Hi, Pam McKinney here live-blogging from the second day of the ECIL conference. This dedicated session features six Pecha Kucha presentations which each last only 6 minutes, so I will do my best to keep up!
Photo: drawing of a cat and a rainbow on the glass wall of the conference venue (Pam McKinney)
“Make students leaders of their learning” Elena Collina, Paola Rescigno, University of Bologna, Italy
This is a presentation about a course that is offered to all students at the university, which focuses on creative learning and learning by doing. The class is divided into groups, each group has a teams channel and work together on a research task, then each group must evaluate the work of another group. This is peer-topeer learning is an interactive process, and mirrors peer review in academic publishing. Feedback from students was very positive; they liked working collaboratively and liked the active nature of the learning.
Adapting Infosphère: Leveraging an OER Information Literacy Platform, Miriam Petrilli, Vincenzo Palatella, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
The project to adapt the infosphere took 4 years. The training team wanted to develop an online self-paced learning object for students to develop competencies in information literacy. Other institutions had used fact sheets, interactive tutorials, videos, etc. The infosphere, an OER, was developed in Montreal, and the team thought it looked perfect for their needs, and seemed better to focus on adapting the resource rather than starting from scratch. The Lausanne team worked closely with colleagues from Montreal to adapt the resource, learning from their experiences They developed a number of improvements to the Infosphere resource to tailor it to their situation. Infosphere is promoted to students and teachers and is integrated into a MOOC. Analytics demonstrate that students access the resource following face-to-face classes, and support their learning. There are 4 sections: prepare to research, research, analyse information and finally citation and referencing.
Citing AI with Zotero: Academic Integrity and Information Literacy Paschalia Terzi Georgetown University in Qatar, Qatar
Zotero is a free, open-access reference management software application that supports citation practice for academic work. It is a program that is downloaded to a computer, and also works on mobile phones, and has a browser extension. It is a research tool, it can work as a personal digital library, it also supports note-taking and collaboration (e.g. for student group work). The team at the university recommends the use of Zotero to support students in avoiding plagiarism. Since the growth of AI, some academic staff have banned the use of AI, some advise cautious use, and some have completely adopted AI use. Students are encouraged to cite their use of AI to be transparent, but how to do this? The team created a workshop to support students to cite their AI use, to keep records of their interactions with AI, and how to cite in various reference styles. The components of an AI entry of Zotero include the prompt text, the prompt description, the discussion snapshot, the tool, version, company, date and link to the conversation.
Do AI Research Assistants Live Up to their Hype? An Exploratory Study of Some Freely Available Tools Luis Machado Publications Office of the European Union, Belgium
This presentation is about a project to test AI tools that perform search functions. There are 2 types: Standard search, which presents a short answer, and deep search tools that present a longer answer. They tested the search tools with a specific set of prompts to find a specific paper. Some tools were more successful than others; some tools didn't find the paper and invented one, illustrating the issue of AI hallucination. This is a problem as these tools are marketed as academic research assistants. AI research assistants can be useful for initial topic exploration, but need to be treated with caution - They are "super" but not "out of this world"
Doctoral Students Getting Support from University Library: Two Courses as Cases from Linköping University, Magdalena Öström, Kerstin Annerbo, Linköping University, Sweden
Linköping University has around 40,000 students, and the library provides help and support to all of them! There are 3 physical libraries, and of course an online library. Information literacy is recognised as a key competency by the Swedish government. Doctoral students have often been overlooked for IL support, with much support focusing on undergraduate students. The library wanted to enhance support for doctoral students and meet their needs. They developed a course for science and technology students to help them search for literature and undertake a literature review. The content covers search strategies, how to prepare for a search, how to choose sources and how to construct search strings using Boolean operators. AI-based search tools have become more common, e.g. Scopus AI, and the course covers how to use these tools ethically. They also run an open-science PhD course that is credit-bearing if all components are completed. It covers issues such as copyright, bibliometrics, publication, research dissemination and research data management.
Information Literacy Tasks in Quebec French Schools: Conception and Validation of a Questionnaire addressing Teachers’ Practices Joannie Pleau, Anne-Michèle Delobbe, Chantale Laliberté Université du Québec à Rimouski, Canada
This presentation focused on the need for research on the provision of information literacy in French-speaking schools in Quebec. School librarians are only found in city schools, so teachers must deliver IL teaching at other schools, but they don't receive any training in IL. They are currently revising the teacher education in Quebec. There is a survey to investigate the extent to which IL is taught in Quebec schools. A lot of work went into the design of the questionnaire, taking a multidisciplinary perspective. It was validated through 3 cycles of development with experts from a range of backgrounds e.g, primary education, digital education, collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. Some questions required clarification, and there needed to be more detailed definitions of what was meant by an "IL task". The data revealed that teachers were doing "IL tasks" but they didn't realise it!
