LOEX 2014 call for papers

The 42nd Annual LOEX Conference (the key US information literacy conference) will be held May 8-10, 2014 at Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. The conference title is Creative Visualization: The Art of Information Literacy. The call for papers is out. The deadline for traditional presentations and interactive workshops is November 22, 2013. The call for posters and lightning talks will be issued in November. More information at http://www.loexconference.org/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Eastbourne, on the shore, September 2013

Infolit in Zimbabwe

Short article advocating the importance of information literacy in Zimbabwe:
Tsiko, S. (2013) "Zimbabwe: Time to Go Beyond Literacy." All Africa, 16 September. http://allafrica.com/stories/201309160420.html

MOOCs: learning analytics; interaction

Yesterday I attended a initial meeting of researchers who are interested in pursuing educational research concerned with FutureLearn (the UK-based initiative to provide Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs); my university is a member of FutureLearn. There were a few presentations and some workshops. I will just share a couple of resources related to the meeting:
- Steve Draper (Glasgow University) talked about MOOCs and peer interaction and these are his slides plus links to related material e.g. the Jigsaw approach to learning: http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/talks/mooc1.html
- Simon Buckingham Shum presented on learning analytics. I couldn't find the presentation he gave yesterday, but his slideshare is at http://www.slideshare.net/sbs and the latest presentation at time of writing was from a few weeks ago Learning Analytics (or: The Data Tsunami Hits Higher Education).
Also a recent paper by him which gives an example of the things he was talking about is:
Ferguson, R., Wei, Z., He, Y., and Buckingham Shum, S. (2013). An evaluation of learning analytics to identify exploratory dialogue in online discussions. In: Third Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK 2013), 8-12 April 2013, Leuven, Belgium http://oro.open.ac.uk/36664/
Finally, this gives an example of exploring coded data (from discussion fora):
Wegerif, R. (2010) Exploring creative thinking in graphically mediated synchronous dialogues. Computers and Education, 54(3), 613–621. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131509003054
Photo by Sheila Webber: on the way to Sheffield Station, early morning, September 2013

MOOCs: two literature reviews and a conference

A couple of recent literature reviews, freely accessible:
- Haggard, S. (2013) The Maturing of the MOOC: literature review of Massive Open Online Courses and other forms of distance learning. (Research paper; 130) London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/240193/13-1173-maturing-of-the-mooc.pdf
- Liyanagunawardena1, T., Adams, A. and Williams, S. (2013) MOOCs: A Systematic Study of the Published Literature 2008-2012. International review of distance learning, 14 (3). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1455/2531
The event is EMOOCs 2014, the Second MOOC European Stakeholders Summit, February 10-12 2014, taking place in Lausanne (Switzerland).http://www.emoocs2014.eu/
Picture by Sheila Webber: Frankly I think this different-bins-for-different-rubbish thing has gone too far (Blackheath, August 2013).

Blog-post journal club: OERs: 25th September

The next information literacy blog-post journal club discussion will take place on Wednesday 25th September at 8pm UK time and is on the topic of Open Educational Resources. The discussion is led by Nick Sheppard and he has pointed participants towards a report by Gema Bueno-de-la-Fuenta and John Robertson - The roles of libraries and information professionals in Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives.
The discussion will be held in blog comments in the following post:
http://infolitjournalclub.blogspot.se/2013/09/open-synergies-and-symbioses-role-of.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Montmatre Cemetery, September 2013

Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa call for papers

The Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) will hold its 14th Biennial Congress in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 20th – 24th October, 2014. The main theme of the 14th AHILA Congress is: ICTs, access to health information and knowledge: building strong knowledge societies for sustainable development in Africa.
There is a call for papers, which includes themes to do with information literacy. Abstract should be in English with a maximum of 500 words. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st March 2014. More details at http://www.ahila.org
Photo by Sheila Webber: Eastbourne beach, September 2013

Denton for Inquiry 4 Lifelong Learning

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Agency commissioners approved 70 library grant awards totaling $1.6 million for Texas libraries, institutions of higher education, and other nonprofit organisations. They include:
"A $75,000 Library Cooperation Grant to the University of North Texas – Denton for Inquiry 4 Lifelong Learning (DI4LL): A collaborative organization of librarians serving school, public, and academic libraries, the Denton Inquiry 4 Lifelong Learning (DI4LL, pronounced “DILL”), will focus on increasing the information literacy skills of pre-kindergarten through graduate school learners by implementing a spiral information literacy curriculum in the region." http://northdallasgazette.com/2013/09/14/tslac-awards-1-6-million-in-texas-library-grants-for-fy2014/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Orfevre

Information research: new articles: information literacy research

The latest issue of Information research (18 (3) 2013) includes the Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark, 19-22 August, 2013. There are a very large number of papers, including:
- Colleen Addison and Eric Meyers Perspectives on information literacy: a framework for conceptual understanding
- Hanna Carlsson, Fredrik Hanell and Karolina Lindh Exploring multiple spaces and practices: a note on the use of ethnography in research in library and information studies
- Johanna Rivano Eckerdal Empowering interviews: narrative interviews in the study of information literacy in everyday life settings
- Anna Hampson Lundh, Louise Limberg and Annemaree Lloyd Swapping settings: researching information literacy in workplace and in educational contexts
- Camilla Moring and Annemaree Lloyd Analytical implications of using practice theory in workplace information literacy research
- Michael Olsson Gently to hear, kindly to judge: the affective information practices of theatre professionals and journalists
- Trine Schreiber Questioning a discourse of information literacy practice in web-based tutorials
- Paul Scifleet, Maureen Henninger and Kathryn H. Albright When social media are your source
- Eero Sormunen, Mikko Tanni and Jannica Heinström Students’ engagement in collaborative knowledge construction in group assignments for information literacy
- Sonja Špiranec and Denis Kos Information literacy practices and student protests: mapping community information landscapes
- Gary B. Thompson and Jonathan W. Lathey An integrated model of information literacy, based upon domain learning
http://informationr.net/ir/18-3/colis/contents.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Butterfly garden, Singapore airport

Designing the future classroom project

Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom (iTEC) is "about designing the future classroom. The project, which involves 15 Ministries of Education from across Europe, brings together teachers, policymakers, pedagogical experts - representatives from each stage of the educational processes - to introduce innovative teaching practices." There are resources and links on the website. http://itec.eun.org/

MOOCS discussion list

The (US) Association for College and Research Libraries has created a new discussion list, Library Support for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Discussion Group, which anyone can join: http://lists.ala.org/sympa/info/acr-dgmoocs. They have a page of the website outlining the purpose of the ACRL group at http://www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl/directoryofleadership/discussiongroups/acr-dgmoocs
Photo by Sheila Webber: Butterfly garden, Singapore airport, August 2013

Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) Awards nominations

The 2014 Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) Awards nomination period is now open, closing December 1, 2013. They have created two new awards to recognize excellence in information literacy and instruction. The LIRT Librarian Recognition Award will be presented to an individual librarian in appreciation for her/his contributions to the field, while the LIRT Innovation in Instruction Award will be given to a Library that demonstrates innovation in support of information literacy and instruction. The awards will be presented at the ALA Annual Conference. For full information go to http://www.ala.org/lirt/awards and follow the links. As far as I can see it isn't restricted to American librarians.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Gardens at the bay, Singapore, August 2013.

Augustana workshop 2013: Implementing learner-centred teaching

Registration is open for the Augustana workshop 2013:Implementing learner-centred teaching , which takes place on Nov 13-14, presented by Beth Woodard, Reference Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and ACRL Information Literacy Immersion faculty member. The venue is Augustana Campus, University of Alberta, Camrose, Alberta, Canada. On November 13 there are optional information literacy consultations with Beth in the afternoon and an evening workshop dinner and the workshop is on November 14, 2013 Abstract "Learning-centered teaching is an approach to teaching that changes the focus from what the teacher does to student learning. In "instructor-centered teaching" the emphasis on what instructors do often leads to students who are passive learners and who do not take responsibility for their own learning. In "learning-centered teaching", the role of instructor shifts from giver of information to facilitator of student-learning. Learning-centered teachers articulate what we expect our students to learn, design educational experiences to advance their learning, and provide opportunities for them to demonstrate their success in achieving those expectations. Learning-centered instruction encourages student reflection, dialogue, and engagement, and requires assessment of content mastery. To be effective, a change toward learning-centered teaching may require a re-centering of assessment practices to include more and different evaluations of the learning experience. Learning-centered approaches can be applied to any kind of instructional setting, form one-shot courses to credit courses."
More info at http://www.library.ualberta.ca/augustana/infolit/workshop
Photo by Sheila Webber: Butterflies, Singapore, 2013

Guide on the side: free software

There has been discussion on the North American information literacy discussion forum, ili-l, about some tutorial software: Guide on the side. "The Guide on the Side software is a freely available tool that allows librarians to quickly and easily create online, interactive tutorials that are based on the principles of authentic and active learning." http://code.library.arizona.edu/gots/
There are examples of it in use at different libraries at http://www.library.arizona.edu/applications/quickHelp/tutorial/searching-the-ua-library-catalog, http://libguides.radford.edu/CINAHLmodules, and http://sail.cnu.edu/guide_on_the_side/tutorial/music-research. There is also a discussion forum where people can pose questions and the developers say what their plans are (the first priority is to improve accessibility) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/gots-discuss
Photo by Sheila Webber: spot the gull, Eastbourne, September 2013

Make Google behave: techniques for better results: course in London

On 30 October 2013 Karen Blakeman is running a one-day course Make Google behave: techniques for better results for UKeiG, at CILIP HQ in London, UK.
"Having problems with Google? Fed up with it ignoring your search terms and giving you something completely different? Or confused by irrelevant tweets from complete strangers appearing in your results? Personalisation, localisation, social networks and semantic search are all being used by Google in an attempt to improve relevance but it can all go horribly wrong. Austria suddenly becomes Australia and Google decides that coots are really lions! Nevertheless, just one really good result in the top five is often enough to persuade us to return to Google again and again. There are many tricks we can use to make Google return better results and this workshop will look in detail at the options that are currently available to us." Costs (including lunch and refreshments): UKeiG members £190 + VAT at the current rate; others £230 + VAT at the current rate. To register your interest in this meeting, reserve a place, or request further details, please email meetings@ukeig.org.uk. Further details are also available via the UKeiG website at http://tinyurl.com/aq4uohc
Photo by Sheila Webber: Eastbourne pier, September 2013

Infolit journal club in SL: Students’ engagement in collaborative knowledge construction in group assignments for information literacy

Marshall Dozier (Edinburgh University; she is Pancha Enzyme in Second Life) will lead a discussion on:
Sormunen, E., Tanni, M. & Heinström, J. (2013). "Students’ engagement in collaborative knowledge construction in group assignments for information literacy" Information Research, 18(3) paper C40. http://InformationR.net/ir/18-3/colis/paperC40.html at the next information literacy journal club meeting in Second Life.

When: Tuesday 10 September 2013, 12 noon SL time (which is 8pm UK time; see http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20130910T12&p1=234 for times elsewhere)

Where: Infolit iSchool Journal club room (pictured), in the virtual world Second Life, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/106/209/31 Everyone is welcome to join the one-hour discussion. You need a SL avatar and the Second Life browser installed on your computer.
Hope to see you there (even if you haven't had time to read the paper in advance!) :-)

A Centre for Information Literacy Research event.

Only Connect … Discovery pathways, library explorations, and the information adventure

Walsh, Andrew and Coonan, Emma (2013) Only Connect … Discovery pathways, library explorations, and the information adventure. Innovative Libraries, Huddersfield. ISBN 978-0-9576652-0-0
Free multimedia ebook at http://innovativelibraries.org.uk/index.php/onlyconnect/
Free download at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/17339/
Print on demand at lulu http://www.lulu.com/shop/andrew-walsh-and-emma-coonan/only-connect-discovery-pathways-library-explorations-and-the-information-adventure/paperback/product-21179149.html
Picture by Sheila Webber: a photo of Gardens at teh Bay, Singapore, warholised using bighugelabs.com

Does Time Spent Online have an Influence on Student Performance?

Actually the interest is in the detail here, as (contrary to what the abstract (below) says), it is not clear cut (e.g. they got different results correlating use on Blackboard with results from different types of assessment).
Korkofingas, C. and Macri, J. (2013) Does Time Spent Online have an Influence on Student Performance? Evidence for a Large Business Studies Class. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 10(2). http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol10/iss2/2
"This paper examines, using regression modelling, whether a statistically significant relationship exists between the time spent by a student using the course website and the student’s assessment performance for a large third year university business forecasting course. We utilise the online tracking system in Blackboard, a web-based software system, to extract and calculate the time spent by each student on a range of specific online assessment activities across the entire semester. The evidence suggests that time spent online on the course website is associated with higher assessment performance."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Eastbourne shore, September 2013

Information Literacy Research Symposium: Purdue University: 29 October

The Purdue University Libraries, Discovery Learning Research Center, and Center for Instructional Excellence have organised The 5th Information Literacy Research Symposium, which will be presented by Dr. Mary Somerville (University Librarian at the Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver, USA) on Toward Informed Learning in Professional Practice, at Purdue University West Lafayette Campus(USA). The cost is US $60, with reduction for Purdue University Faculty and Staff. More info at https://www.eventreg.purdue.edu/ec2k/courselisting.asp?1=%20&master_ID=3490%20&course_area=1530%20&course_number=119%20&course_subtitle=00
Photo by Sheila Webber: palm trees, Sentosa island, August 2013

Information Literacy Instruction that Works: 2nd edition of the book

Ragains, P. (Ed) Information Literacy Instruction that Works: A Guide to Teaching by Discipline and Student Population. 2nd Edition. ALA Neal-Schuman. ISBN 978-1-55570-860-3. More information at http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=4267
Photo by Sheila Webber: bench, gardens, Singapore, August 2013

Social media in academic libraries

The latest issue of ARCL Instruction Section's Tips and Trends is on the application of social media in academic libraries, including for information literacy. It is a short publication that summarises trends and tips (as the title implies!) and gives some examples and references. http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/aboutacrl/directoryofleadership/sections/is/iswebsite/projpubs/tipsandtrends/2013summer.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Butterfly near West Street, Sheffield, September 2013

cfp/ Appel à communications: Francophonies, bibliothèques et confluences

Call for papers for the conference: Francophonies, bibliothèques et confluences: Troisième congrès mondial de l’Association Internationale Francophone des Bibliothécaires et Documentalises (AIFBD) et Colloque satellite IFLA which will be held in Limoges, France, 23-25 August 2014. The language of the conference is French. Information Literacy isn't a specific theme, but the idea of looking at the requirements of libraries in new times could, I think, include looking at the role of information literacy (education/competencies of professionals is also one topic). They require proposals of 1000 words by 1 November 2013. More information (in French) at http://www.aifbd.org/images/Congres2014/Appel_AIFBD_2014.pdf

LILAC conference dates for 2014

23-25 April and Sheffield Hallam University, UK, are the dates and venue for the UK's information literacy conference, LILAC, in 2014.

Library Juice academy online courses

Forthcoming Library Juice Academy courses include the following. They are priced (mostly US $175), and asynchronous: you sign up in advance or in the first week and then follow them during the month (is the way I think they work):
October 2013
Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction (Instructor: Maria T. Accardi) http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/065-feminist-pedagogy.php
Game-Based Learning in Library Instruction (Instructor: Scott Rice) http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/011-gaming.php
November 2013
Getting More Active Learning Into Your Teaching (Instructor: Andrew Walsh) http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/041-active-learning.php
December 2013
Online Instruction (Instructor: John Doherty) http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/015-online-instruction.php
Marketing the Library in the 21st Century (Instructor: Debra Lucas-Alfieri) http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/044-marketing.php
This is just a selection geared towards information literacy, there are a number every month. "These are online classes that are taught asynchronously, meaning that participants do the work on their own time as their schedules allow. The classes do not meet together at any particular times, although the instructors may set up optional sychronous chat sessions. Instruction includes readings and assignments in one-week segments. Class participation is in an online forum environment."
http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Leighton House, July 2013

ECIL programme available #ecil2013

The detailed programme for the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL), to be held 22-24 October 2013, at Harbiye Military Museum and Cultural Centre in Istanbul, Turkey, is now available. The main problem will be deciding which of the parallel sessions to attend (mostly 6 things going on at once) and how to keep up your stamina from the 8.30 start to the 8pm finish ;-) But to be serious, there are huge numbers of very interesting papers, covering a wide range of aspects of information literacy, and with speakers from around the world. I am doing an invited talk, and also a workshop. Two of my doctoral students are also participating.
The two keynotes are Christine Bruce and Paul G. Zurkowski (widely regarded as the originator of the term Information Literacy) and there are lots more famous names of information literacy speaking.
The website is at http://www.arber.com.tr/ecil2013.org/index.php/home with the programme available to download on the right of that page.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Butterfly garden, Singapore airport, August 2013