Assessment at a Distance: In Theory and Practice Meeting

There is an online event on 18 February 2016, at 2-3pm US CST, which is 8-9pm UK time, Assessment at a Distance: In Theory and Practice Meeting. It is hosted by the ACRL Distance Learning Section Discussion Group. "We will host speakers Jenna Kammer, Instructional Designer at the University of Missouri and Navadeep Khanal, E-Learning Librarian at the University of Missouri. They will share how to assess meeting student learning outcomes using assessment plans geared toward the macro level of reviewing institutional data, to the micro level of collecting and analyzing in-course assessment methods and student performance in online courses. Our third speaker, Natalie Bennet, Online Services Librarian at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, will share how she uses discussion boards to gauge student learning and will demonstrate the use of discussion boards to gain vital qualitative assessment." Join at https://acrl.webex.com/acrl/onstage/g.php?MTID=e73a701e560b791f05f68b20ef3f74844
"Attendees will need a USB headset (and an Internet connection) to utilize the VoIP feature. We recommend that all attendees have headsets with microphones available. Prior to accessing the meeting, you will need to have the most up-to-date version of Java downloaded. If attendees have any difficulties accessing the meeting, they can call WebEx’s tech support number at 877-469-3239. There is a "How do I join a meeting" demo at http://wlc.webex.com/players/hdiRTE/HDIFrameset.htm?agg=MC/EN/MC_EN_T27FR17-524_ag
Photo by Sheila Webber: snowdrops, January 2016

Information literacy of psychology students

A group in Germany have produced numerous papers studying the information literacy of psychology students. They have done primarily quantitative research with cohorts of students at their institution. The papers (mostly in priced journals) are lised at https://www.uni-trier.de/index.php?id=7519 The ones mostly obviously concerning information literacy are:
- Peter, J., Leichner, N., Mayer, A.-K. & Krampen, G. (2015). Making information literacy instruction more efficient by providing individual feedback. Studies in Higher Education. Early publication http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1079607
- Rosman, T., Mayer, A.-K. & Krampen, G. (2015). On the pitfalls of bibliographic database searching: Comparing successful and less successful users. Behaviour and Information Technology. (early publication) http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2015.1066446
- Rosman, T., Mayer, A.-K. & Krampen, G. (2015). Intelligence, academic self-concept, and information literacy: The role of adequate perceptions of academic ability in the acquisition of knowledge about information searching. Information Research, 20 (1). http://InformationR.net/ir/20-1/isic2/isic34.html
- Rosman, T., Mayer, A.-K. & Krampen, G. (2015). Combining self-assessments and achievement tests in information literacy assessment: Empirical results and recommendations for practice. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(5), 740-754.
- Leichner, N., Peter, J., Mayer, A.-K. & Krampen, G. (2014). Assessing information literacy programmes using information search tasks. Journal of Information Literacy, 8(1), 3-20. http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/article/view/PRA-V8-I1-2014-1
- Leichner, N., Peter, J., Mayer, A.-K. & Krampen, G. (2013). Assessing information literacy among German psychology students. Reference Service Review, 41(4), 660-674.DOI: 10.1108/RSR-11-2012-0076 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/RSR-11-2012-0076

They also list a paper in the European Journal of Psychological Assessment called "Measuring the procedural component of information literacy in higher education: Theoretical outline and empirical results", but I think it must be this as it has the same DOI:
Rosman, T., Mayer, A.-K. & Krampen, G. (2015). Measuring Psychology Students’ Information-Seeking Skills in a Situational Judgment Test Format: Construction and Validation of the PIKE-P Test. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 31 (2), 1-10. Advance papers doi:10.1027/1015-5759/a000239 at http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1027/1015-5759/a000241
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hellibores, Sheffield Botanic Gardens, January 2016

Tablets: tips and #istechchat

The ACRL Instruction Section, Instructional Technologies Committee, has published the latest in their Tips and Trends series, Tablets, by Patricia McPherson. This series summarises information and advice in a few pages. Go to http://bit.ly/tipsandtrendswi16
@ACRL_IS_TECH is also having a Twitter chat, using #istechchat, about the use of tablets in academic libraries on February 25 at 7pm UK time, 11am US Pacific, 2pm US Eastern. "You will have the opportunity to share your own experiences integrating tablets into your library and learn from the experiences of others in the field." For more info go to http://bit.ly/istechchat
Photo showing the chief reason why I look at my tablet

Information Literacy Policies and Standards

The International Association of University Libraries (IATUL) Special Interest Group for Information Literacy has published a report on Information Literacy Policies and Standards at IATUL Member Libraries. "The report summarizes the results of a survey conducted between July 2013 and February 2014 to examine the national information literacy standards and frameworks in 13 countries and the institutional guidelines, frameworks, and policies of 100 academic libraries."
"National" here means that some national body (generally, a working party or association of librarians) has developed a model or framework of IL for that country. The main part of the 18 page publication consists of tables listing the countries and libraries, and giving details of any publications (with links: it says the data was revised in October 2015). The report is at https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/node?id=1286822 and the Special Interest Group website is here http://iatul.org/groups/informationliteracyspecialinterestgrouplinks.asp
Photo by Sheila Webber: butterfly in the Winter Gardens ... January 2016

cfp #ISIC2016 extended

The deadline for proposals and papers for the Information Behaviour Conference - ISIC 2016, to be held in Zadar, Croatia, 20-23 September 2016, has been extended. The new deadlines are: proposals for workshops extended to February 15 2016; Submission for Doctoral Workshop attendance, March 10, 2016; Deadline for submissions of Full and Short Papers and Posters extended to March 20 2016. More info at http://isic2016.com/?lang=en

Resource sheets for #Teentech

The CILIP Information Literacy Group (ILG) has published 10 resource sheets in support of the TeenTech initiative (which encourages schoolchildren to get more interested in Science, Engineering and Technology, including having awards for Teentech projects). The sheets (produced with a Creative Commons license) "cover research skills and data collection, provide guidance on how to protect ideas, and suggest some sources that teams could use to locate information". The resources have been produced by a team of school and HE librarians (Darrly Toerien, Darren Flynn, Sarah Pavey, Caroline Roche, Carol Webb, Chris Morrison) led by Rebecca Jones. The sheets are at http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/teentech/information-literacy-resource-sheets-for-schools/ 
The CILIP Information Literacy Group also sponsors TeenTech's Research and Information Literacy Award.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Leaf and twig, Sheffield Botanic Gardens, Jan 2016

SURE

I've mentioned this before, but Singapore library services have a very interesting and active site focusing on their SURE campaign: Source, Understand, Research, Evaluate. They are, for example, advertising a schools competition and offering talks in schools, there's an infographic on do's and dont's of social media, and they provide a guide to their elearning portal. There are also videos such as the one below (also available in Tamil, Malay and Mandarin) http://www.nlb.gov.sg/sure/

New #SCONUL 7 Pillars publications: employability lens; review

Firstly, there is a new lens for the SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries) 7 Pillars of Information Literacy, published on the SCONUL site on 14 January. This is the Graduate Employability Lens on the SCONUL Seven Pillars, authored by Stephane Goldstein (InformALL). The lens itself identifies what the graduate understands and is able to do in each of the 7 pillars (which are: Identify, Scope, Plan, Gather, Evaluate, Manage, Present). Additionally, Goldstein summarises some literature, models and views (from interviews) on employability attributes, desired capabilities, universities' approach to employability and IL in the workplace. He identifies elements which, he proposes, do not fit in the current core model. These elements are: business and customer awareness, coping with workplace complexities, analytical skills and problem solving, ability to work socially, career manageent and lifelong learning capacity. The lens is at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Employability_Lens_only_2015.pdf and the lens plus the report is at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Employability%20lens%20and%20report.pdf

Secondly, also new on the SCONUL site, is:
Goldstein, S. (2015) Perceptions of the SCONUL seven pillars of information literacy. London: SCONUL. (8 pages). This contains a "light touch" literature review and "an examination of the feedback on the Seven Pillars that Moira Bent (University of Newcastle) has been collecting in recent years". It finishes by making some recommendations (noting that the model has "stood the test of time"): that further lenses should be developed and that the model might sometimes need to move from its "seven pronged" arrangement so that cross cutting themes could be identified. http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Seven%20Pillars%20Review%202015.pdf

I have just been marking an assignment in which I ask students to reflect on a search activity, using three of the pillars (Identify, Plan and Evaluate) so you can see that I still find the SCONUL model useful. Personally I find the "top line" one word descriptions, and the diagram, the most useful part. It makes it much easier to communicate than the wordier frameworks, particularly when I'm teaching people who haven't come across the IL concept before. I tend to turn to other models (for example, ones that had emerged from research) when we were delving into more complex or specific contexts. However, I'm glad that SCONUL are keeping the 7 Pillars model alive and these 2 publications are definitely worth looking at.
7 Pillars diagram: SCONUL, released under creative commons

Short online courses: Critical pedagogy; teaching practices

Two short online courses coming up from LibraryJuice are:
Changing Lives, Changing the World: Information Literacy and Critical Pedagogy; Educator is Maria Accardi; February 1-26, 2016; $175. http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/008-critical-pedagogy.php
New Directions in Information Literacy: Growing Our Teaching Practices; Educator is Andrea Bae; February 1st to March 11, 2016; $250. http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/099-new-directions-IL.php
Photo by Sheila Webber: golden beetroot, January 2016

cfp CONUL conference #conulac16

There is a call for papers and posters for the Conference of the Consortium of National and University Libraries (Taking place 1-2 June 2016 at the Sheraton Athlone hotel, Athlone, Ireland). The theme is Going Further Together: Collaboration in Irish Academic and Research Libraries "The overall aim of the conference is to consider the broad challenges facing academic and research libraries in Ireland. The conference will identify and debate these challenges and provide an opportunity for staff to network, learn, discuss and share their expertise and best practice." Conference topics include: Teaching and learning collaboration; International collaboration;
Research collaboration;Collaborating in the community. The deadline is 15 February 2016. More info at http://conference.conul.ie/call-for-submissions/
Photo by Sheila Webber: aspirational poster, Sheffield University, January 2016

Assessment in Action Bibliography #ACRLAiA

The Assessment in Action Bibliography lists "all scholarly and practice-based literature and presentations about ACRLs’ program Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success (AiA) and campus projects conducted as part of the AiA program by staff, facilitators, and participants." It includes reports, journal articles, books/book chapters, conference presentations and posters. http://www.acrl.ala.org/value/?page_id=980
Photo by Sheila Webber: another early daffodil, January 2016

Other people's blogs!

There are lots of people out their blogging about information literacy: here are some posts from the past few days:
- Hyland, J. (2016, January 15). Moving to online-only information literacy teaching. Libfocus. http://www.libfocus.com/2016/01/moving-to-online-only-information.html (Jack Hyland, subject librarian at Dublin City University (Ireland) Business School blogs about running an online introduction to information literacy and the library, as part of a core first year undergraduate module)
- Westtown School. (2016, january 19). Shakespeare’s Othello and modern information literacy. In A Class Of Our Own. https://westtownfaculty.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/shakespeares-othello-and-modern-information-literacy/ (Describes a project based on exploring Othello, at the Westtown School (USA)
- Chibnall, D. (2016, January 15). Solidifying a Foundation of Learning Through Scaffolding. iLOVE. http://ilove-instruction.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/guest-post-solidifying-foundation-of.html (Dan Chibnall, User Services and Instruction Design Librarian at Grand View University in Des Moines, USA, talks about the value of scaffolding learning and gives examples from his practice).
- Bond, M. (2016, January 16). Criminal Justice Scholars: The Importance of Information Literacy. e-roll call magazine. http://andragogytheory.com/2016/01/16/criminal-justice-scholars-the-importance-of-information-literacy/ (This is actually a fairly standard description of IL, but I haven't often seen such an item by someone who "has been a firearms instructor for more than 33 years" before)
Photo by Sheila Webber: russet and gala apples, Blackheath Farmers Market, January 2016

Recent open access items: ACRL and UDB; Spanish school teachers' perceptions; Zotero; faculty-librarian collaboration

Álvarez, J. and Gisbert-Cervera, M. (2015). Information Literacy Grade of Secondary School Teachers in Spain - Beliefs and Self-Perceptions. Comunicar, 23 (45). http://www.revistacomunicar.com/indice-en/articulo.php?numero=45-2015-20 or (pdf) http://eprints.rclis.org/25460/ (open access full text)

Kraft, A and Williams, A. (2016). #Shelfies are encouraged: Simple, engaging library instruction with hashtags. College and research libraries news, 77 (1), 10-13. http://crln.acrl.org/content/77/1/10.full

Clements, N. and Guertin, L. (2016) Science literacy meets information literacy: Using Zotero as a teaching tool. College and research libraries news, 77 (1), 4-16. http://crln.acrl.org/content/77/1/14.full

Sullivan, B. and Porter, K. (2016). From one-shot sessions to embedded librarian: Lessons learned over seven years of successful faculty-librarian collaboration. College and research libraries news, 77 (1), 34-37. http://crln.acrl.org/content/77/1/34.full

McMichael, J. and McGlynn, L. (2015). Information Literacy by Design: Unlocking the Potential of the ACRL Framework. [Presentation] https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1P0PAuI-zkDmcM2tkc4XFruItFAdK2tjyZ4iXmUarZ1M/edit#slide=id.g35f391192_00 (looks at the Understanding by Design approach to teaching).
Photo by Sheila Webber: daffodils flowering much too early, Blackheath, January 2016

Spotlight on Scholarship #acrlframework

The Spotlight on Scholarship feature (which highlights articles relating to the ACRL information literacy framework) has started up again. The spotlights links to an article and provides a little commentary on it. http://acrl.ala.org/framework/?p=181

The current article is:
Burgess, C. (2015). Teaching Students, Not Standards: The New ACRL Information Literacy Framework and Threshold Crossings for Instructors. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 10(1).
https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/3440/3451#.VpVaeRUrLIV
Photo by Sheila Webber: Freddie, December 2015

Webinar: Learning Analytics: Gaining good actionable insight

The UK Serials Group are running a free 45 minute webinar on 26 January 2016 at 2pm UK time (which is 9am US Eastern time): Learning Analytics: Gaining good actionable insight. Speaker: Martin Hawksey, Chief Innovation, Community and Technology Officer for the Association for Learning Technology. "There is greater awareness of the use of data to make improvements in the world around us including learning and teaching. In this presentation we introduce some basic learning analytics concepts, identifying tools and workflows staff may wish to consider. As part of this we also consider the dangers of analytics identifying areas which may lead to learner demotivation or misconception and the questions we should all be asking ourselves to make sure we are always gaining good actionable insight." Register at http://www.uksg.org/webinars/learninganalytics (if you can't make it, they suggest you still register as there will be a recording of the event available afterwards)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Eliza is so relaxed, she cares little for analytics; January 2015

7 Things You Should Know About NGDLE

The EDUCAUSE "7 Things" series is useful for quick information on educational buzzwords and tips on edutech trends. Last month they published 7 Things You Should Know About NGDLE, an acronym I was unfamiliar with, which stands for next generation digital learning environment. It says in the blurb "NGDLE is conceived as an ecosystem—a learning environment consisting of learning tools and components that adhere to common standards. While the traditional LMS provides administrative functions, the NGDLE is intended to directly support learning. To do this, next-generation environments must address five dimensions: interoperability and integration; personalization; analytics, advising, and learning assessment; collaboration; and accessibility and universal design. The NGDLE is conceived as both an ecosystem and a mind-set that will allow students and instructors to benefit from the full range of developments in higher education." and in the short document itself "The NGDLE concept seeks a balance between the openness of learning and the need for coherence in the environment."
This does seem to me difficult to achieve: wanting to take the richness of drawing on the huge number of cloud-based applications that educators and learners may be using nowadays and scrunch it into a system which is integrated and montitored (so you can get the analytics people obsess over).  Hmmm http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-ngdle
Photo by Sheila Webber: Freddie, January 2016

Online short course: Information Literacy: Adapting to the New Framework

Amigos Library Services is running a priced 2 day online course (2 x 2 hour sessions plus homework) focusing on the ACRL Information Literacy Framework: Information Literacy: Adapting to the New Framework "In this two-day course, we will inspect the six frames that make up the new framework, comparing them with the rather rigid structure of the old competency standards. We will also identify possible curriculum examples in response to each frame, all the while discussing what the new framework predicts for the future of information literacy." The event is on February 17-18, 2016, 1.30 pm - 3.30 pm US CST (which is 7.00-8.30pm UK time) Details at https://www.amigos.org/node/3501
Screenshot of padlet by Sheila Webber

Information Literacy awards and bursaries #lilac16

Three awards have been announced on the LILAC website: the Information Literacy award, the Credo Digital Award for Information Literacy, and the award of two sponsored student places at the LILAC conference (which takes place in Dublin, Ireland in March). More information is at http://www.lilacconference.com/lilac-2016/awards
There are also 4 conference  bursaries available for librarians in specific sectors.
- The Information Literacy Award recognises an outstanding UK or Ireland-based practitioner or researcher, and is sponsored by the CILIP Information Literacy Group and the Library Association of Ireland. "The award is open to practitioners, researchers and academics working in the information literacy field within the UK or Ireland. Nominations from all sectors are welcome. The winner will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity. Nominees must demonstrate impact, innovation, initiative and originality in one or more of the following areas: Raising the profile of information literacy within an organisation; Initiating or contributing to national, regional or local projects/initiatives which enhance information literacy skills for an identified client group(s); Undertaking original research in the field of information literacy and making a significant contribution to the literature. Nominations will be judged upon evidence of impact within the past 3 years only. Closing date: February 12, 2016.
- Credo Digital Award for Information Literacy. "This award recognises an individual or group who develop the best new digital educational resource for promoting IL" (it must have been launched in 2015, and be available for reuse). "The winner will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity. Nominations will be evaluated in relation to the following criteria: Raising the profile of information literacy within an organisation or sector; Developing a digital resource (e.g. online course, service, product or app) which develops and enhances information literacy skills; Innovation, initiative, originality and sustainability; Impact on the target audience(s); Openness – is openly licenced, considers accessibility issues, supports flexible use. Closing date: 12 February, 2016.
- Student Sponsored Places. Sponsored by the CILIP Information Literacy Group), this enables two students to attend the whole LILAC (information literacy) conference. "The award consists of full conference registration, travel (from the UK only) and accommodation expenses. We welcome applications from full-time or part-time students (including distance-learners) registered for a UK-based first degree or taught postgraduate qualification in information/library studies or information literacy. It is not essential that applicants are current members of CILIP or its Information Literacy Group." Closing date: January 29, 2016

LILAC are also offering 4 bursaries for conference places to applicants in the following sectors in the UK and Ireland: Schools; Further Education; Public (libraries); Health (e.g. NHS - please note; librarians working in Higher Education who support health subjects are not eligible to apply). More information at http://www.lilacconference.com/lilac-2016/bursary. Deadline is 22 January 2016.

I had already blogged that there is a sponsored LILAC place for librarians in North East England, deadline 29 January, see http://information-literacy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/sponsored-place-at-lilac16-conference.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: white lilac, 2015

#ACRLFramework videos

There are numerous webinars about the ACRL Information literacy Framework, and often these are available as recordings after the webinar. To mention some of them (and giving embeds of 2 of them):

- Lori Townsend and Silvia Lu: Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy: This was an AMICAL Webinar (“AMICAL is an international consortium of American-model, liberal arts institutions of higher learning located outside the United States.”) https://youtu.be/FpyQa9W7Nuk

- There was a webinar introducing an ACRL book. The webinar was: ACRL Presents... “Teaching Information Literacy Threshold Concepts ” recorded at https://youtu.be/T1Hr-toTfgM The book is: Bravender, P., McClure, H. and Schaub, G. (Eds) (2015). Teaching Information Literacy Threshold Concepts: Lesson Plans for Librarians. ACRL. http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=11471

- ACRL DLS (Distance Learning SIG): The Research as Inquiry Framework in Distance Education Courses. Recording from November 12, 2015



- ACRL SLILC (Student Learning and Information Literacy Committee): Big Picture Theory and the Practical Classroom: Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy Instruction. Also recorded in November 2015.



I also can't resist mentioning a perspective on the framework using the Youtube Hitler meme (mainly because it mentions my name early on - look out for the reference to "Webber" - Bill Johnston and I had indeed taken a more constructive view of the Framework than did the ECIL (European conference on Information Literacy) invited speaker who is being alluded to). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxs0PRkumHo

World Sketchnote day #SNDay2016

Today is World Sketchnote Day (I only just noticed). Given the interest in visual literacy, and information literacy encompassing non-textual information, I thought it was worth blogging. The sketchnote movement encourages people to capture information in pictures as well as word. There is information about the day here http://rohdesign.com/weblog/2016/1/9/world-sketchnote-day-2016-monday-january-11-2016.html and people are tweeting etc. their sketchnotes using this hashtag #SNDay2016 e.g. https://twitter.com/hashtag/SNDay2016?src=hash
I encountered this information because of a sketchnote artist I follow on flickr (if you browse back you can see interesting sketchnotes on visual methods, UX etc.) - Makayla Lewis, https://www.flickr.com/photos/makaylalewis/

cfp Strategic and policy making issues in information literacy

Open-access journal Library and Information Research has put out a call for papers for a special issue focused on strategic and policy making issues in information literacy, both in the UK and worldwide. Full papers should be submitted by 27 May 2016, and the issue is scheduled to be published in Sept/Oct 2016. The guest editor in John Crawford (who can be contacted with queries: johncrawford705@yahoo.co.uk).
"This issue aims to address a broader agenda, namely policy making and strategic thinking in information literacy provision for a widely defined public at national, regional or local level." "Topics include: Information literacy policies and strategies; Influencing politicians and decision makers; Information literacy and the civic agenda (promoting democratic agendas); The relationship between digital inclusion and information literacy strategies; Social inclusion; Health literacy policies and strategies; Information literacy in the workplace; Information literacy and social justice; Information literacy and specific groups e.g. young people, senior citizens, gender issues, minority and ethnic groups, disability issues etc.; Information literacy and e-government."
Papers may be factual reports, peer-reviewed articles or opinion pieces.
- "Rigorously written reports describing the development of good practice in an institution or institutions which will be of value to people working in similar areas. These will be subject to editorial review. Although not of the same standard as research articles report articles should have the following components: An introduction setting out the background to the study and the reasons for undertaking it; A short review of the wider context of the study taking account of similar work elsewhere and some reference to relevant published work. Appropriate bibliographical citations should be provided; A description of the activity; Conclusions to be drawn from the study; How the findings relate to other similar work; Any recommendations for further action and how the study might inform similar work.
- "Research articles, typically of between 2000 and 7000 words, which will be peer reviewed.
- "Opinion pieces, focusing on any of the topics suggested in this call for papers."
Articles are submitted through the Library and Information Research website http://www.lirgjournal.org.uk
Photo by Sheila Webber: parakeets on the grass in Maryon Wilson Park, London, December 2015

#ECIL2015 proceedings published

61 full papers from the Third European Conference on Information Literacy, ECIL 2015, held in Tallinn, Estonia, in October 2015, have been published as a priced volume.

Kurbanoğlu, S., Boustany, J., Špiranec, S., Grassian, E. Mizrachi, D. and Roy, L. (Eds) (2016). Information Literacy: Moving Toward Sustainability: Third European Conference, ECIL 2015, Tallinn, Estonia, October 19-22, 2015, Revised Selected Papers. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. ISBN: 978-3-319-28196-4 (Print) 978-3-319-28197-1 (Online) http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-28197-1

You may be able to find open access preprint versions of some papers e.g.
Ewa Rozkosz: Learning Scholarly Information Competencies in the Community of Practice: A Case Study of Polish Critical Pedagogy Researchers
Photo by Sheila Webber: Tallinn, October 2015

cfp Creative Approaches to Instructional Design in Libraries

There is a call for chapter proposals for a forthcoming book to be published by ACRL: Creative Approaches to Instructional Design in Libraries: Moving from Theory to Practical Application. "Libraries increasingly emphasize innovative services that connect patrons to information. Given these changes, instructional design (ID) is becoming an important concept in librarians’ day-to-day activities. Unique, library-specific challenges call for creative ideas that are grounded in solid research and theory. Applying the theory to your institution or circumstance is often challenging. This book will attempt to break down librarians’ preconceptions of what ID is and inspire them to implement ID in creative ways." They define instructional design as "intentional, sound instructional or programmatic creation, delivery, and assessment that takes into account the audience, course/program context, and shared learning goals." (Just my comment - shouldn't that be "learners" rather than "audience"?)
Anyway, the book will have 3 sections: Information Literacy Instruction, Programming and Outreach, and Online Initiatives.
You need to fill in this form https://form.jotform.com/53554577686169 and attach a word document with more details about your proposed chapter (see here for more information). Proposals are due by 5 February 2016. Chapters of 2,500-4,000 words have to be submitted by 1 April 2016. Questions to CreativeIDBook@gmail.com
Photo by Sheila Webber: winter tree, December 2015

Community of Online Research Assignments

CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments) "is an open access resource for faculty and librarians." It is funded by the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) (USA). "It is intended to be a collaborative space for adapting and experimenting with research assignments and sharing the success or lessons learned so that others may benefit. The database will contain multiple, reliable and reproducible research assignments that will not live as isolated entities, but are enhanced by user feedback in order to build a rich corpus of best practices."
There is not a huge number of assignments at the moment, so you can browse through to see if there is anything of interest to you. There are also curated links to external resources. http://www.projectcora.org/
Photo by Sheila Webber: morning exercise for horses based at Woolwich barracks, South East London, December 2015

cfp deadlines coming up and extended: IL Summit, #CKVII #COLIS2016 #ECIL2016

As a reminder, there are a few deadlines for paper submissions coming up:
- The deadline for the Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS) conference to be held in Uppsala, Sweden, 27-29 June 2016 has been extended to January 31 2016 - http://www.abm.uu.se/colis9/cfp
- The deadline for the 8th Creating Knowledge conference (CKVIII) with the theme Practices, Goals and Visions for Information Literacy in Higher Education to be held in Reykjavík, Iceland, 2-3 June, 2016 is 15 January 2016 - http://upplysing.is/ckviii
- The deadline for the 15th Annual Information Literacy Summit with the theme Developing Critical Approaches in Information Literacy (to be held at Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills, USA, April 29 2016) is 22 January 2016 -FB page https://www.facebook.com/infolitsummit/ and http://informationliteracysummit.org/call-for-proposals/
- The deadline for the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL), to be held October 10-13 2016, in Prague, Czech Republic is 15 February 2016 - http://ecil2016.ilconf.org/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Eliza examines the bag, December 2016

White Rose University Press

A consortium including my university (Sheffield University), York University and Leeds University have just launched an open access university press: White Rose University Press (the white rose refers to the white rose of York).
They are using an author-pays model, but with a waiver scheme for academics Sheffield, Leeds or York http://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/

Presentations: Propaganda, games and quizzes, skills

Presentations from Libraries and innovations in learning a recent (December 2015) ALISS (Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences) seminar are online.
- Skills in Seconds - Debs Furness and Elizabeth Lawes UCL on the 'Skills in Seconds' series. "This is a series of short films introducing print and online resources available from UCL Library Services to help users find materials, answer enquiries or explain what things are" The videos are here http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/training/skills
- Using Games and Quizzes in LibGuides to Engage Learners in Information Literacy - Rozz Evans UCL Institute of Education Library
- Propaganda and Ideology in Everyday Life -Ian Cooke. Head of Contemporary British Publications, British Library on collaboration development and delivery of a MOOC on Propaganda
- The (Treasure) Map to Induction using Pirates to make Library Introduction more Fun- Fiona Paterson and James Atkinson City University London, "on how members of the Information Literacy Group sought to make an introduction to library resources for Nursing students more fun by introducing a pirate theme and using Adobe Presenter to create a more interactive experience."
Photo by Sheila webber: dorr wreaths of South London series, December 2015