2019 Horizon Report

EDUCAUSE has published the 2019 Horizon Report (having taken it over from the defunct New Media Consortium) This uses a delphi-type study to identify educational technology trends for higher education. The panel is international, but with a predominance of North Americans. The trends are identified as follows:
Key Trends Accelerating Technology Adoption in Higher Education
Short-Term—Driving technology adoption in higher education for the next one to two years
--Redesigning Learning Spaces
- Blended Learning Designs
Mid-Term—Driving technology adoption in higher education for the next three to five years
- Advancing Cultures of Innovation
- Growing Focus on Measuring Learning
Long-Term—Driving technology adoption in higher education for five or more years
- Rethinking How Institutions Work
- Modularized and Disaggregated Degrees

Significant Challenges Impeding Technology Adoption in Higher Education
Solvable—Those that we understand and know how to solve
- Improving Digital Fluency
- Increasing Demand for Digital Learning Experience and Instructional Design Expertise
[If these are so solvable, I wonder why they keep coming up in successive reports, ahem]
Difficult—Those that we understand but for which solutions are elusive
- The Evolving Roles of Faculty with Edtech Strategies
- Bridging the Achievement Gap
Wicked—Those that are complex to even define, much less address
- Advancing Digital Equity
- Rethinking the Practice of Teaching

Important Developments in Educational Technology for Higher Education
Time to Adoption: One Year or Less
- Mobile Learning
- Analytics Technologies
Time to Adoption: Two to Three Years
- Mixed Reality
- Artificial Intelligence
Time to Adoption: Four to Five Years
- Blockchain
- Virtual Assistants

They also have 2-page articles reflecting on how past themes have fared, namely: Gaming and Gamification; Augmented and Mixed Reality; Adaptive Learning
There is some further material available too, on the website.
Go to https://library.educause.edu/resources/2019/4/2019-horizon-report
Photo by Sheila webber: new beech leaves, April 2019

Developing Disciplinary Companion Documents to the ACRL Framework

The ACRL Information Literacy Frameworks and Standards Committee is hosting a virtual discussion forum on Developing Disciplinary Companion Documents to the ACRL Framework on  May 15 2019, 12-1 US Eastern time (which is, e.g. 5-6pm UK time). Anyone can register to participate. "This virtual forum is an opportunity for groups updating disciplinary standards, or creating new documents, to share their processes and progress, and have an opportunity to ask questions of each other. There will be short presentations from the members of the Health Sciences Interest Group (HSIG) working to update the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Nursing, the Education and Behavioral Sciences Section (EBSS) Communication Studies Committee working to update the Information Literacy competency Standards for Journalism Students and Professionals, and other groups working through this process." You need to register at https://events-na8.adobeconnect.com/content/connect/c1/1087453682/en/events/event/shared/default_template_simple/event_registration.html?sco-id=2469748584.
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry tree in bloom, Sheffield, April 2019

Information Literacy Award winners #lilac19

Congratulations to the Information Literacy award winners announced at the LILAC conference in Nottingham, UK, last week. The Information Literacy Award 2019 winner was the Open University (OU) Library’s Live Engagement Team. "The winning team design and deliver live online teaching sessions to OU staff and students. They have a remit for experimenting with online technologies and new ways of engaging the OU community." The Digital Award for Information Literacy 2019 went to Terry Charlton, for Newcastle University Library’s Online Learning Resources (see below). More info on the awards at https://www.lilacconference.com/awards

[Un]intended consequences of educational change: The need to focus on literacy development #lilac19

Pam McKinney here live blogging the final keynote from the LILAC conference featuring Professor  Alison Littlejohn, Dean of learning and teaching in the faculty of social sciences at the University of Glasgow.  Allison began by outlining the neo- liberalisation of the higher education sector, positioning students as consumers and the rise in importance of the national student survey.  Allison was involved with a project called “learning literacies in the digital age” which outlined the need for learning to focus on processes and literacies, not content. Allison discussed the power of MOOCs to disrupt education, and to give people the opportunity to learn in a different way, using digital technologies.  MOOCs are one way in which Universities can open up learning, but are used as a marketing tool and reinforce a particular view of university. Kiron is a programme of MOOCs aimed at refugees that allows them to pursue study and work  towards formal qualifications.

Wikipedia is edited by a large team of people who work for free, but very few of them are women. At Edinburgh university an edit-athon took place with the aim of increasing female involvement in Wikipedia editing. For example, the first 7 women who studied at Edinburgh university didn’t have a Wikipedia page. Supported sessions on creating and editing pages took place, with a wikimedian in residence. Allison undertook some research to understand the extent to which this process supported the development of a community of practice of Wikipedia editors, using social network analysis and interviews with participants. Theee themes emerged: firstly emerging roles in researching archives in order to find information to include on Wikipedia, and this shared goal helped build a community of researchers. Secondly, an awareness of the responsibility to present accurate information, and how difficult it is to translate archival information into the digital realm, and how their own lives connected with the lives of the 7 women. Thirdly, excitement and anxiety around increasing female involvement in Wikipedia editing, balancing fears they had of trolling with desire to be part of a big agenda. As a result of this project the participants created more pages that covered female figures from history, and there was a realisation that when learning becomes personal it triggers forms of agency.

Allison presented a study where she compared learners activities in two different MOOCs, the first was an introduction to data science from university of Washington, where students who identified a low self regulated were motivated to complete the course to gain a certificate and tended to complete the whole MOOC, whereas people who had a high degree of self regulation were more likely to link learning goals to their work, and were very strategic about how they engaged with the MOOC. The second MOOC was a public health MOOC based at Harvard, where both students with high a low levels of self regulation were motivated to gain a certificate. The research identified various factors that could affect learning in a MOOC, for example self-efficacy and motivation. An online tool has been developed to help learners reflect on their learning, with the aim of supporting learners to become more self regulated learners.

Allison discussed the global challenge of anti-microbial resistance and the need for good data, and the staff processes, knowledge and skills that support this. For example staff need up to date information about microbiology,  and they need support to develop suitable lab processes.

Allison finished by identifying that literacy learning is a vital aspect of innovation, but has to support social mobility over profitability. Authentic learning activities motivate learners, and context is important to ensure literacy is learned as an embedded practice.

Imposter syndrome and professional identity #lilac19

Pam McKinney continuing live blogging from the final day of the LILAC conference. The second session I am attending is led by Hannah Hickman who spoke about feeling like an imposter as a new professional librarian. It was a personal and engaging reflection which many members of the audience (including me!) identified with.  Insecurity and uncertainty in employment can contribute to imposter syndrome. The culture of “performativity” where people are judged on their performances (e.g. through the REF and TEF) also contributes to this. Performativity makes us prioritise activities that can be measured, that contribute, rather than perusing activities because we think they matter, or because they are enjoyable.

Feelings of fear in teaching can be cast as “stage fright” which is an almost universal fear. However the power dynamics between audience and actor are different from those between teacher and student. It can be helpful to acknowledge ones own weakneses with students, and acknowledge the challenges we all face in (for example) referencing correctly, and time management. Hannah recommended the New Librarians Professional Network as a resource for new professionals and highlighted the value of being mentored.

Digital Competencies for Digital Citizenship of pre-teen children: some reflections for librarians. #lilac19

Pam McKinney live-blogging from the final day of the LILAC conference. This morning the first session is led by Konstatina Martzoukou, Teaching excellence fellow from Rober Gordon University. The session began with a brief introduction to children’s activities online, with some data from OFCOM about children’s media use at home from 2007-2017. We looked at the data for pre-teens, children aged 8-11 where mobile phone use is increasing.  There is a moral panic about mobile phone use by young children, with threats to safety of personal information and sexual predators, the difficulty for parents in managing online behaviour and concerns over screen time. It is much more difficult to find positive aspects of children being online in the literature, but children can build themselves as digital citizens, and socialise, play and learn online. Games can be quite controversial, some are fun and creative, but some can be violent and introduce morally questionable activities e.g. stealing. Games have settings for different age of children. We looked at the Tik Tok app where users can create videos of themselves lip synching to popular music. The EU has recommended that only children over 16 use this app because of the sexualised content. There is also an issue of the app promoting gender stereotypes.

Then we watched a video “Maddie is online” which introduced us to a scenario where a pre-teen child uses the Tik Tok app and posts content online of herself and receives negative comments on her video from a friend of a friend. We were asked to discuss this scenario and come up with a course of action as a parent. We chose option 3 - Maddie should go to mum and ask her what to do. However this option did not turn out well! It turns out that many of the options lead to more complications, and revealed the complexity of the situation.

Social media interactions can be tricky for younger children, are they too immature for social media? It’s important to make children aware of the importance of personal information, and parents should use the controls that are available to them. Dina showed us an example of a family agreement where members of a family can agree on their internet and social media use.  As with many other aspects of like, it’s important to keep lines of communication between parents and children open. The uk council for child internet safety has useful advice. The software “Plotagon” was used to create the videos. Dina highlighted the role that school librarians can play in being the digital lead, and monitor and share research in the field.

Visual literacy and the expression-idea continuum #lilac19

My (Sheila's) final liveblog from the LILAC Conference is Visual literacy and the expression-idea continuum will be a presentation from Vicky Grant, Amy Haworth and Ruth Mallalieu (University of Sheffield Library, so the library of my own university).
Firstly Grant asked us what we could learn about visual literacy from LOLcats! She quoted Milner (2014) who talked about how LOLcats were an example of how people could convey ideas, emotions, identity through using images.
Grant highlighted a move to student learning with a more active role, engaging more creatively and critically as a way of knowing. It is also part of being more inclusive and acknowledging the value of the everyday, and expression through the visual. Grant presented the practice of creative bricolage "the remixing of creative sources, through digital skills and tools". She used an example from her own doctoral research, which is exploring experience of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Medical pictures of those with IBS usually present them as headless (showing the patient torso), so the people in her project created pictures of their heads and framed them in wood, like the formal portraits of male academics round the university.
Mallalieu then talked about the expression/idea dichotomy: that the expression of an idea is subject to copyright (e.g. a drawing of a penguin with a blue beak), but the idea (e.g. of a penguin having a blue beak) is not. However, it may not be so clear cut in practice, and the issue is important given the growth in remix culture.
Mallalieu identified scholarly culture and copyright culture and the extent to which they do and do not overlap (e.g. a scientific article might follow a scholarly tradition of having a large number of authors, some of whom did not have a direct intellectual input to the text). She talked about the framework and material used at Sheffield http://sheffield.ac.uk/library/copyright
Finally Haworth talked about the Information and Digital Literacy framework developed and used at Sheffield University, which integrates visual literacy in the various elements of the framework. The library runs co-curricular workshops, including understanding and questioning images, and copyright of images. They also cover referencing and attributing images; creating and editing images (including both the practical tools and the ethical issues); and creating infographics. The subject guides include visual sources where appropriate (and where copyright allows!) There is a workshop on using images which is aimed at academic staff, and this has proved popular.
They are scoping what they are doing against the Association of College and Research Libraries' current Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy (which is under revision).

Peer to peer videos, to support student research #lilac19

Pam Mckinney live-blogging from LILAC.  In the last session today, Kate Courage and Catrina Matthews from the University of Warwick presented about their work to support undergraduate student researchers.  A group of students, academic staff and library staff worked together to create videos to encourage students to engage with academic research. The Warwick Intrnational Higher Education Academy funded the project, where students worked as partners with staff to drive the content and direction of the videos. A series of workshops with the students took place, and these were used to design the approach to the videos and the content that they wanted to present.

Three videos were created to represent stages along a journey to become an independent research. The students had creative control, and they wanted to make sure that the videos were engaging to young people, and weren’t just “boring talking heads”. The videos are used in induction sessions, in lectures and seminars and when students are starting their dissertation research. The project is being evaluated through interviews with academic staff and students, and with staff involved in the project. Staff felt the process really helped develop relationships between staff and students.

Transitions in Information Literacy: Understanding the Role of Dispositions #lilac19

Sheila here, and the next presentation I'm attending at the LILAC Conference is from Nora Bird (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) on Transitions in Information Literacy: Understanding the Role of Dispositions.

Bird started by talking her background as a practitioner and researcher. She went on to talk about Lloyd's concept of an information landscape, showing us pictures of some different types of landscape to stimulate ideas of how the information landscape might appear to librarians and non-librarians (e.g. that non-librarians might feel happy with a crowded jungle landscape, that seemed disorganised to librarians). She associated Lloyd's "social modalities" element with dispositions (as described in the ACRL IL Framework).
After this, Bird explaned the US context; the levels of schooling and the ACRL Framework. She noted that the concept of knowledge practices and of dispositions had been incorporated in the Framework and that Carrick Enterprises (https://thresholdachievement.com/) recently developed the Threshold Achievement Test for Information Literacy (TILT). This identifies three levels: conditionally-, college- and research-ready, with various dispositions associated. In the test, dispositions are scored based on students' judgements on behaviours associated with those dispositions.
In the research carried out by Bird, 233 students in an undergraduate LIS class took (I think) two test modules. She showed the pie charts of results for "mindful self reflection", "toleration of ambiguity" and "responsibility to community". For each of those, the largest number of respondents were in the middle scoring category. One notable finding was that students who attended middle college scored high on mindful self reflection. There were only 3 students with military experience, but they did score highly for community responsibility. Bird concluded that there are "intruiging ideas to explore" but no firm conclusions at this stage. There are big questions concerning, for example, whether librarians can educate for particular dispositions.

I wouldn"t believe your radio: developing tools to critically appraise atypical materials and improve information and visualization literacy. #lilac19

Pam McKinney live-blogging from the second day of the LILAC conference: in this presentation Steph Grey and Trish Lacey from Public Health England knowledge and library services talk about tools to critically appraise visual materials. Public Health England is an evidence-driven organisation, using evidence from systematic reviews and other kinds of health research, and it’s important to use the right type of evidence for your question. Quality matters, so evaluation of evidence is really important. There are existing checklists that can be used to help evaluate health research studies, but sometimes in public health you need to use evidence that is outside the traditional gold standard of health information.

Infographics are developed at public health England, and can be really useful for conveying a message with great impact.  Infographics are collected as evidence, so there needs to be a way of evaluating them.  No existing checklist to help evaluate infographics was found, so after a literature search one was created based on sources found.  It covers questions such as “is it biased” “can you find the source of the information” and “can you understand the infographics without knowledge of the area”. Visualisation literacyis an important area for further research, because people interpret visual information differently.

Grey literature is another type of source that is used at Public Health England. In this case there are existing checklists for evaluating grey literature. None of them quote me their needs because they needed a checklist that could account for multiple formats of grey literature. It was decided that a flow chart would be a good format for a checklist for grey literature because a checklist would have too many questions and be unwieldy

Getting Wicked in the Classroom: Incorporating Complex, Real-World Skills into Library Instruction #lilac19

Pam McKinney continuing live blogging from this afternoon’s sessions at the LILAC conference: Karen Sobel and Lorrie Evans from the Auraria library in Colorado which serves the university of Colorado, metropolitan state university of Denver and the community college of Denver ran a workshop on using wicked problems to design IL teaching. They recommended a book “creating wicked students” by Paul Handstedt as a good introduction to using wicked problems in teaching. We discussed principles for turning big wicked learning objectives into learning objectives that could actually be accomplished in the classroom. They should involve relevant and obvious benefits, and they should involve collaboration and communication, it should involve challenge and creativity.

An idea explored in the book is to nest higher and lower order thinking skills within teaching, so making sure that lower order skill are built before higher order skills are addressed.  Ideas we had here were to use peer support in the classroom, to use images instead of text as a point of departure for discussion, giving instructions in a variety of formats and to use flipped learning to get students to understand key concepts before face to face sessions.

It can be valuable to ask students to engage with non-scholarly sources and to compare and contrast the scholarly and non scholarly source covering the same subject - this approach was used very successfully in the psychology department at the university of Sheffield.

Developing a role-playing video game for library induction #lilac19

This is Sheila, and a session about a serious game is my next one at the LILAC Conference. Darren Flynn, Becky Collins (presenters) and Samantha Clarke authored "It"s dangerous to go alone! Take this"; Developing a role-playing video game for library induction. This focuses on a game developed by Coventry University’s Lanchester Library and their Disruptive Media Learning Lab. The Bookrunner game can be played online at https://goo.gl/ccmYN5. The underlying plot is that the library system has become sentient and has locked down the library, and you have to liberate the librarians and get to leave the library.
The presenters talkied about how and why it was created as an induction support (reasons included a more extended induction period, the opportunity for collaboration). A video game is scaleable (which a board game isn't) and doesn't involve a lot of input (unlike, e.g., an escape room). The game can be delivered with one librarian facilitating. Since it gets integrated into face to face teaching it was important it was time delimited.
They thought about the pedagogy underpinning it. Kolb (experiential learning), Arnab et al (that the gameplay needs to match up with the learning; so the learner and game mechanics align), and Clarke et al (matching learning outcomes with game outcomes) were drawn on.
The game engine was RPG Maker. The librarians listed the learning outcomes they wanted (having to cut down their original list), and then develop an outcome in the game to match each one. There also was an overarching storyline, to drive engagement and encourage people to play it all the way through. The writing was collaborative. The library is based closely on the actual library layout (to familiarise students with the physical library). Inspiring the story were previous scifi (e.g. 2001 a space odyssey), dealing with library anxiety, data scandals and also use of mini-quests.
The game was used in a 2 hour induction session with business school students. They played it for about an hour, there were questions, and then there was a more traditional introduction to business databases. Students could also use the game independently via a LibGuide link.
There was user testing, they looked at usage stats, and they did pre and post tests (during the taught sessions), with both quantitative and qualitative elements. In terms of usage stats, the largest use was by people following a link on a Libguide (although they do not have information on how far people progressed). In terms of the surveys: there was a notable post-test increase in confidence in finding the subject librarians' office (which has been an issue), and also an increase in confience in finding subject-specific sources and locating physical books and e-books.
The qualitative responses were primarily positive, and the game seems to be memorable. The presenters noted that some students "got" the sci-fi related jokes and some didn't, but it didn't seem a barrier if they didn't.
They are currently getting together the evaluation and will publish the findings. One learning point was not to underestimate how long it took to play the game; secondly, the more game testing the better; thirdly, to manage expectations (e.g. not assume students will be excited by the game) - they explain that this is an alternative to talk-and-chalk. In terms of future development: they want to do voiceovers; they are looking at other games to develop using RPG Maker (it needs to be reusable and can be used by a lot of students, to be worth the time/effort). They are considering developing a game for referencing, or literature searching.
All the game files can be downloaded http://gamify.org.uk/downloads/Bppk-Runner-Source-Files.zip

Unpacking international student information literacy #lilac19

This is Sheila at the LILAC Conference. The session I'm in now is Unpacking international student information literacy: Recommendations for the design of intercultural teaching and learning opportunities, presented by Alison Hicks (University College London). The presentation is based on her doctoral research. Her dissertation is here. Using constructivist grounded theory and the theoretical frameworks of transition theory and practice theory she was exploring how information was made manifest by language learners and how information literacy helps students to mediate transition. The IL definition she adopted was Lloyd's, that IL is "a way of knowing the many environments that constitute an individual's being in the world". Her definition of "Transition" was taken from Gale & Parker "Change navigated by learners in their movement within and through a context".
Hicks interviewed people from English-speaking countries, who were visiting a variety of countries (I think 14 countries were involved in all). She used photo elicitation, asking them to take photos that could be used as a stimulus for discussion in the interviews.
The first finding highlighted by Hicks was that of the risks faced by students: notably physical, financial, legal and academic risks (e.g. managing a tight budget, finding out what legal requirements they had to meet in the host country, being concerned whether they could improve their language to the standard expected.)
Hicks discovered that students mediated these risks through IL. She described a practice of "calibrating"; observing and engaging with local people to find out things about the environment and etiquette, checking, and noting (making notes, taking photographs etc.). There was also the practice of "repositioning", to insert themselves into the environment, to deal with things emotionally (e.g. taking time out, connecting with people back home), archiving material.
Finally Alison presented the model that emerged from the study (pictured) and proposed a theory of mitigating risk which "states that the pressures of residence abroad catalyse the enactment of information literacy practices, which subsequently mediate language-student transition from acting like to becoming a language learner within a new setting"
After a pause for us to discuss her ideas and provide some of our thoughts, Hicks went on to present her recommendations. Firstly, framing things in terms of "transition", focusing on scaffolding the transition process and the idea of the student recapturing their equilibrium. This means investigating what transition means and the place of IL and the library within that. Hicks pointed out that transition can be a positive, generative experience, and one should not just see it as negative.
The 2nd recommendation was about "recognising that IL centres on negotiation rather than assimilation". Part of this is acknowleging the expertise and knowledge that the students already have. The 3rd recommendation was "design for sociality, connections and interaction". This included thinking about embodied information that can be valuable when learning about a culture.
This all had implcations for IL teaching, avoiding thinking about international students as the problem. Hicks identified that it was valuable to draw on empirical research to inform IL education, rather than relying entirely on professional models and standards.
Alison gave her website url: http://alisonhicks.weebly.com

Information literacy: Necessary but not sufficient for 21st century learning #lilac19

Pam McKinney here again live-blogging from the LILAC conference at the university of Nottingham. this afternoon I’m watching Daryl Toerien, head of libraries and archives, and David Harrow from Oakham School, a boarding school in the county of Rutland, UK.

Changes in school leaders can have a big impact school libraries, from the amount of library funding, whether or not libraries have a professional librarian post, or even whether or not a school has a library at all. Seymour Papert was a researcher who has had a huge impact on children’s learning, and the intersections between learning and technology. He invented the LOGO robot and programming language. Seymour said “You can’t teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.” The prevailing educational paradigm is teacher centred, but really an inquiry-based learner-centred educational process is more suitable for the future.  Darryl introduced the FOSIL model of inquiry, based on the work of Barbara Stripling. The starting point for inquiry should be the “connect” stage which involves looking at what is already known.

The international baccalaureate was developed out of a progressive approach to education that is based on constructivism, and as part of this students are required to write a 4000 words essay based on their original self-directed research, which is difficult to approach for students who have just finished the current GCSE curriculum. It is important to have a dedicated timetable to support for students undertaking the extended essay. It is very important that students reference their information correctly, and this academic skill is not adequately prepared for in pre-16 education.

The New York City schools department has a really useful document that looks at the skills student need to develop to be effective inquirers. Darryl has used this to develop a framework for development of students across the years in the Oakham school, and to define when and where students should be taught the skills they need to develop their information literacy, and be prepared for the international baccalaureate. The challenge we face is that current A-level and GCSE curriculums in the UK do not focus on building inquiry competencies.

What's my approach? Deciding on the approach to use for your research #lilac19

My colleague Dr Pam McKinney and I are running a workshop at the LILAC conference in Nottingham this morning: What's my approach? Deciding on the approach to use for your research. Below are the slides we'll be using to introduce the session. The references are at http://bit.ly/2uzcRii

What's my approach? Deciding on the approach to use for your research from Sheila Webber

Health literacy: information literacy for life #lilac19

This is Sheila, and today I'll be joining Pam in livebloggong from the LILAC Conference. The day opens with a keynote from Ruth Carlyle (Head of Library & Knowledge Services and Technology Enhanced Learning, Midlands and the East of England) on Health literacy: information literacy for life. She started by identifying us as "the perfect audience" to hear about health literacy. Carlyle went on to talk about the multiple health problems that face populations globally, and the need for people to be able to help themselves in terms of their health problems.
She quoted the World Health Organization definition of health literacy, and noted that the emphasis now is not just on personal characteristics, but also the need for communities to work together to access, understand, appraise etc. haelth related information. There is a WHO health literacy site here https://www.who.int/healthpromotion/health-literacy/en/ She also cited research by Gill Rowlands which identified that there was a UK national average of 43% of the population not understanding textual information, with a larger percentage unable to understand a combination of information types. Gill Rowlands' eprint archive is here. There are similar findings from studies in other countries. The obvious implications are that people may not be able to self-medicate effectively nor make informed decisions about health.

Carlyle cited Nutbeam's 3 types of health literacy: functional, interactive (including being able to "balance information from different sources") and critical ("analyse and gain control"). She also talked about when you are in a stressful situation, e.g. having just been diagnosed, this will affect your health literacy. Thus (using a framework by Carlyle herself) the Situation, your Skills and the Setting (e.g. a hospital) will all affect your health literacy, so you can be encouraged, empowered and enabled.
Carlyle tried an experiment with us, showing us some notes of music and asking us to decode it, whilst continuing to talk to us, to demonstrate how frustrating and difficult it can be to decode information where you don't know what the code is. She then talked about some techniques that could be used to improve communication. An example was "teach back", asking the patient to explain in their own words, re-explain if needed, and asking again until everyone's happy. There was also "chunk and check" to check after each small chunk of information. In terms of written communication there were "common sense" guidelines such as using active verbs, using short sentences (although these common sense guidelines were not always followed in health materials).
Health literacy friendly services will comply in terms of written communication, spoken communication (so support is evident and open), stock (e.g. up to date material in a range of formats), signage, training and policy ("policies for the services reflect the health literacy needs of staff and service users" and "HL policy for the service"). Training is provided to NHS librarians, so that they can support colleagues and they have a strategic framework "Knowledge for Healthcare" (I think this). The recent Topol Review (Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future) stressed the need for digital literacy and e-health literacy, which (to us) relates to information literacy.
There was an interesting question session afterwards raising a variety of issues, including misinformation, findability of the NHS website, the extent to which clinicians are willing tp respect/involve librarians, and the scariness of actual medical situations that effects our judgement.

Transition to university; information literacy skills through gamification and peer-learning. #lilac19

Sharon Perera and Andrew Sinclair presented on a moodle based resource “independent learners toolkit” that was developed to support students, and particularly BAME students, transition to university at Greenwich University. The resource features engaging interactive games to build awareness of university life, viewing the university as a socio cultural system of practices (Lloyd 2013) that attempts to bring out the tacit ways of knowing. The resource can be used with groups of learners to facilitate discussion of the issues they are all facing, and make it obvious that  everyone is in the same situation. They carried out an evaluation of the resource and gave a pre and post intervention questionnaire,which revealed that students became more confident about their knowledge of the skills they thought they needed at university. Students found it helpful, they liked the self discovery aspect, and thought it taught the things they were expected to already know, but didn’t. The resource is available for free use on the Greenwich University website.

Flying into the library: How the library fitted into a student retention project #lilac19

Cheryl Reynolds and Andrew Walsh from university of Huddersfield presented on the “flying start” initiative that supports transition to university. Often induction is a very didactive process, and they wanted to move away from this to a programme that was more inclusive and student centred, that helped students become part of a community at university. The flying start programme was part of a multi institutional programme funded by the UK office for students to promote early engagement and sense of belonging.

Student participated in 9- 5 classes over the first 2 weeks of their course, which could be subject specific, but had similar principles (autonomy, tenacity etc). Many departments were involved including careers, the library, the students union, and development focused on 8 academic departments and impacted on 900 students.  The programme was designed to stimulate excitement about the subject, develop an academic community, to encourage students to work with new people, and build approaches to university level study. The project helped build relationships across the university.

Andrew presented some of the activities that the library facilitated over the 2 week induction period. Students were asked to use Lego to build a library, and then discuss their models, which helped draw out some of the fears students had about using the library.  The challenge cards activity involved students working in groups of 2 or 3 to complete challenges e.g. “find the highest point on campus”. Activities were more about learning about each other and the spaces of the university than “formal” learning. The “Zines” activity involved students designing small informal magazines about the library, and what they thought a library is. The Groundhog Day activity used the actionBound app to develop a treasure hunt using GPS, QR codes and photos to stimulate students to use the library, replicating the kind of information that would normally be delivered at an induction session e.g taking a book out,  finding the opening hours of the library.

It was really important that librarians were involved in the multi professional team who developed the programme as a whole, which ensured that students were introduced to the library as a core part of their course. Students who took part in the programme had more positive perceptions of relationships at the university, and retention was improved.

Approaches towards developing a community of practice to support information literacy teaching and learning in your library #lilac19

Dr Cory Laverty and Dr Nasser Salem from Queens university Ontario presented about developing a community of practice based on networking and working collaboratively with colleagues from across the university. Cory is interested in approaches to inquiry based learning and the role librarians can play in supporting this and initiatives to decolonise the curriculum from a perspective of  academic development. They were asked to establish a working group for developing IL teaching, which was motivated by the adoption of a quality assurance framework. Librarians were expected to adopt this framework, but were unsure about how to measure learning from their IL teaching. This then led to identification that librarians needed to understand pedagogical theory, assessment as learning and learning design. Monthly meetings for a small working group took place over 4 years, and they developed learning materials for librarians, and workshops and development sessions to build teaching competencies.

It’s very important that members of a community of practice feel comfortable with each other, so sessions were focused on being fun and engaging, and inclusive. Development sessions lasted 3 hours, and were centred on the learning needs of the group. People can feel vulnerable when sharing their practice, and it’s important to respect each other.

Various evaluation data were collected over the 4 years as participants were asked about the value of the community. People liked that meetings were regular and facilitated, they liked that other professional groups were involved e.g. instructional designers. Resources were shared in an online repository. The group facilitated community building,  and helped develop an identity, and there was authentic learning gained through sharing practice. A reflective approach in every session helped promote personal growth.

The working group became a community of practice over the years, it developed organically, through a shared domain (IL teaching). Individuals benefit from sharing expertise, and it provides a fertile environment for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning - the presenters have a chapter forthcoming in the ACRL book  The Grounded Instruction Librarian: Participating in The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Sheila and I have a chapter in the same book!)

New barristers' information literacy during their transition from education to the workplace. #lilac19

Pam McKinney here again continuing live blogging from the LILAC conference. Anne Binsfield, a graduate of UCL, spoke about her masters dissertation research into new legal professionals transition into the workplace in terms of their IL experiences which is an under researched area. Transition from university to the workplace places new IL challenges on new barristers. Anne’s research focused on barristers undertaking pupillage, or those who had qualified in the last 2 years. The route to becoming a barrister is long and complicated, and involves many stages of advanced qualifications. Pupillage is a 12 month period of workplace training where they hone their IL capabilities and legal research skills. Anne took a qualitative research approach and interviewed 9 participants.

 Findings were that new barristers struggle with research, and have to focus on applying the law rather than critiquing it. New barristers have to find the right answer, and quickly, which is quite different from academic study. Being a successful researcher is an important aspect of professional identity, and many find it enjoyable. However they felt that university hadn’t prepared them for professional research, and for other aspect of how to behave as a barrister, including how to interact with clients and other legal professionals.

New professionals need to develop new mediation strategies for Information problems. Training was seen to be irrelevant, but they did value self learning through experience and experimentation. Pupil supervisors were a useful source of information, as were other people in the workplace.  It was important to ask the right information of the right person. Supervisors were important in involving the pupil in the professional milieu, to enable the pupil to build their knowledge of the environment and how to act effectively. WhatsApp groups facilitated peer support between pupils who had been at university together. Storytelling about experiences was another important aspect of sharing learning, and quickly building professional competencies and identities. So far from being a dry text based learning environment, actually there was a focus on social learning.

In summary,  IL at university is different to the IL needed in the workplace, and a new definition of IL is needed to reflect the complexity of IL in the workplace. Law librarians need to understand the situated learning aspect of new legal professionals.

From digiducks to Penguin Pigs: using stories as a creative methodological approach with research involving young children #lilac19

This is Pam McKinney live-blogging from the LILAC conference. Lindsay Watson a senior lecturer in early years education from university of Huddersfield (@Lje1994) is presenting her doctoral research into storytelling as a research method with young children. It’s impossible to interview or survey young children, so you need a more fun and creative way to find out what they think. Online safety for children is a key issue, as children engage younger and younger and for longer amounts of time with devices such as iPads that are internet enabled. We have moved away from restricting access towards positively influencing children’s engagement, and recognise them as keen and able users. So we need to research children’s understanding of the internet, and this involves doing research WITH rather than ON children and to become co-constructors of knowledge.

The overall aim of the PhD research was to examine how to tackle issues of online child safety, and to analyse child oriented creative research practices such as storytelling in eliciting the views of younger children within research, and to look at issues of consent, assent and dissent and how children make choices in the research space.

Children are familiar with storytelling and it capitalises their desire to interact and connect with the content. It can encourage younger children’s voices, and is a much more relaxed experience for them. Nine children aged 4-5 took part in the research, who were based in one primary school in the UK. The children were read a wide range of age appropriate story books about online safety, following important dilemmas. Children were free to express their opinions and perceptions. Sessions  lasted 15-30 minutes and had between 1 and 9 children taking part.

In the next part of the session delegates were invited to read a selection of books and note down their thoughts on the style, story and how suitable we thought the books would be for young children. We thought some of the books were quite unsuitable for the age group, and contained ideas and metaphors that might not be appropriate. Some books present a negative view of children and their engagement with technology, but some were really successful at stimulating conversation with children about topics such as online safety and privacy. Some books covered activities that were a little advanced for 4-5 year olds but were useful for preparing children for activities they would do when a little bit older.

Initial findings reveal that storytelling is a great way to engage children, but the researcher has control about the choice of book and can guide the interactions.

#LILAC19 First keynote Sandeep Mahal

Hello, this is Pam McKinney and I’m at the Librarians’ Information Literacy Conference (LILAC) at the University of Nottingham for the next three days, and I will be live-blogging conference sessions for the information literacy weblog. I’m sure there will be lots of great IL projects, research and teaching to share. This morning the first session is a keynote by Sandeep Mahal, who is director of  Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature.

Sandeep is proud to work as an ambassador for Nottingham as a UNESCO city of literature. 70% of us read for pleasure, and literature is a key cultural export of the UK. Sandeep grew up in a house without books, and left school with few qualifications. She went to university as a mature student, and believes passionately in the power of libraries to positively transform lives. She spoke about the literary history of the city of Nottingham, which includes Lord Byron, JM Barrie, Graham Greene and DH Lawrence. The city is home to many libraries and bookshops, and has a tradition of public education. Despite the climate of austerity in the UK, Nottingham has not closed its public libraries, and instead is planning a new central libraries. This positive environment for literature, books and reading was recognised by UNESCO and led to the designation of “city of literature”. However Nottingham has a lot of poverty, and high levels of inequality.  By age 11, 15% of boys and 10% of girls are two stages below their expected reading level in school. While there are many BAME families in Nottingham, the low literacy levels are more closely linked to child poverty, not ethnic background.

Sandeep spoke about the value of reading for pleasure for children’s educational attainment and future job prospects. Much work has been done to encourage reading and literacy, for example the “book start” programme where all new parents are given a book pack to read with their children. The Dolly Parton imagination library gifts a book a month to children under 5 in the most deprived areas of Nottingham. Young ambassadors review books, interview writers and promote books and reading across the city.

Nottingham’s new central library will be a national centre for children’s learning and literacy, and young people will help design the space where they can socialise and learn. Information literacy development will be a crucial aspect of the new service.

ACRL Information Literacy Immersion Program #infolit

gistration is open for the next ACRL Information Literacy Immersion Program, July 28-August 2 2019, taking place in Chicago, USA. The immersion "is an intensive 4 ½ day program designed for those who contribute to the educational role of libraries in higher education. Through a critical examination of information literacy, teaching and learning, and influence and leadership, the Immersion program curriculum aims to develop critically reflective practitioners who go on to enact change in their practice, projects, or personal and professional goals." Registration fees are: ACRL member: US $1,895; Non ACRL member: $1,995. There are some scholarships available. Registration deadline May 1 2019. More info at http://www.ala.org/acrl/conferences/immersion

#ECIL2020 Information Literacy in a Post-Truth Era

There is an early call for papers for the 2020 European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL), which will be co-organized and hosted by University of Bamberg 21-24 September 2020, in Bamberg, Germany. The submission submission is not open until later this year, with the deadline for abstract submissions 15 January 2020. Information Literacy in a Post-Truth Era is the conference main theme. There is more information on the conference website at http://ecil2020.ilconf.org/
Photo by Sheila Webber: white cherry blossom, Shooters Hill, April 2019

Webinar recording: engineering students; assessment & learning analystics; badges #infolit

Recordings of ACRL webinars are often available free online after being held. Recent ones include:
- ACRL STS Chat Reframing Information Literacy for First Year Engineering Students (Recording of chat held March 21st 2019) https://youtu.be/8H1zBvFrB9c
- Critical Assessment Practices: A Discussion on When and How to Use Student Learning Data Without Doing Harm (webinar held on March 13, 2019) https://youtu.be/TCPKf_Kf9q0
- Comprehensive Learner Record: ACRL Digital Badges Interest Group: Spring 2019 Virtual Meeting (held 3 April 2019) https://youtu.be/wAqYipH1JS4
Photo by Sheila Webber: Cherry blossom, Sheffield, April 2019

Mindsets #infolit

An initiative from Robert Gordon University is Mindsets: Information, Digital & Media Literacy. There is an online community, via OneHE, which anyone can join: go to http://eepurl.com/ge1caT and also regular webinars are planned. "‘Mindsets’ aims to engage educators, students, librarians, learning/ teaching support professionals and policy-makers in critical discussions and creative collaboration relating to students’ lifelong development of information, digital and media literacy. ‘Mindsets’ explores information, digital and media literacy from the point of view of students’ transitions into and out of higher education, focusing on the ways in which students’ needs and expectations are set within the different knowledge domains and disciplines of their taught programmes but also on the basis of their own previous educational, work and everyday life experiences." More information at https://www.cilips.org.uk/mindsets-information-digital-medialiteracy/
There is an opening webinar on 30 April 2019 at 4pm UK time: Students’ everyday life digital mindsets: transitions into higher education with presentations from Dr @Konstantina Martzoukou (Robert Gordon University, Scotland), Dr Crystal Fulton (University College Dublin) and Dr Petros A. Kostagiolas (Ionian University, in Corfu, Greece). You need to book for the webinar: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hIL4jq3AQ0mdqianNFkeMw
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry tree, Greenwich Park, April 2019

Recent articles: ACRL Framework; #infolit and art; faculty developers; librarians writing

Recent articles from the open access journal College & Research Libraries News include: from Vol 80, No 4, 2019
- Reframing from the ground up: Redesigning a credit-bearing information literacy course using the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education by Shonn M. Haren
- Librarians as faculty developers: Leading educational development initiatives by Katelyn Handler and Lauren Hays
https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1124/showToc

and from Vol 80, No 3, 2019
- The art of information literacy: New competencies for art, architecture, and design learners by Linden How, Amanda Meeks, Shannon Marie Robinson, Alyssa Vincent
- Everybody’s publishing but me! How a writing group can help actualize your publishing dreams by Dory Rosenberg, Karin M. Kettenring, Anne R. Diekema
https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1123/showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom, Sheffield, April 2019

Online Harms #infolit

The UK Government has published a White Paper on Online Harms. As is implied by the title, the focus is on how the UK can become "the safest place in the world to go online" but also "the best place to start and grow a digital business". New regulatory measures are proposed, and one of the (smaller) sections concerns citizens' media literacy: "The government will develop a new online media literacy strategy. This will be developed in broad consultation with stakeholders, including major digital, broadcast and news media organisations, the education sector, researchers and civil society. This strategy will ensure a coordinated and strategic approach to online media literacy education and awareness for children, young people and adults."
There is an open consultation until 1 July 2019, which is an opportunity to (amongst other things) identify how researchers and LIS practitioners could be involved in the media literacy strategy (as otherwise it is likely the focus will be on media and communication resaerchers and consultants) https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-white-paper
Stéphane Goldstein has provided a useful reflection on the white paper at https://www.informall.org.uk/blog/media-literacy-strategy/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Greenwich park, April 2019

Survey for US academic librarians #infolit

Chelsea Sutton (PhD Candidate, Dominican University, School of Information Studies) is seeking respondents to a questionnaire, open until 7 May 2019. You have to be "an academic librarian in the United States and have collaborated with individuals or non-library departments within your institution on projects related to student learning and/or information literacy". Go to https://dom.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cumiABZlfVFMUUB

Recent articles: health information; éducation aux médias et à l’information; teacher attitudes; Informed learning #infolit

Maybee, C., Bruce, C.S., Lupton, M. & Pang, M.F. (2019). Informed learning design: teaching and learning through engagement with information, Higher Education Research & Development, 38(3), 579-593. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1545748 (not open access until 2020) "While higher education teachers are able to use information in sophisticated ways to learn and communicate within their disciplines, they may not be accustomed to teaching their students to use information creatively and reflectively to support their work in a course. This article introduces informed learning design, a curriculum design model by which teachers specifically enable students to learn course content through intentional engagement with information. Drawing from informed learning pedagogy and the variation theory of learning, the design model outlines an instructional pattern for enabling student awareness of critical aspects and features of the object being studied related to both information use and course content."

Frau-Meigs, D. (2019). Créativité, éducation aux médias et à l’information, translittératie : vers des humanités numériques. Quaderni, 98, (Hiver 2018-2019), 87-105. https://journals.openedition.org/quaderni/1482 (not open access until 2022) [In French, English abstract)

Ait Hattani, H. (2019). Media Literacy Education in Secondary School: Teachers' Attitudes. Journal of Media Research, 12 (1), 5-26. http://www.mrjournal.ro/index.php?p=artc&id=1121(open access)

Magsamen-Conrad, K., Dillon, J., Verhoff, C.B. & Faulkner, S. (2018) Online Health-Information Seeking Among Older Populations: Family Influences and the Role of the Medical Professional. Health Communication. (early online publication). https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2018.1439265 (not open access) "The authors interviewed middle-aged and older adults about their online health information seeking behavior and discovered that technology and health literacy are influenced by a collective ability to manage the health and technological needs of a family. ... Findings suggest that health can be co-managed if at least one person in a family unit is technologically “savvy” and able to effectively share health information. However, individuals’ confidence in their own literacy often depends on others, usually family members who tend to “do” instead of “teach.”"
Photo by Sheila Webber: pink blossom on a grey day, April 2019

#Wikipedia: article on writing assignments, and videos #infolit

Firstly, an article: Vetter, M., McDowell, Z. and Stewart, M. (2019). From Opportunities to Outcomes: The Wikipedia-Based Writing Assignment. Computers and Composition, 52, 53–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2019.01.008 (open access). "This article presents select data from a recent large-scale study conducted by the Wiki Education Foundation that ... confirms and extends research from the computers and writing community. Key findings from this research include positive evaluations of Wikipedia-based assignments in general, as well as positive evaluations concerning the capacity of Wikipedia-based assignments to teach critical thinking skills, source evaluation and research, public writing, literature review and synthesis, and peer review. ... Finally, this article suggests key recommendations for teaching with Wikipedia based on these findings."

Secondly, recordings of an event held in Sydney, Australia, in March 2019.
- Pru Mitchell - Wikipedia / Wikimedia Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4IQr5ENZo ("Pru Mitchell has been involved in the Australian chapter of Wikimedia since its inception in 2008, and currently serves as President. She is an educator and librarian, working in educational research, with a strong interest in scholarly publishing and metadata workflows for the GLAM sector.")
- Tony Naar - Wikipedia and the Australian Paralympic History project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvXcqijMIiY ("Tony Naar, is facilitator of the Australian Paralympic History Project which uses Wikipedia as a platform.")
- Toby Hudson - Using Wikidata for Chemistry, Education, Australia, and #FakeNews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK1WTC4TyP4&t=3s ("Toby Hudson is a Senior Lecturer, and Director of First Year Chemistry at the University of Sydney.")
- Panel Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vaxA1-bVtQ
Photo by Sheila Webber: Pigeons nibbling leaf shoots on a grey day, April 2019.

Doctobib #infolit

Doctobib is a collection of French-language videos aimed at those in the health and medical field, at https://www.youtube.com/user/doctobib The early ones had a "Dr House" type theme (the first is embedded below), but the recent ones are more straightforward tutorials (e.g. searching Google Scholar, or using Zotero). I discovered them because of a new article about them (in English):
Ricaud, R. (2019). DocToBib: an expanding project of video research training tutorials for interns, health students and practicians, three years later. Journal of EAHIL, 15(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.32384/jeahil15307 "DocToBib is a project carried out by librarians all over France to create video tutorials on research training in the medical field. This is an update on how the project evolved since 2015, on the topic of video format, collaboration between librarians, communication and practical uses of the tutorials."

Open education conference #OER19 #infolit

The OER19 conference in Galway, Ireland, started yesterday and continues today. It focuses on open education and open educational resources. As is appropriate, there is a lot of material accessible for free, and there is information abou that here https://oer19.oerconf.org/participate/remote-participation/ This includes:
- Livestreaming of some sessions (listed on the above page). Yesterday's livestreamed sessions can be viewed as recordings, including this one on Unpacking the geopolitics of open for the strategic development of (HE) institutions and communities - what is a university for? , which includes sessions from Bill Johnston & Sheila MacNeill https://youtu.be/WY5lnCOEpuM
- the Twitter stream at #oer19
- some Virtually Connecting sessions http://virtuallyconnecting.org/blog/2019/03/17/oer19/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Greenwich Park, April 2019

Call for chapters: Open Pedagogy: Varied Definitions, Multiple Approaches

There is a call for chapter proposals for a book "tentatively titled" Open Pedagogy: Varied Definitions, Multiple Approaches. Proposals are due by April 28, 2019. "The book, which will examine library/faculty collaborative explorations into open pedagogical practices will be published through the Rebus Community, a Montreal-based non-profit that is developing an open model for publishing."... "Within the educational realm, we see even greater nuances of “open” in terms of how the access to and adapted creation work together. The book aims to shed light on four different definitions and how they are applied in a variety of learning experiences. The Call for Proposals with full details is at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MejGPbMapdW1EjHY_SPtXqy4-5prxszsFvyc0Wwy2MA/edit

cfp Digital Literacy in Schools: building capabilities #digitalliteracy #infolit #JCS2019DL

There is a call for proposals for the JCS conference focused on Digital Literacy in Schools: building capabilities, to be held November 29-30 2019 in Birmingham, UK. Deadline for proposals is 14 April 2019. "This second conference on digital literacy provides a focus on the importance of digital capabilities for schools and sixth form colleges – not just the skills required by staff and students but extending to culture and policies. The programme will again be a mix of keynote speakers, lightning talks and workshops but introducing round-table discussions to increase the opportunities to share ideas and help formulate strategic approaches to take-away."
More details about scope, prices etc. at https://jcsonlineresources.org/event/jcs-2019/
Presentations from the 2018 conference are at https://jcsonlineresources.org/jcs-2018/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Fritillaries, April 2019

Scaffolding Information Literacy #infolit

An online course, Scaffolding Information Literacy, runs from 6 May to 2 June 2019. The cost is US $175 and it is delivered by Andrea Baer. "Educators and instructional designers frequently emphasize the importance of scaffolding, through which learning supports are developed and later removed in order to help students build on prior learning, progressively strengthen their understandings and abilities, and ultimately to be more self-directed learners. Whether a teacher is designing a single class session, a series of class sessions, an assignment, an online learning object, or a credit course, scaffolding is a powerful technique that informs the entire instructional design process. Often, however, it does not receive the attention that it deserves. In this 4-week course participants will learn about various scaffolding techniques and will apply these to developing or revising an instruction plan of their choice." More information at https://inquiringteachers.com/courses/scaffolding-information-literacy/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Part of the mural "Processions", Edinburgh Meadows, March 2019

Presentations from Creating Knowledge #infolit

The presentations from last year's Creating Knowledge conference (held in June 2018) are on their website (they have probably been there for some time and I missed them). In some cases there are just abstracts, but they are extended abstracts. Examples of presentations are:
- Co-redefining and co-creating Academic literacies in PhD education: Insights from a project at Umeå University Library, Sweden
- Information Seeking MOOC Goals at Helsinki University: Interactive and Integrated
Go to http://creatingknowledge.dk/program/
Photo by Sheila Webber: young leaves, Edinburgh, March 2019

Community college librarians and the ACRL Framework #infolit #ACRLframework

There is a preprint available of an article due to be published in College and Research Libraries. It presents the results of a survey of North American Community College librarians, about their engagement with the ACRL IL Framework. "This study explored community college librarians’ engagement with the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. A national online survey with 1,201 community college librarian respondents reveals limited familiarity with and integration of the Framework into community college instruction to date. Findings indicate an openness to future adoption, as well as substantial interest in targeted professional development and a version of the Framework adapted for community college campuses. These results contribute benchmark instructional data on an understudied section of academic librarianship and add to the growing body of research on how librarians have updated teaching practices in response to the Framework."
Wengler, S.,and Wolff-Eisenberg, C. (in press). Community college librarians and the ACRL Framework: Findings from a national study. College and Research Libraries. Open access at https://academicworks.cuny.edu/qb_pubs/56/
Photo by Sheila Webber: daffodils "fluttering and dancing in the breeze" in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh, March 2019

Call for papers: What do digital inclusion and data literacy mean today? #infolit #dataliteracy

There's a call for papers for a special issue of Internet Policy Review, on What do digital inclusion and data literacy mean today? "The primary aim of this special issue is to link up international policy efforts to address contemporary and future digital inequalities, access and skills with the outcomes of research from around the globe. The intention is on sharing best practice and research insights, while acknowledging that these problems are not the same in different parts of the world and so there are no universal solutions. We invite authors to submit papers that cover empirical research as well as policy and practice interventions, such as: Data analysis of levels of digital inclusion / exclusion and engagement; studies on the link between misinformation and data literacies; Studies of the impacts of digital exclusion; Policy interventions; Case studies of initiatives and programmes; Case studies of community impact. Deadline for full text submissions is 25 August 2019, and publication is scheduled for May 2020. Go to https://policyreview.info/node/1388

#EAVI CAMP media literacy opportunity for young adults #infolit #medialiteracy

EAVI (a European agency which carries out research etc. into media literacy) is offering places at a free summer camp focusing on media literacy. It runs 23-31 July 2019, and is open to applicants aged 18-27 years. 13 people will be chosen for the summer camp. Deadline for applications is 27 April 2019. The location will be De Pinte, Belgium. "Participants will balance outdoor and free time activities with a challenging task they need to accomplish by the end of the camp: create a short film and infographics about these topics, so that young people are going to create content for young people, spreading around their important message! ... The camp provides offline free time to enjoy the beautiful Flemish countryside, team activities, short visits to the nearby cities (Ghent and Brussels), coupled with group working activities for the development of the short video." All meals and accommodation are provided, but participants have to cover their own travel costs.
"To participate in the selection process, you need to send a video around 3 minutes in length telling us who you are, why you are interested in the camp and what qualities you possess that will be useful for the EAVI CAMP activities. Please don’t stress about the video. Feel free to present yourself in the most comfortable way for you and show us your creativity!" More information, plus the application form: https://eavi.eu/eavi-camp-2019/

Virtual poster session: #infolit and distance learners

The ACRL Distance Learning Section Instruction Committee have a Virtual Poster Session running from today until Friday 5 April 2019, with 35 posters about librarians teaching and supporting distance learners (Distance Library Instruction). The posters will be archived after that: if you view them this week you are also encouraged to fill out a form with feedback on how useful the poster session was.
Arbitrarily seizing some poster titles, they include:
- Reflections on Universal Design for Learning in Online Environments
- Skilled Up: Teaching Digital & Information Literacy to Adult Students for Successful College and Career Transitions
- Social Media & Persistent-Question-Asking
- Stepping Outside the Library: Reflections on my Experience as an Online Adjunct
- The Student Is Now the Teacher
- Tracking and Maintaining Online Learning Objects
- Using Accessibility Features for Online Learners
- Using Course-Specific LibGuides in Online Classes: A Case Study
Go to https://acrl.ala.org/DLS/2019-virtual-poster-session/
Photo by Sheila webber: daffodils, the meadows, Edinburgh, March 2019