Final links for #IFLAlimerick

A quick final post about the IFLA satellite conference on Information Literacy that took place in Limerick, Ireland, 14-15 August 2014.
The website is here: http://www.iflasatellitelimerick.com/
Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/hashtag/iflalimerick

My blog posts are at http://information-literacy.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/IFLALimerick

There are storifys by
Clare McCluskey https://storify.com/librarygirl79/ifla-il-satellite-meeting-2014
Shona Thoma https://storify.com/shinyshona/ifla-satellite-meeting-limerick

Lauren Smith blogged about the session I was in and some others at http://laurensmith.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/ifla-limerick/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Galway, August 2014

Reimagining Digital Literacy Possibilities @ Deakin University #iflalimerick

Liveblogging from the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland. Reimagining Digital Literacy Possibilities @ Deakin University by Christine Oughtred, Sabina Robertson, and Sue Owen (Deakin University, Australia) was presented by Robertson. She started by giving some facts about Deakin University and talked about the new strategic plan. She noted that the new Course Enhancement Strategy had graduate outcomes which included Digital Literacy (as well as communication, critical thinking, problem solving etc. - but, I note, information literacy). Robertson then focused on digital literacy (DL) and showed this video which explains how the library helps with DL: http://air.deakin.edu.au/public/media/Digital+Literacy+/0_bfyyl126
If you watch you will see that it includes information literacy elements in DL. Robertson went on to give examples of how librarians had worked with academics to develop students' DL through the curriculum. This included examples where assessment of the DL element was part of the credit for the class, notably where students had to evaluate websites in groups and create presentations. A new initiative consists of credit-bearing communication classes which will be taken by a large number of students (1000+). Robertson noted that professional development for library staff was an important part of the plan. She saw building relationships with academics and collaborating with them to develop authentic learning activities as very important.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Salthill beach, August 2014

Learning everywhere: hyperlinked libraries and life literacies #IFLALimerick

2nd day of liveblogging the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland (picture is from the conference dinner last night) and the keynote today is Michael Stephens (San Jose State University, Information School, USA), talking about Learning everywhere: hyperlinked libraries and life literacies. His blog is here: http://tametheweb.com/ and his section on his concept of the hyperlinked library is here. I'll give my usual caveat about not capturing everything faithfully in this post.
Stephens started by mentioning that SJSU's library and information courses are all online. He started by running through changes to libraries, technology, ways in which people communicate socially etc. He gave some examples from libraries that he found inspiring e.g. a user manifesto posted in the library, a wall of photos of the library space by users.
Stephens went on to talk about aspects of the hyperlinked library. This library is described as "transparent, participatory, playful, user-centered and human, while still grounded in our foundations and values." Stephens identified the importance of mobile, including mobile learning and experiencing art using mobile technology, citing (for example) Pew Internet reports. He felt that it was important to get material into "the palm of your hand". Therefore he was advocating, for example, digitising and using apps to integrate with the parent organisation.
Stephens mentioned aMOOC in the co ntext of "connected learning", namely a hyperlinked library MOOC which he characterised as being production centred (i.e. outcomes were not just quizzes), openly networked and a shared experience. The MOOC participants felt they had got insights about their own thoughts and practice as well as getting new ideas. He felt that "We can create large-scale, small-scale, or "jusr right" scale opportunities for learning for our constituents" pointing out that with MOOCs satisifaction is not necessarily about completion of the course (something which I know from my work so far with Futurelearn).
Next, Stephens mentioned the forthcoming Horizon report for libraries and pulled out the element to do with the innovative and creative classroom (lots of photos taken by delegates here at this point!). The wiki for this is here http://library.wiki.nmc.org/ and the report is just about to be released (personally I hope it is more impressive than the main Horizon report!). He identified issues such as emotional intelligence as being important in learning and for libraries.
Stephens talked about the 23 Things movement going on to mention http://23mobilethings.net/wpress (looking at use of mobile in libraries). Web 2.0 learning seen was part of developing a personal learning network (PLN). He emphasised the need for investing in librarians' professional development; "development with teeth". This included giving learner-librarians space to create and play.  Stephens saw this is necessary to fulfill librarian roles of guides, creators, teachers, connectors. He said that the hyperlinked library uses technology "with heart" and puts people (both the librarians and the people who are using library services) at the centre of things.

Authentic and Performative Measures to Assess Student Learning #IFLALimerick

I'm chairing a workshop session (though I don't think it will need much chairing, as the facilitators are very well organised!) from the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland. This is Coming Face-to-Face with the Future of IL Assessment: Why and How to Use Authentic and Performative Measures to Assess Student Learning, from Brandy Whitlock (Anne Arundel Community College, USA) and Julie Nanavati (Loyola/Notre Dame, USA). There is a full set of workshop materials, so I will just give you the site where they are held: http://tinyurl.com/ifla-assess
Photo by Sheila Webber: sky, Galway, August 2014

Literacies as owned spaces in a changing world #IFLALimerick

More liveblogging from the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland. The second keynote is from Conor Galvin, UCD Dublin College of Human Sciences, talking about Literacies as owned spaces in a changing world. His session touched on several different interesting perspectives on technology, education, and my post may look a bit disjointed as I pick bits out on the fly. In fact there wasn't so much about literacies in the end, but it was certainly a session I enjoyed. He started by asking us to talk to the few people around you about something that you'd discovered during the morning.
He mentioned work on use of technology in schools, and identified the importance of the approach and attitudes of the teacher. Galvin talked briefly about the http://etwinning.net European project "The free and safe platform for teachers to connect, develop collaborative projects and share ideas in Europe".
He went on to talk about the tech lifeline of people born in about 1995 (i.e. currently in early years at university), with landmarks like palmpilots, Napster, and iPhones. He said that they have a deep relationship with their technology (which was contrasted with "us" having a less deep relationship - which given the people in the room here I would not say is necessarily a contrast). Galvin said that students' views of institutional technology was critical, and that it did not fit in with the young people's habits although (I am glad to say) he did not buy into the idea of digital "natives".
Galvin then asked us to discuss and identify how our own institutions were doing in terms of interacting and supporting students with technology (most people thought their institutions were somewhere in the middle).
Following on from that he gave a trenchant critique of the current European Union take on higher education and how it has stopped being about a good life, or personal development, but rather employability and service of national economy. This is something I agree with (I mean in seeing it as impoverished, and not actually what education should be mostly about). He identified some virtually invisible leaders who are plugged into the political networks, who may be key people in commercial companies, European bureaucrats, heads of associations and so forth. He put up a nice quote (which I wasn't quick enough to capture) about how if you had universities run on marketing principles you get education that does not enable people to transcend their time (as opposed to cope with it). Galvin saw the increased politicisation, deregulation and managerialism of unversities as very worrying and quoted Habermas who talked about "refeudalisation" of society as people lost their voices and control over things: this is bound to lead to discontent and disorder as well.
He finished by talking about a more fulfilling vision for education, and this is where he came back to spaces and libraries, giving some examples of libraries that are "owned" public spaces where people can learn. In his slide on "Literacies/ Capabilities" he included words like "enjoy" and "values" as well as more concrete terms. Galvin urged librarians to get involved in strategy to help these kinds of changes come about, not as "deliverers" of a service, but rather as advocates, co-researchers, teachers and mentors.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Nora Barnacle's house, Galway, August 2014

Critical Information Literacy for the Development of Political Agency #IFLALimerick

Finally from this first parallel session at the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland, Critical Information Literacy for the Development of Political Agency, was presented by Lauren Smith (The University of Strathclyde Glasgow, Scotland, UK). Again, I have blogged something about this research-in-progress before. The starting point was the apparent disengagement of young people from the political process (however it is evident that young people are caring and taking action, but not necessarily through traditional channels). Thus a focus on critical theory and critical pedagogy and exploring how information literacy, and libraries, could foster and engage critical awareness and activism. Smith is using phenomenography to uncover the different ways in which young people experience politics and their relationship with information in that context.
Data collection methods included repertory grid interviews, focus groups, and observation of classes. Just as a few insights, the participants had widely varying attitudes to politics and they used a variety of sources, with people sources very important. The participants did not all appear to understand the political background of different media, although some of them did show awareness of media bias. Discourse around media might focus more on how the participant felt about it (e.g. was it depressing).
At the end Smith presented about some emerging themes and how this connected with critical theory and its application in teaching and learning. Therefore her research could help in more effective teaching to encourage political awareness and agency. Smith's blog is at http://www.laurensmith.wordpress.com
Photo by Sheila Webber: on a boat tour, Galway, August 2014

InFlow (Information Flow) #iflalimerick

The talk I'm listening to at the moment at the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland is by Sarah McNicol about InFlow (Information Flow), an integrated model of applied information literacy. This is an output from a European project, iTec http://itec.eun.org/web/guest/home (which focused on making the best of technologies and resources by teachers in 21 countries). I've blogged about this before, so I will just post a couple of links i.e. the one above plus this site https://sites.google.com/site/inflowinformationflow/ which has a lot of material about the model.

IL in early childhood; IL evaluation #iflalimerick

My 3rd post from the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland will cover 2 talks in this track. The picture was taken at the coffee break.Firstly,  Information Literacy in Early Childhood was authored by Sonja Gust von Loh and Maria Henkel (presenter) (Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany). They started with the question of the information literacy in kindergarten children (3-6 years old), but it has broadened from that. The speaker noted that sometimes people talk about "Media Literacy" at that stage, but in fact it is generally "information literacy" as we understand it; however the authors preferred the compound Media and Information Literacy (MIL). The speaker showed Stock's (2012) Levels of competences in the knowledge society (sorry, I haven't immediately found a link for that) and identified some aspects of that framework which could still be related to very young children. Obviously at this stage children are not doing academic search, so the focus is on the things that the children want and do. This does include how they use the library, as well as how they search, how they judge true and false, and how they use information (which might be e.g. retelling stories). In terms of organising information, the researchers will use things like memory cards to see, for example, how children might sort things. In terms of creating information it can be things like children tagging a poster. The aspect of "responsible use of information" was seen as the province of the parents rather than children at that age.
Data collection techniques include use of puppets to create contact, and observation (although the speaker noted that the children might want you to join in games!) On the other hand it was a good idea to let the children get to know you so they were not shy or suspicious. The first stage is of this research is an online survey for parents with questions such as the devices being used by the children and whether and how the parents feel use of media is connected to use of information. The research is in progress, so watch for further results.
The Future of Information Literacy in Higher Education: Evaluation Models and Indicators was by Miguel Ángel Marzal García-Quismondo (presenter) and Saknicté Pisté Beltrán (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain). This included results from her ongoing PhD thesis, and was detailed, so I may not be capturing the points correctly. The context is the the "managerial" university which has student employability as a key target (with competency based curricula), and in that context digital and information competences can be seen a important. The speaker's focus was "web knowledge" - and identifying ways of evaluating this. It was felt that academic authorities needed "objective" information about impact in order to be convinced to include it staregically. The existing literature was reviewed. As part of this 3 key types of indicators were identified, concerned with skills, abilities and competencies.The next work is developing the evaluation framework.

The Information Cycle as a Metacognitive Cultural Tool #iflalimerick

My 2nd post from the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland. The first talk in the track I'm attending now is Crossing the Threshold: The Information Cycle as a Metacognitive Cultural Tool, Amanda Clossen (Pennsylvania State University, USA). She talked about Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development, and the idea of using cultural tools in the classroom (which, for example "present in generalised form the essential features of a given phenomena").
Clossen then presented a version of the Information Cycle - with the process of information being captured to start with in social media and finally (some time later) ending up in books and thus through to someone's own knowledge and research. She talked about how she had used this cycle in a classroom, targetting different stages in different weeks of the class. She felt that this connected them to sources that they were already using and to new resources as the class progressed and that they were critically evaluating what they found. The speaker noted that nevertheless this was challenging to fit into the limited time that (as a librarian) she was allowed.

Studying students to advance information literacy #IFLALimerick

I'm blogging from the IFLA Information Literacy Satellite conference held in Limerick, Ireland 14-15 August 2014. It is hosted by Limerick Institute of Technology but takes place at the Absolute Hotel.
The first keynote speaker was Nancy Fried Foster (Senior Anthropologist at Ithaka S+R: the latter is "a research and consulting service that helps academic, cultural, and publishing communities in making the transition to the digital environment.") Her talk was Studying students to advance information literacy.
She started by mentioning the ACRL standards (the existing ones, not the proposed revision). She idetified that it was straightforward and understandable, but very oriented to behaviours. She identified that there was growing feeling that such a framework should take account of attitudes, students as creator etc. and she mentioned the proposed revised version (since I've blogged about these numerous times I won't say any more about them). Dr Foster said she thought that this document definitely represented progress and felt that it assumed more of an understanding of research. Whereas the standards seemed to represent a "student who does well", whereas the the revised version seems more to match with a real, good researcher.
She argued that if someone is doing good scholarship or research, then de facto they are information literate, and then gave some examples of her research.
The first example was research into how people were using Extensible Catalog, with the research undertaken across four US universities. Dr Foster and her colleagues aimed to get insights into people's research processes through observation, interviews and so forth. They discovered that people's most useful information leads were discovered through personal networks and, for example, their own readings and collections. The participants' offices were often "messy" but things only had to be findable by the person, so the messiness was working for them (I'm reminded of a Sheffield iSchool PhD for which I was recently internal examiner for (the viva of now-Dr Mashael Al-Omar), which looked at how researchers organised their research material - "files and piles" featured strongly!). Dr Foster said that the researchers also mentioned the value of serendipity, and she quoted an undergraduate who talked about the need for him/her to get plugged into conversations which would help his/her research (e.g. conferences, meetings).
Dr Foster highlighted that this behaviour (by people who had demonstrably do good research) did not particularly fit with the old ACRL standards (e.g. they might not be using information "efficiently"). "So if THEY are not up to standard, then the standard has to change". She felt that their behaviour did match better with the proposed new ACRL standards.

Dr Foster then talked about a study of study of faculty members and use of institutional repositories. The article about this is here http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january05/foster/01foster.html.
After this the speaker showed this Google map of libraries doing ethnographic research and she then talks about a few specific research tequniques
- The first was using map diaries, so participants put where they went e.g. on a campus map.
- The second was using photo elicitation interviews, where you get participants to take photos relating to whatever you are interested in, and then the photos form the focus of interviews
- The third was retrospective interviews, which are a bit like critical incident, but using a comic strip as a focus for unfolding the story
- The fourth was running a design workshop

After this, the speaker moved on to talk about a project based at the University of Chicago, studying 3rd year medical students at 6 medical schools in the USA. They got the students to log/diary their day, noting whenever they had a need for information. This is an ongoing study, so there are just emerging results. Because their days are so packed they make a lot of quick decisions about the cost (time)/benefit of using different sources of information: they are strategic and practical. Again Dr Foster felt that this behaviour fitted more comfortably with the revision to ACRL rather than the old standards.

The final example was "Ripped from the headlines". She referenced a Buzzfeed story (about George Bush socks) that got copied, and the plagiarised reporter then filed an article complaining about the plagiarism. However, the Buzzfeed reporter himself was then taken to task for plagiarising material. Dr Foster asked one of the people about how he/she had managed to investigate this. This had been done by searching for phrases, including in earlier versions of wikipedia. The dialogue about this took place via channels such as Twitter (as it was seen as the best way of getting to many people, particularly media people, all at once), but also got news coverage. Foster asked why the (anonymous) commentators why they did this, and it was because they cared what went on in the world, hold conversations about important things and wanted to encourage good journalism. Foster identified this as example of information literacy. She finished by repeating her message of researching people to discover about their information literacy and what it meant in their context.
Photo by me, taken in the Butlers Chocolate Cafe in Galway, Ireland; a Butlers hot chocolate is chocolate nirvanah.