"Alan Carbery's keynote started in dramatic fashion with a 12 party popper salute which was energising! In Champlain College, USA, there is an embedded programme of IL development where librarians work with academics to design and deliver IL teaching over the full span of students' courses. Librarians are given access to students work so they can understand IL development needs. If students are explicitly asked to include peer reviewed journal articles or cite correctly, then students will do that. However there are concerns that these approaches are not transferred to assignments where these instructions are not so explicit, or indeed into real world scenarios.
"Alan challenged us to be critical of our own approaches to IL teaching; is it genuine, meaningful and authentic? Is our teaching too centred on academic information and sources, and how this prepares students for life after college. What would 'real world' information literacy teaching look like?
"Champlain college tries to address some of these issues through their IL teaching e.g. through inviting students to consider the western perspective in information landscapes. Students looked at original historical documents about the 'evils' of Chinese immigration, and frame this with the modern debates about immigration in the US. discussions take place in class about gender inequality in information - thanks to sources like the daily mail 'legsxit' story. So essentially important social issues around gender, race and inequality can be used to frame discussions about information authenticity, quality and power with students.
"Information literate people are able to challenge power and speak truth through sharing information on social media. These sources are just as valid for understanding society as academic sources. Alan played part of a TED presentation on filter bubbles-the way in which google and Facebook use algorithms to present us information they they select for us based on our history and preferences. This is another important point of discussion with students, particularly in the light of the recent events such as the 2016 US presidential election result and the Brexit vote result.
"Alan spoke about the challenge of fake news, and the deliberate rejection of established evidence based journalism by political figures, and the inability of established models of authenticity checking to expose fake news. This in an information literacy problem.
"IL teaching in universities can help students to become curious and questioning, and help them become information literate citizens."
Photo by Pam McKinney: LILAC venue
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