New articles: Infolit and politics postgraduates; Sensory knowledge

The latest issue of Learning and Teaching (vol 19 issue 1) includes (open access): 
- Atkinson, D. & Thornton, S. (2026). Information literacy in the postgraduate Politics and International Relations classroom. Learning & Teaching, 19(1). 108-126. https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2026.190106 
A survey was administered to taught postgraduate (PGT) students studying Politics at a British and and Austrian univerity (this included students from other countries as well). In the conclusion the authors note limitations of the study, but say that "the main finding of this research is unambiguous: namely that, unless the students surveyed here were wholly unrepresentative of the wider population, we simply cannot assume that all – even most – PGT students can confidently manage, critically engage with, and use ethically any sources of information they might encounter. Where comparison with undergraduate students was possible, PGT students surveyed did generally suggest higher levels of information literacy but not by an overwhelming degree, and in some aspects – including awareness of any previous information literacy training – there was barely any difference at all. If this finding proves not to be a one-off, then this discovery has important implications for the ability (or not) of PGT students to deal with information in a sufficiently sophisticated manner to do well in their academic studies, particularly in a discipline such as Politics and International Relations. This conclusion would be striking enough in a world in which generative AI tools were not liberally available. That we now do live in such an environment only makes this finding even more concerning. As the authors argued even before this new information revolution kicked off, the discipline really does need to wake up and start to take information literacy seriously."

- Lane, K., Welch, C. & Miller, A. (2026). Music in the city : Teaching and learning through the senses. Learning & Teaching, 19(1). 108-126. https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2026.190102 (This discusses sensory knowledge) 
Photo by Sheila Webber: found allium seed head, July 2026

#LILAC25 first keynote: Dr Stephen Thornton - Light at the end of the tunnel? Twenty Years of Information Literacy in the Politics Classroom

This is Pam McKinney blogging the keynote focused on Stephen's 20-year journey investigating information literacy in the context of his teaching in politics. In the early 2000s, Stephen was working as a politics lecturer and noticed that students weren't just using material from the reading list but were going "off-piste" with their information sources. However often the sources used weren't very suitable, they were poor quality sources found on the internet. He was introduced to the concept of information literacy and recognised the value of this for both himself and his students. He started including some information literacy teaching in his modules, supported by the university librarians. This demonstrated the value of partnership working between academics and librarians to develop students' information literacy. The SCONUL Seven Pillars model informed the development of assessed tasks to support information literacy e.g. asking students to reflect on the process of writing their essays. However, some students had negative feedback about these assessments and found this aspect of their assessment tedious.

Stephen used a questionnaire with first-year students to try to evaluate their information literacy, including questions on how students assessed the quality of their sources. However, the students didn't really show any improvement between 2009 and 2017, which was disheartening, and brought into question some of the promises made about the value of information literacy development. The paradox is that the more complex and sophisticated information literacy becomes as a concept, the more unlikely it is to be used by academics in the classroom. Stephen was disheartened and was considering ceasing his information literacy work. 

Then he developed a partnership with a colleague, Doug Atkinson, who specialised in quantitative research and tried to establish a link between advanced levels of information literacy and better academic performance. They conducted a citation analysis of student work and established that more high-quality citations in an essay lead to higher grades, e,g. each high-quality journal article cited equalled 1 extra mark, if a government policy paper was cited, that led to a 2 mark increase. They distributed a questionnaire to politics lecturers and discovered that less than half of the respondents included and explicit information literacy education in their classrooms, and only 27% had invited a librarian to contribute. Research with postgraduate politics students has revealed that only a minority (36.1%) claimed that they had had any information literacy training, and emulation of "professors" is a successful information strategy. Wikipedia was a popular source for students, but they knew that their lecturers didn't like them to cite it as a source in their work.

There are signs from the political science pedagogical literature that there is increasing recognition of the value of information literacy development, some of it co-authored with librarians. Most of this literature is published in the United States. The rise of the use of Generative AI has scared academics, and perhaps provides a window of opportunity for librarians to promote information literacy teaching.

Photo by Pam McKinney: Exhibition banner at the Cardiff Museum

Recent articles: Faculty attitudes; Librarians' experiences of teaching; Generative AI; Curriculum mapping in political science

Recent articles from priced journal portal: Libraries and the Academy include:
- Baer, A. (2024). Academic Instruction Librarians' Conceptions of Teacher Agency and Affective Orientations toward the Concept. portal: Libraries and the Academy 24(1), 105-135. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2024.a916992 " Participants generally expressed positive affect when they felt they were independently in control of their teaching (individual agency), or when they described reciprocal and collaborative relationships with faculty (potentially collective agency). Participants expressed negative affect about experiences of lacking teacher agency. Almost all participants expressed 1) a desire to experience meaning and purpose in teaching and 2) a sensitivity to the highly relational nature of librarians' instructional work."
- Stonebraker, I., & LeMire, S. (2023). Requesting Librarian-Led Information Literacy Support: Instructor Approaches, Experiences, and Attitudes. portal: Libraries and the Academy 23(4), 843-862. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2023.a908704 " Librarians at two large institutions surveyed 29 instructors and then interviewed 11 about their experiences working with librarians, their motivations for involving librarians in their courses, and their goals for including information literacy instruction. The study found that instructors had many different levels of experience with the library. Motivations for inviting librarians to their classes included creating a support network and sharing librarian expertise with students."
- Henson, B. (2023). Using Curriculum Mapping to Understand Information Literacy in Political Science Curricula. portal: Libraries and the Academy 23(4), 717-744. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2023.a908699 - Hurrell, C., Beatty, S., Murphy, J.E., Cramer, D., Lee, J., & McClurg, C. (2024). Learning and Teaching about Scholarly Communication: Findings from Graduate Students and Mentors. portal: Libraries and the Academy 24(1), 83-104. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2024.a916991
- Miller, R.E. (2024). Pandora's Can of Worms: A Year of Generative AI in Higher Education. portal: Libraries and the Academy 24(1), 21-34. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2024.a916988 "... this article reports on the experience of learning about generative AI at one university. This article considers ways that educators may use AI tools and reasons to resist adopting generative AI tools, situating uses on a spectrum of acceptability."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Trees in the botanic gardens January 2024

Information literacy/ confirmation bias

A blog post on the UK academic/scholarship blog The Conversation, authored by a political science Professor based in Canada, identifies the need for information literacy:
Wittebols, J. (2023, January 15). Information literacy courses can help students tackle confirmation bias and misinformation [blog post]. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/information-literacy-courses-can-help-students-tackle-confirmation-bias-and-misinformation-197489
Also some interesting discussion in the comments

New articles: Fact checking; #fakenews; trust and government information; civic engagement

The latest issue of proced journal Reference Services Review (vol 48 Issue 1) focuses on Academic Libraries and the 45th President [of the USA i.e. Donald Trump]. The call for proposals solicited so many articles that some will be featured in the next issue of RSR. A lot of the articles are, unsurprisingly, related to information literacy. The issue includes:
- The art of the real: fact checking as information literacy instruction by Jamie M. Addy
- The proof is in the process: Fostering student trust in government information by examining its creation by Amanda B. Albert, Jamie L. Emery, Rebecca C. Hyde
- Researching Bears Ears: reference practice for civic engagement by Amy Brunvand
- Fake or for real? A fake news workshop by Katherine Hanz, Emily Sarah Kingsland
- De-biasing on university campuses in the age of misinformation by Sebastian Krutkowski, Sarah Taylor-Harman, Kat Gupta
- A turbulent time: government sources post-2016 presidential election by Alicia Kubas
- Student trauma experiences, library instruction and existence under the 45th by Michelle Gohr, Vitalina A. Nova
- Conflicting authority: Using the Trump administration’s responses to the EPA climate assessment report to teach information literacy by Katherine Lynch, Shaunna Hunter
Go to https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0090-7324/vol/48/iss/1
Photo byy Sheila Webber: copper beech, April 2020

Free access to journal Learning and Teaching until Jan 31; Politics students' information literacy

There is free access to the journal Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences (LATISS) until 31 January 2020. You need to go to https://www.berghahnjournals.com/redeem and then register, and when it asks you for a redemption code you enter Education20 This is apparently in recognition of International Day of Education on January 24. The code does not give you access to any other Berghahn journals

I would highlight in particular: Thornton, S. (2019). A longitudinal comparison of information literacy in students starting Politics degrees. Learning and Teaching, 12(2), 89-111. https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2019.120206
"This article presents a longitudinal study of a survey used to expose the information literacy levels of two groups of firstyear Politics/IR students at a British university and, using the logic of ‘most similar design’, make informed inferences about the level of students’ information literacy on coming into tertiary education." Thornton compares results from a 2017 study with results from a very similar study carried out in 2009. He notes at the end "Though not part of the longitudinal comparison, the student responses to the new questions regarding social media and preferred website sources suggest, if anything, the need for information literacy education at university will only increase. They suggest there are more potential pitfalls for those current students trying to navigate a safe path to knowledge (particularly political knowledge) than were faced by earlier cohorts. Furthermore, despite some of the more hyperbolic expectations of the ‘digital natives’ literature (Prensky 2001), it seems – as Paul Kirschner and Pedro De Bruyckere (2017) have argued – there is no reason to suggest those born into a digital world are any more naturally adapt at navigating it than previous generations."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Polling station, May 2018

New articles: politics; attention and literacy; Virtual reality; ethics in journal article publication

Thornton, S. (2019). A longitudinal comparison of information literacy in students starting Politics degrees. Learning and Teaching, 12(2), 89-111. [priced] https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2019.120206 there is an open access record at http://orca.cf.ac.uk/119315/ but it is still embargoed.

Hautala, J. et al. (2019). What information should I look for again? Attentional difficulties distracts reading of task assignments. Learning and Individual Differences, 75 (101775).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2019.101775 [open access]. Results included "Students with attentional difficulties made less likely look-backs on the relevant task-objective sentence." and "Probability of look-back on relevant sentence was associated with better performance in the informational tasks" (this seemed interesting to me in linking reading ability, attention, and ability to locate information on a page/screen).

Smith, F.A. (2019). Virtual reality in libraries is common sense. Library Hi Tech News. [early access: priced.] https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/LHTN-06-2019-0040/full/html

Routledge and COPE have released a research report Exploring publication ethics issues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences which is free if you give them your contact information. It investigated what scholarly journal editors perceived as ethical problems (there are plenty of them!). https://editorresources.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-ethics-for-editors/publication-ethics-challenges-cope-study/?
Photo by Sheila Webber: Wine in the Adelaide Hills, July 2019

Recent articles: Faculty librarian collaboration; political science students; IB of students with visual impairment

The latest issue (volume 42, no. 5) of The Journal of Academic Librarianship (priced publication) includes:
- Information Behaviour of Students Living With Visual Impairments in University Libraries: A Review of Related Literature (Pages 522-528) Stephen Mutula, Rebecca M. Majinge
- Characteristics of Articles Coauthored by Researchers and Practitioners in Library and Information Science Journals (Pages 535-541) Yu-Wei Chang
- Library Resources and Students' Learning Outcomes: Do All the Resources Have the Same Impact on Learning? (Pages 551-556) Maximiliano Montenegro, Paula Clasing, Nick Kelly, Carlos Gonzalez, Magdalena Jara, Rosa Alarcón, Augusto Sandoval, Elvira Saurina. (Pages 569-580) Bonnie L. Fong, Minglu Wang, Krista White, Roberta Tipton
- A Pragmatic and Flexible Approach to Information Literacy: Findings from a Three-Year Study of Faculty-Librarian Collaboration. (Pages 604-611) Barbara Junisbai, M. Sara Lowe, Natalie Tagge
- “I Have Ten Peer Reviewed Articles. Now What?” How Political Science Research Methods Textbooks Teach Students About Scholarly Context. (Pages 612-619) Erin Ackerman, Brian K. Arbour
Contents page at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00991333/42/5
Photo by Sheila Webber: rose and hips, September 2016

Information Literacy and the Scottish Independence Referendum (2014) #ecil2015

At the European Conference on Information Literacy 2015 last week Bill Johnston and I presented on Information Literacy and the Scottish Independence Referendum: in which, after a short introduction about autoethnography, Bill gave basic information about the referendum and gave some initial analysis which has grown out of his reflections and other material forming his autoethnography. Here's the presentation.

Information Literacy and the Scottish Independence Referendum: (2014): an autoethnographic exploration of political decision-making from Sheila Webber

IL in a politics class

Stephen Thornton, Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Cardiff is giving a paper at the Political Studies Association Annual Conference, at the University of Bath, being held 11-13 April 2007. He describes an information literacy intervention in a 3rd year politics module. One of the things he set out to test was whether you really did need to have a credit bearing element to make students take the material seriously, and, somewhat regretfully he decides that you do, to deter students from ducking out. Here is the pdf (an article)
Thornton, S. (2007) Pedagogy, politics and information literacy. http://www.psa.ac.uk/2007/pps/Thornton.pdf

Photo by Sheila Webber: Daffodils and birch trees outside Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, April 2007

Evaluation of information literacy questions

An interesting document on the Higher Education Academy site:

Stubbings, R. and V. Franklin (2006) Overview of the HEA Development Fund project: Critical evaluation of information literacy questions used to support the Department of Politics, International Relations & European Studies (PIRES). Information and Computer Science Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy.

"Loughborough University Library and the Department of Politics International Relations & European Studies (PIRES) wished to enhance second year student information literacy skills, so that they were able to produce good quality research dissertations. To achieve this, information literacy skills were embedded into the EUB608: Research Methods module and was delivered via the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), called Learn. The student understanding of the principles of information searching was assessed using computer aided assessment (CAA)." http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/
development-fund/final_reports/65ov_rstubbingsoverview.pdf.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Near Higham Hall, Lake District, Jan 2007, lightly photoshopped.