examples of why wikis are used in business (e.g. for deciding meeting agendas, as well as building up opinions or perspectives on a business problem, and capturing the context of contributions).
I'll also mention that there is a call for papers for the 2007 Online conference in London 4-6 December (http://www.online-information.co.uk/), ending 9 May. There is a minor theme "Information literacy as a core competency", but Web 2.0 and information discovery are more central themes.

NB There is a link to the podcasts on the above online-information webpage.

Photo by Sheila Webber: White and pink blossom on grass, Sheffield, 2007

IL Research module

Two students from my Information Literacy Research module (James O'Brien and Christopher Rhodes) talked about the module as Inquiry-Based learning & about their project, at last Tuesday's IBL cafe (a regular CILASS event). Here is the post from CILASS' Sabine Little on the event: http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=165 (James and Chris are at the far end of the table)

Photo by Sheila Webber: Rhododendron, Weston park, Sheffield, April 2007.

Horizon Report 2007

Each year Educause (in the USA) bring out a new Horizon Report which "seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education." I linked to the 2006 one a few months ago, and now the 2007 edition has been published. One of the good things about the report is that it isn't very long (32 pages). The report identifies:

- trends in Higher Education generally (these may cause no shocks, including things like "The environment of higher education is changing rapidly", but the arguments are stated nice and concisely and they include "Information literacy increasingly should not be considered a given");

- critical challenges (e.g. "The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning is pushing the educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment");

- technologies to watch (mobile, virtual worlds, social software, user-created content, "The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication" and multiplayer games). It then goes into the technologies in a little more detail, including a list of some relevant links.

I'm going to an Eduserv event about virtual worlds etc. the week after next, so this looks like a good thing to print out and read on the train.

New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiative (2007) Horizon Report: 2007 edition. New Media Consortium. http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=CSD4781

Photo by Sheila Webber: If only people like me wouldn't insist on printing things out to read, perhaps fewer trees would end up like this ;-)) (Sheffield, March 2007)

Riding the online knowledge wave

Following the theme of free online samples, a "book in progress" SurfingThroughNoise: Riding the Online Knowledge Wave by George Lorenzo has chapter one up online, "What is this World Wide Web". It is a sort of spinoff from work he was involved in for Educause (see next post!), and it draws quite heavily on interviews with US academics and commentators. It's under a creative commons licence, and touches on a number of familiar themes: insofar as it draws some of these together and has some nice quotes it could form the basis of a class discussion. However I must warn you that the chapter finishes "At the risk of sounding corny –“Surf’s Up, Dude,” – let’s ride the online knowledge wave, stay balanced, learn how to avoid nasty undertows, know where we are at all times and reach the shoreline safely so we can hop on the next wave." The chapter is at http://www.edpath.com/stn.htm

Photo by Sheila Webber: Wild roses, Sheffield, April 2007.

Bother, missed marking the 23rd...

23rd April is the day Shakespeare and Cervantes died, and in most parts of the world it is also World Book Day. (For reasons known only to the UK book trade, World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is held on 1st March) This year 23rd April also was International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, on which science fiction and fantasy writers were encouraged to post free stuff on the web. This was in response to a shirty article in which a Vice-President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America complained that authors who posted free stuff online were devaluing the work of those who still asked for payment from publishers. A lively debate ensued, in which numerous authors explained how putting free stuff on the web had emerged as a sensible marketing enterprise, helping to demonstrate interest in their work etc. so they could then get money from publishers and readers that they wouldn't otherwise have earned. There are links to lots of free works celebrating this day linked at http://papersky.livejournal.com/320114.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: a prospectus-type view of Sheffield Uni, April 2007

Information use in NHS24

Today Ruben Toledano O'Farrill visited to lead this week's Information Literacy Research module session. Ruben is a research student and Ad-Hoc Lecturer in the department of Information Management, Robert Gordon University (RGU), Aberdeen. His supervisor is Professor Dorothy Williams and I am external supervisor. Ruben aims to "research conceptions of effective information use in NHS24, exploring the relationships between information literacy and knowledge management in the context of a knowledge-managed organisation". NHS24 is operated by the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland, and through it trained nursing staff provide advice and information over the phone.
Obviously this is interesting because of the workplace context (where there is little research when compared to research in educational contexts), and also because of the linkage with knowledge management. Ruben is in the data collection phase at the moment.

Photo by Sheila Webber: I forgot to take a photo of Ruben & can't find my photos of RGU, but at least this is in Scotland (like Aberdeen): Glasgow University viewed over the Kelvin river, April 2007.

Management Development Programme

Today I'm in Glasow, as External Examiner on the Management Development Programme of the University of Strathclyde's Business School. This is an interesting programme with modules in the first 3 years for all undergraduate students in the business school. It covers key areas such as teamworking, problem solving, information handling, business ethics, leadership, and it is delivered in a problem solving approach. Students work in teams, there are few large plenary sessions and there is a variety of coursework: learning diaries, presentations, online statistics tests etc. There are over 500 students taking it in each year. The site for the programme is here. An article about it is:

Johnston, B. and Watson, A. (2004) "Participation, reflection and integration for business and lifelong learning: Pedagogical challenges of the integrative studies programme at the University of Strathclyde Business School." Journal of Workplace Learning, 16 (1/2), 53-62.

Photo by Sheila Webber: the grand former Post Office on George Square, Glasgow, has been empty for years. They have now gutted it entirely inside (I think it will be "lifestyle apartments")

American i-skills

Thanks to the InformationLiteracy Land of Confusion (which has recently taken a new web address, http://www.information-literacy.net/ by the way, as Michael Lorenzen mentioned on a comment to the blog a week or so ago) for alerting me to the fact that the Educational Testing Service in the USA has changed the name of its ICT Literacy test to the iskills test. There is information about the test here. The press release on the ETS website has a quote about why they chose it " 'We selected iSkills because it is catchy, contemporary and relevant,' says Mary Ann Zaborowski, ETS’s Director of Product Management for the iSkills™ assessment. 'The new name is more spirited and better reflects the nature of this very different type of assessment . . . it’s interactive and really cutting edge.' " Hmmmm ... notice that little ™? I'm not a trademark expert, but I wonder if they can sustain that, given that JISC launched the i-skills initiative a couple of years ago (see http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/
publications/pub_sissdocs.aspx) Perhaps the "-" makes all the difference, but I think that might count as Prior Art in intellectual property terms.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Cherry tree, part of Sheffield University's Firth Court in the background, April 2007.

Researchers' use of academic libraries and their services

The Research Information Network has published an interesting study of Researchers' use of academic libraries and their services. The report is free on the RIN website. "This study was designed to provide an up-to-date and forward-looking view of how researchers interact with academic libraries in the UK. Harnessing empirical data and qualitative insights from over 2250 researchers and 300 librarians...(etc.)" The study was undertaken by Key Perspectives Ltd. One of the things the researchers were asked about was what they tthought th elibrarians' top roles would be in 5 years time - "Custodian" came top ;-( "Teach info skills" was 5th out of 13.

Brown, S. and Swan, A. (2007) Researchers' use of academic libraries and their services. Research Information Network. http://www.rin.ac.uk/researchers-use-libraries

Photo by Sheila Webber: inside the new Information Commons (this is looking down on the quiet study area - it also has groupwork rooms etc.) Within a few days (it opened on 10th April) it seems to have totally filled up with students.

A Blogosfera para os Profissionais de Informação

I have been invited by Julio Anjos to tele-present via WebEx at a Portuguese conference A Blogosfera para os Profissionais de Informação (The Blogosphere for the Information Professional) taking place on 29 May 2007. It is taking place at the Escola Superior de Estudos Industriais e de Gestão, Instituto Politécnico do Porto (School of Industrial Studies and Management, Oporto Polytechnic Institute). Very interesting-looking presentations, but then I wouldn't be able to understand most of them (not speaking Portuguese) even if I was attending physically rather than virtually. For those of you who can speak Portuguese, the information is at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcrb2tvr_6fr6jj7 As you will gather, my presentation will be in English, so I will report on my experience on or after the 29th!

Photo by Sheila Webber: The chestnut trees are starting to blossom in Weston Park.

Meeting on draft Scottish IL framework

Things move apace in Scotland. Following the announcement of the draft information literacy Framework for Scotland a couple of weeks ago, an open meeting has been scheduled on 23 May, 2pm to 4.30pm in A 313, Govan Mbeki Building, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, Scotland, to explain the Framework. A copy of the draft framework is available from http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/framework.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Blossom in Weston Park, Sheffield, April 2007 (includes falling white blossom)

Computers in Libraries

The Computers in Libraries (CIL) conference is taking place April 16 - 18, 2007 (i.e. NOW) in Arlington, USA. This year it's being blogged by lots and lots of people. There's a CIL wiki at http://cil2007.pbwiki.com/ which has links to the individual blogs, plus a link to Technorati, where (when I just looked) there were already 177 posts tagged for CIL2007 and 250 photos (including photos of other people blogging....)

I dunno ... perhaps this is all getting a bit much.

Photo by Sheila webber: Blossom, Weston Park Sheffield, April 2007.

UKeiG Annual Seminar

The UKeiG Annual Seminar is Riding the waves or treading water? Confronting the challenges of a volatile electronic environment, London, UK, Wednesday, 13 June 2007. "The aim of the day will be to highlight and discuss key pressure points on e-information professionals at a time when rapidly changing technologies are forcing us to make tough decisions on service prioritisation." Talks include: Information Literacy in the Age of Amateurs. Peter Godwin, Academic Liaison Librarian, University of Bedfordshire & 2 talks from Dr. Jan-Martin Lowendahl Research Director, Gartner: Digital natives hit the workplace: fodder for digital culture wars? and Emerging IT trends and tools to deal with hype, maturity and alignment. More info on the UKeiG website http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/
2007/june/ridingthewaves.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Limpsfield churchyard, April 2007.

American Competitiveness in the Internet Age

I don't think I picked up on a short report that emerged from the Information Literacy Summit held in the USA in October 2006. It has brief accounts of three panels on three themes: The Global challenge; The student and worker challenge; The public policy challenge. One of the interesting points I picked out was the contribution of Jan Magill (Director, Workforce and Education Programs Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce). "Magill described the Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to create a work readiness credential. It was developed to help evaluate entry-level workers’ ability to think critically and to use information effectively in decision-making." Unfortunately, when you go to the website of the initiative (launched in January) at http://www.workreadiness.com/, information use is not one of the nine skills which are highlighted. The National Work Readiness Credential is based on the Equipped for the Future (EFF) "applied learning standards" e.g. the 9 skills are a subset of 16 described by EFF. Information literacy isn't in these 16 skills either, but it does include Gather, Analyze, and Use Information as one of the 13 common activities for people in any of the three roles identified in the EFF material (which are citizen/community member, worker, and parent/family member). This all looks worth more investigation.

Another nice quote from the report in the Public Policy challenge section is from Patrick Callan (President, The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education) who "suggested that perhaps information literacy does not have a high profile because nobody is against it; it is, in fact, rather universally approved. However, its general acceptance means that there is no debate, no discussion, no conversation about information literacy—as there is with other more controversial curriculum issues. Callan remarked, 'Information literacy isn’t sexy; it’s just essential.' "

Perrault, A.M. and Roth, L. (2006) American Competitiveness in the Internet Age. National Forum on Information Literacy. http://www.infolitsummit.com/Documents/InfoLitSummit16Oct2007B.pdf

Photo by Sheila Webber: Cherry blossom, Greenwich park, April 2007.

Innovate

Volume 3 issue 4 of Innovate (April/May 2007), an American education journal, focuses on "the Net Generation". Articles include "an overview describing the learning styles and preferences of Net Generation learners", an article about teenagers' use of social networking online, a report of "a research project that analyzes the differences and similarities between traditional and nontraditional students in regards to comfort with technology and attitudes about learning", and a reflection on "how the Net Generation accesses, creates, and uses information". The issue is online at http://innovateonline.info/index.php .

Photo by Sheila Webber: Camellia, Greenwich Park, April 2007.

Nordic summer school on information Literacy

The Nordic summer school on information Literacy (Nordisk sommerskole om informasjonskompetanse) takes place in Iceland, at Reykholt, 11 – 15 June 2007. The course leaders are Jude Carroll, Ralph Catts and Christina Tovote. The details are in Swedish at http://landbunadur.is/landbunadur/
wglbh.nsf/key2/hhjn6yzm8x.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Limpsfield churchyard, April 2007.

Public library standards & resource for 9-18 learners

Some of this is rather Old News which I meant to post this some time ago. The new news is that new public library quality standards for public libraries in Scotland have been published. The document is:
Scottish Executive & Scottish Library and Information Council. (2007) Building on success: a public library quality improvement matrix for Scotland. SLIC. http://www.slainte.org.uk/files/
pdf/slic/plqim/plqim2.pdf
The "quality indicators" are: Access to information; Community and personal participation; Meeting readers’ needs; Learners’ experiences; Ethos and values; Organisation and use of resources and space; Leadership. Helping people develop information literacy is mentioned under "access".

The older news is that in January Learning and Teaching Scotland launched a resource for pupils aged 9-18. It contains learning objects, plus notes for teachers which includes pedagogical rationale underlying the materials. In fact this material was delivered to L&T Scotland a while ago, I think, as it is a project in which Bill Johnston was involved (there is a research report,
Information literacy and study skills: an overview of research for LT Scotland, from him and Tony Anderson, also from Strathclyde University, on the website). http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/informationliteracy/index.asp

Photo by Sheila Webber: Water feature, Sheffield Station, April 2007.

ANZIIL Symposium series 7 announced

ANZIIL Symposium Series Seven has the theme Why we do what we do: theory and action, and it takes place in Hobart (Tasmania) Monday 29 - Tuesday 30 October 2007 "Symposium 7 continues ANZIIL's popular series of practical, case study driven symposia on information literacy. The Hobart Symposium will provide a theoretic basis for librarians to think about and apply in teaching programs, collaboration for curriculum development, and other services that develop information literacy in tertiary education." More details at http://www.anziil.org/index.htm later in the month.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Hoop pine at sunset, Yeppoon, Australia, June 2004.

500 postings

This makes 500 postings on this new blog, which started in September 2005. Sometime I will get round to adding some of the more durable postings from the old Information Literacy blog (April 2003-May 2005).

You may have noticed that I started using tags a while ago. I have done a little bit of retrospective indexing, but I haven't gone right back. When I've done that I will change the template and add a list of tags into the side panel. As you may realsise, you can already click on a tag at the foot of the entry and retrieve any of my postings with that tag (e.g. click on the tag weblogs & you get all the postings which have some connection with blogs). Obviously you can also search for any word in the text of the blog using the search function at the top left of the page.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Water feature, Sheffield Station, April 2007.

School libraries snippets

Some interesting thoughts evidently came up at the School Library Journal Summit that was held last November in the USA: here is the wiki, which includes a link to a page outside the wiki with the presentations: http://sljsummit.pbwiki.com/

The 2007 IASL (International Association of School Librarianship) Conference is being held in Taipei, Taiwan, 16-20 July 2007. The theme is Cyberspace, D-world, E-learning: Giving Libraries and Schools the Cutting Edge. See http://www.iasl-slo.org/conference2007.html

Something I hadn't come across: The Minnesota Educational Media Organisation Recommended Standards for Information and Technology Literacy (in schools): it also has other material on its website http://www.memoweb.org/index.html

Unrelated Easter Bunny-type P.S.: I think Miffy is very cute. The National Library of Scotland has just launchded an exhibition on to celebrate 50 years of Miffy: http://www.nls.uk/news/miffy_exhibition.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Live trees and chopped tree, Weston Park, Sheffield, April 2007.

National Information Literacy Framework Scotland

John Crawford announced last week that the first draft of the National Information Literacy Framework Scotland is available from http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/
framework.html

"This draft framework is being developed with secondary and tertiary partners using SCQF (Scottish Credit Qualification Framework) aims, structure and key features and existing frameworks and models. The Framework lists information literacy skill levels for all SCQF levels from access (School) through to PhD. We are also looking at applying it to the workplace and the wider community. There is an introduction explaining what information literacy is and how it can be used. You can also look at the skills appropriate to each level. An evaluation exercise of the draft framework is being carried out which involves the project partners from different sectors, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals' Information Literacy group, relevant professional bodies and email discussion lists. Project partners will pilot the draft framework in the 2007/2008 academic year; this piloting will provide exemplars which will be included in the framework of how the skills, knowledge and understanding at different levels can be mapped into specific subjects or course design. Comments and expressions of interest will be welcome."

Photo by Sheila Webber: Blossom in Weston Park, Sheffield, April 2007.

More blog posts on IL

Moira Bent has a posting about the seminar on IL which she organised on Monday at Newcastle, which featured Christine Bruce talking about her Six Frames for Information Literacy education and some interesting speakers. She has also posted about the seminar I ran last Friday (am I engaged in incestuous blogging?) and LILAC, on her blog.
This post is also an excuse for this photo of one of my windows, a few minutes ago, just after being washed. We only get our windows washed every few years so I tend to get over-excited about it. It is the first time they have been washed since I moved down the corridor to this nicer office. Yay, Spring light!

Other blogs on the LILAC conference

Looking around at other blogs, Pam McKinney did a good posting on the Inquiry Based Learning blog, about Ross Todd's keynote talk (http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=160), and here is a post about the BRUM project's presentation http://brumproject.blogspot.com/
2007/03/brum-at-lilac.html. There are two postings from Jane Secker, here and here, on the Social Software, libraries & distance learners blog. This is also a good point to introduce Peter Godwin's blog Information Literacy meets Web 2.0, at http://infolitweb.blogspot.com/. Finally, a posting from from the University of Durham Academic Support Team.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Wallflowers, outside Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, April 2007.

IL in a politics class

Stephen Thornton, Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Cardiff is giving a paper at the Political Studies Association Annual Conference, at the University of Bath, being held 11-13 April 2007. He describes an information literacy intervention in a 3rd year politics module. One of the things he set out to test was whether you really did need to have a credit bearing element to make students take the material seriously, and, somewhat regretfully he decides that you do, to deter students from ducking out. Here is the pdf (an article)
Thornton, S. (2007) Pedagogy, politics and information literacy. http://www.psa.ac.uk/2007/pps/Thornton.pdf

Photo by Sheila Webber: Daffodils and birch trees outside Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, April 2007

Visitors from University of Konstanz

On Monday I had a visit from two German researchers, Oliver Kohl-Frey (Information Literacy Coordinator, left) and Bernd Schmid-Ruhe (Project Manager, right) (they are pictured on West Street, just by the Department, about to catch a taxi). They are involved in an interesting series of projects at the University of Konstanz (see photo of brochures below). The first one was looking at information literacy education for undergraduates. The second one, that they are involved in at the moment, is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and focuses on those above the undergraduate level.

It is called Informationskompetenz II (or "Information Literacy 2"), with the subtitle Joint Project on Comparative Research in Information Literacy for advanced students and staff. They were asking for my views on various aspects of information literacy. I must still be dazed from last week - I felt afterwards I hadn't asked them enough about their project.

However, there is a lot of information about the project (note: in German) at http://www.ub.uni-konstanz.de/bibliothek/projekte/informationskompetenz.html. It includes material for several modules, available under a creative commons licence, namely:

Module 1: Die Welt der wissenschaftlichen Information (the world of scholarly information)
Module 2: Suchstrategie und erste Recherchen (search strategies and first searches)
Module 3-5: Bibliographien und Datenbanken I-III (bibliographies and databases)
Module 6: Internet
Module 7: Literaturverwaltung und eigenes Publizieren (managing your information, and publishing your own work)
Plus there is a section with information that is relevant across several modules, and documents that give overviews of all the material (e.g. an outline that identifies learning outcomes, materials and activities over all the modules).

UK web focus

I've just had an invite from Brian Kelly to be the next guest blogger (on May 1st) on his UK Web Focus blog: looking forward to this! His inaugural guest was Roddy MacLeod, and that was an interesting post, posing some provocative questions about UK library bloggers and there were a lot of good comments too. Hmmm .... perhaps I should do something like that too (I mean, have guest bloggers, not plagiarise Roddy's posting) imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Brian's blog is at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

Departmental research seminar

Last Friday (30th March) Dr Christine Bruce (Associate Professor, Faculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology, Australia) kindly agreed to give a research seminar in the morning, and to be one of the speakers at a research event in the afternoon. That's her (right) with me (left): I forgot to take any photos during the day, so it was left until after the meal on Friday evening (thus my glazed expression).

I had invited people particularly concerned with IL research at Sheffield to the morning event (e.g. students & staff doing IL projects and dissertations, and members of the CILASS Information Literacy Network). Participants had posed questions in advance and Christine responded with her thoughts and stimulated discussion around the questions. These included questions about Web 2.0 and information literacy, developing pedagogies for information literacy, and the issue of whether you can call information literacy "information literacy" in the workplace.

The afternoon was a free event, open to anyone, and there were about 30 people there, researchers, students and librarians. Christine talked about Information literacy: models from research. She discussed the nature and agenda for information literacy research, and give an insight into the models which have emerged from research by staff and students at Queensland University of Technology (see previous post). Then Professor Nigel Ford and I talked about Information Literacy research in the Department of Information Studies, and the UK research agenda. Here is the presentation powerpoint in pdf form: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/30-3-2007-webber-ford.pdf

After a refreshment break, Bill Johnston (Senior Lecturer, Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement, University of Strathclyde, Scotland) and I talked about Conceptions of information literacy of UK Chemistry and English academics. This presentation was based on research findings from the Arts & Humanities Research Council project “UK academics’ conceptions of, and pedagogy for, information literacy”. Here is the presentation powerpoint in pdf form: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/30-3-2007-webber-johnston.pdf. Finally, Nigel Ford and Andrew Madden had a conversation around research findings from the Arts & Humanities Research Council project Understanding the dynamics of information seeking: analysing searchers' strategic changes over time, funded February 2005-July 2007.

I felt rather zonked by the end of the day, since I was the prime organiser (with assisstance from Phussadee Dokphrom, one of my PhD students). However, I intend to follow it up with some more events focusing on IL and information behaviour, as there is a lot going on in this area here.

Christine Bruce at LILAC

Obviously I've got some catching up to do, blogging a couple more of the LILAC sessions from last week. Christine Bruce (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) was one of the keynote speakers. She talked inspiringly about the transformational value of information literacy, and she also discussed some of the models generated through research, including her famous "seven faces" model. Here are some links that cover some of the material she mentioned.

Concise description of the Seven Faces, on her website: Seven faces of information literacy in higher education (and obviously in lots of other publications too, including her book: Bruce, C. (1997). The Seven Faces of Information Literacy. Adelaide: Auslib Press.).

Bruce, C and Edwards, S L and Lupton, M (2006) "Six Frames for Information literacy Education." Italics 5 (1). http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5-1/pdf/sixframes_final%20_1_.pdf

Hughes, H. (2006) "Responses and influences: a model of online information use for learning." Information research, 12 (1). http://informationr.net/ir/12-1/paper279.html (Reflective online information use model, and Model of responses and influences in online information use for learning)

Middleton, M., Bruce, C., Partridge, H. and Edwards, S. (2006) "Developing a research culture and scholarship plan in information studies," in Lloyd, A.e and Pymm, B. (Eds.) Research Applications in Information and Library Studies Seminar: RAILS 2. 11-22. Charles Sturt University Centre for Information Studies, Wagga Wagga, NSW. Eprint available at http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00002092/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Dusk approaching the City Business District, Brisbane, Australia, July 2006.

My presentation at LILAC on the IL research literature

The last few days have been hectic, as I had to dash back from the LILAC conference on Wednesday to a rather heavyweight faculty learning and teaching committee meeting. Then the next day (29th) Dr Christine Bruce arrived in Sheffield from LILAC and Bill Johnston arrived from the his home University, Strathclyde (in Glasgow). On Thursday afternoon, Christine, Bill and I had some good conversations about information literacy, and the evening we were joined by some colleagues here (plus Ruben Toledano, who is pursuing a PhD on an information literacy theme at Robert Gordon University under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Williams; I am his external supervisor).

Anyway, to return to last Tuesday at LILAC: I gave a presentation co-authored with Bill Johnston, Reviewing the information literacy literature, highlighting issues emerging from a review of the research literature funded by the Higher Education Academy. In particular we talked about the research evidence on collaboration between librarians and academics, and also identified some issues in the research literature concerning the impact of information literacy. The powerpoint (in pdf form) is here: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/lilac-2007-webber.pdf. We identified that, although there are many articles which mention collaboration and say how essential it is, there are not many which actually investigate the collaboration itself. We note some ways in which people could explore this topic. We also discussed some of the issues with articles that look at "impact", including the over-emphasis on quantitative approaches.