Information Literacy in Sri Lanka

Earlier this month the International Conference in Information Science - ICIS 2015 was held at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, together with a workshop on instructional pedagogy. The conference included some papers on information literacy; there are informative abstracts in the abstract book that can be downloaded from here: http://nilis.cmb.ac.lk/index.php/19-events/symposiums/122-nilis-conference-2015
Also, the State Minister of City Planning and Water Supply, Dr. Sudarshanie Fernandopulle, commented on the need for information literacy; as is picked up by this news story.
Photo by Sheila Webber: yet more beech leaves.

New articles: Reference Services Review

Reference Services Review (priced journal) has, as usual, a good quota of information literacy articles in its latest issue (Volume 42 issue 2). Abstracts (plus articles for those with subscriptions) are at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0090-7324. They include:
- Teaching metaliteracy: a new paradigm in action: Donna Witek, Teresa Grettano
- Stages of instruction: theatre, pedagogy and information literacy: Julia Furay
- Authentic engagement: assessing the effects of authenticity on student engagement and information literacy in academic library instruction: Kevin Michael Klipfel
- Overcoming the barriers to information literacy programs: CALM Lab for English majors at Dickinson College: Christine Bombaro
- Evidence-based instruction integration: a syllabus analysis project: Katherine Boss, Emily Drabinski
- Crowdsourcing the curriculum: information literacy instruction in first-year writing: Jamie White-Farnham, Carolyn Caffrey Gardner
- Psychology guides and information literacy: the current landscape and a proposed framework for standards-based development: Kimberly Pendell, Annie R. Armstrong
- Using transaction log analysis to assess student search behavior in the library instruction classroom: Susan Avery, Daniel G. Tracy
- An assessment of academic librarians' instructional performance in Sri Lanka: a survey: Lalith Wickramanayake
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hydrangea, June 2014

Using the Empowering 8 infolit model

The Annals of Library Information Studies, one of India's oldest peer reviewed library journals has been made open access from its first issue in 1954. This is interesting historically because of substantial work done earlier in the 20th Century, notably by Ranganathan, but also there are recent articles relevant to information literacy. You can search the archive using free text or index terms: there is an index term information literacy but it looks like they only started using it in 2013, so free text is a better idea. The latest article I found was an interesting one on using the Sri Lankan "Empowering 8" Information Literacy model

Wijetunge, Pradeepa; Manatunge, Kalpana (2014) Empowering 8 in practice: information literacy programme for law undergraduates revisited. Annals of Library Information Studies, 61 (4), 24-32.
The open access database of the journal is at http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/66
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom reflected in my bedroom window, April 2014

IFLA #wlic2012 E-Learning in Information Management Education in Sri Lanka: discussion of the impact of information literacy

Liveblogging at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland. By the way, the connection failed during Li Wang's talk (actually it came and went in this talk too), so I'll blog that later. Next is E-Learning in Information Management Education in Sri Lanka: discussion of the impact of information literacy, presented by Namali Suraweera (pictured), presenting her PhD research.
She started by identifying current issues and barriers in IM education, a subject offered in three colleges, all in Colombo. The fact that they are all in the capital means that there is a problem about students physically attending, plus a lack of equal services to part timelearners.
The investigation was a case study using the Hutter-Hennink qualitative research cycle (I think, as outlined in this book http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/Book229185). Data was gathered through interviews, documents and focus groups and coded thematically. Findings included that:
- Information workers as learners are not familiar with student-centred education and found it difficult to navigate e-learning systems and other computer-based study tools. They lacked information literacy and a sense of autonomous learning.
- Secondly, the study found that the academics themselves were not familiar with constructivist approaches, as well as lacking information literacy. There is no incentive to develop IL at the school level, because of the transmissive approach of teaching. This lack of student-led approach in education is perceived as a definite barrier to development of effective e-learning programmes.
- Thirdly, there is little partnership between librarians and academics. The librarians themselves need to learn how to teach, as well.
The conclusions include that lack of staff awareness about information skills, lack of understanding about constructivist pedagogy and lack of training opportunities; learning theories, pedagogy and e-learning are not yet incorporated into Information Management education in Sri Lanka.

Therefore recommendations include a need to update IM curricula and generally increase awareness of constructivist and e-learning pedagogies in teachers.

Full paper at: E-Learning in Information Management Education in Sri Lanka: discussion of the impact of information literacy NAMALI SURAWEERA, CHERN L. LIEW and JOCELYN CRANEFIELD (School of Information Management, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand)

Empowering 8

The Society for the Advancement of Library and Information Science (SALIS), in collaboration with UNESCO and B.S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Engineering College, organized the International Conference on Knowledge Networking in ICT Era 22-24 January 2009 in Chennai, India. It included a special session on information and media literacy, and several presentations have been put together in one pdf, plus some short papers at the end, in particular focusing ion india and information /media literacy. The web address is: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/
28265/12341778449special_session_presentations.pdf/
special_session_presentations.pdf
An information literacy framework that I was reminded about was the Empowering 8 framework. This was developed through workshops in Sri Lanka and India in 2004/5. The 8 elements are: Identify, explore, select, organise, create, present, assess, apply. Empowering 8 is mentioned also in the following:

Wijetunge, P. and Alahakoon, U. (2005) "Empowering 8: the Information Literacy model developed in Sri Lanka to underpin changing education paradigms of Sri Lanka." Sri Lanka Journal of Librarianship & Information Management, 1 (1), 31-41. http://www.cmb.ac.lk/academic/
institutes/nilis/reports/InformationLiteracy.pdf

Wijetunge, P. (2008) "Improving Information Skills of the Postgraduate Students of NILIS University of Colombo: A Case Study." DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 28 (2), 18-27. (NILIS was set up to train teacher-librarians) http://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/
index.php/djlit/article/viewFile/273/180

Seneviratne, W. (2007) "Framework to measure Community Information Literacy among rural citizens in Sri Lanka: building of a CIL Model." Sri Lankan Journal of Librarianship and Information Management, 3 (1), 14-24.
http://www.cmb.ac.lk/academic/institutes/nilis/reports/wathmanel.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield, Feb 2009