Recent articles: IL of Slovakian students; Information overload; information behaviour; fact-checking

The latest issue of the priced Journal of Documentation, Volume 77 Issue 2, includes:
- Modelling the information seeking and searching behaviour of users with impairments: are existing models applicable? by Gerd Berget, Andrew MacFarlane, Nils Pharo
- Information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants in Canada by Nafiz Zaman Shuva
- Tag analysis as a tool for investigating information behaviour: comparing fan-tagging on Tumblr, Archive of Our Own and Etsy by Ludi Price, Lyn Robinson
- An emerging genre of contemporary fact-checking by Amalia Juneström
- Information cultures and strategies for coping with information overload: case of Estonian higher education institutions by Liia Lauri, Sirje Virkus, Mati Heidmets
- Social aspects of personal information organization by Kyong Eun Oh
Go to https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0022-0418/vol/77/iss/2

The previous issue (vol 77 issue 1) included:
- Technologies, knowledge and truth: the three dimensions of information literacy of university students in Slovakia by Jakub Fázik, Jela Steinerová
- Searching, sharing and singing: understanding the information behaviors of choral directors by Christine Fena
- Affordances for information practices: theorizing engagement among people, technology, and sociocultural environments by Yuxiang Chris Zhao, Yan Zhang, Jian Tang, Shijie Song Go to https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0022-0418/vol/77/iss/1  

Photo by Sheila Webber: goslings! February 2021

Data Literacy perception and practices in the information environment #ECIL2018

The final session this morning that I (Sheila) am liveblogging is Data Literacy perception and practices in the information environment (presented by Jela Steinerova and co-authored with Miriam Ondrisova). They were looking at "what is the typology of research data" and "what is the perception of research data practices by Slovak researchers", and were concerned with the implication for library and information education. Steinerova considered definitions of research data and research data literacy (see photo). Research data practices will be dependent of the context of the researcher and the data. They used the concept of information infrastructure, as that was important for researcher practice. Finally they used the concept of an information environment as a framework (of objects, networks, systems etc.) supporting information use.
Steinerova said that they drew on 2 projects on modelling the information environment of digital scince, and one of information behaviour in the electronic environment. One study was a qualititative study of 19 experts from various disciplines. One of the outputs was a diagram revealing a typology of research data.Some aspects were common, but others specific to particular disciplines. Another study was their contribution to a multinational study of research data management, where there were 257 responses from Slovakia. The findings showed that the researchers had positive attitudes to research data, but concerns about misuse and misinterpretation of research data. Steinerova showed a bar chart comparing whether certain types of data were used and whether they were produced by researchers. In particular, there was more use than production of zipped and online data sets. The largest number of researchers shared data only with researchers in their own team. There were differences between disciplines. The social sciences had most concerns about misinterpretation of data (and the sciences least: overall, the science researchers had least concerns about sharing data.) According to the responses, universities in Bratislava mostly don't have data management plans, or consistent guidelines for metadata etc.

From this, Steinerova concluded that people mostly shared data with their own team and collaborators, and have concerns about misuse and misinterpretation. The research data practice was intuitive and contextualised by the research discipline. In terms of implications for library and information science education, this pointed up the need for courses in Research Data Management, the need for doctoral students to have training in research data management, and the need for education in core data processes, data visualisation etc. Steinerova also emphasised the need to see the data infrastructures as ecosystems, taking into account data use, information behaviour and re-use behaviour. She saw data librarianship as a new role for librarians. At the conclusion of the session Steinerova presented a model of the interactive academic library (see photo) - the bubbles are services from the library.
There were some interesting conversations afterwards about the value of sharing data, but also the need, ethically, to protect research participants, in qualitative research, but also in quantitative research where in fact people might be identifiable by triangulating the data.

European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014: 1st report

I am attending the European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. Despite the title, the focus is mainly on media literacy, influenced by the fact that this is also the final conference for the EMEDUS project (http://www.eumedus.com). However it also reflects the fact that media literacy has more of a hold on national and international agenda (something that information literacy people have to take action on...)

In the session at the moment ("Formal Education: New Curriculum"), the focus is on Media Literacy in the curriculum, with contributions from different countries. Firstly Sara Pareira (University of Minho, Portugal) has highlighted the lack of ML in the curriculum in Portugal, hwoever now there are being introduced ML guidelines for several levels of education. Other important documents include the Braga Manifesto on Media Literacy (2011) and National Educational Council's (2011) recommendations for ML. However these have had relatively little impact, and more is expected of the new Guidelines.
Next, Lazslo Hartai (Hungarian Institute of Educational Research and Development) has explained that media literacy only becomes a separate option at upper secondary level (before that it was, I think, seen to be part of visual literacy).

Unfortunately I have just lost some of my blogging (connection problem, grrr), but I will try to remember what I blogged! Carmen Campos (Spain) stressed the importance of having media literacy as a subject, but also intergrated into the curriculum transversally, and she saw teacher education as vitally important (teachers being supported to teach all forms of literacy). Ditemar Schipek (Austria) felt that ML was well intergrated in Austrian school curricula. He cited the work of the Austrian national library, broadcasters etc. in developing children's ML and also mentioned a conference on gaming aimed at young people. He identified "doing" as important - e.g. children learning how to be broadcasters. He also talked about ways of assessing whether schools are dealing adequately with ML (a "minimum standard"). Patrick Verniers (Belgium) pinpointed ways in which ML might be in the curriculum, but felt that at the moment it was rather reliant on the teacher's individual enthusiasm/ initiative. He proposed a framework for media literacy education (I took photos of those slides, so I may blog that later).

At the moment in the session, the speakers are coming forward again to consider ML education in Europe, as opposed to in their specific country. Interestingly, some speakers see things as having got a worse, posibly due to the Bologna Process of harmonisation of education in Europe. Frequent themes are the lack of requirements for media literacy education as part of teacher education, and the lack of a clear policy framework. Laszlo Hartai mentioned the lack of substantial data on what is going on in classrooms around Europe and some confusion around the concepts of ML, information literacy and digital literacy. The contribution from Natasa Slavikova (Slovakia) included mentioning translating the UNESCO MIL curriculum for teachers into Slovak.