American i-skills

Thanks to the InformationLiteracy Land of Confusion (which has recently taken a new web address, http://www.information-literacy.net/ by the way, as Michael Lorenzen mentioned on a comment to the blog a week or so ago) for alerting me to the fact that the Educational Testing Service in the USA has changed the name of its ICT Literacy test to the iskills test. There is information about the test here. The press release on the ETS website has a quote about why they chose it " 'We selected iSkills because it is catchy, contemporary and relevant,' says Mary Ann Zaborowski, ETS’s Director of Product Management for the iSkills™ assessment. 'The new name is more spirited and better reflects the nature of this very different type of assessment . . . it’s interactive and really cutting edge.' " Hmmmm ... notice that little ™? I'm not a trademark expert, but I wonder if they can sustain that, given that JISC launched the i-skills initiative a couple of years ago (see http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/
publications/pub_sissdocs.aspx) Perhaps the "-" makes all the difference, but I think that might count as Prior Art in intellectual property terms.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Cherry tree, part of Sheffield University's Firth Court in the background, April 2007.

Researchers' use of academic libraries and their services

The Research Information Network has published an interesting study of Researchers' use of academic libraries and their services. The report is free on the RIN website. "This study was designed to provide an up-to-date and forward-looking view of how researchers interact with academic libraries in the UK. Harnessing empirical data and qualitative insights from over 2250 researchers and 300 librarians...(etc.)" The study was undertaken by Key Perspectives Ltd. One of the things the researchers were asked about was what they tthought th elibrarians' top roles would be in 5 years time - "Custodian" came top ;-( "Teach info skills" was 5th out of 13.

Brown, S. and Swan, A. (2007) Researchers' use of academic libraries and their services. Research Information Network. http://www.rin.ac.uk/researchers-use-libraries

Photo by Sheila Webber: inside the new Information Commons (this is looking down on the quiet study area - it also has groupwork rooms etc.) Within a few days (it opened on 10th April) it seems to have totally filled up with students.

A Blogosfera para os Profissionais de Informação

I have been invited by Julio Anjos to tele-present via WebEx at a Portuguese conference A Blogosfera para os Profissionais de Informação (The Blogosphere for the Information Professional) taking place on 29 May 2007. It is taking place at the Escola Superior de Estudos Industriais e de Gestão, Instituto Politécnico do Porto (School of Industrial Studies and Management, Oporto Polytechnic Institute). Very interesting-looking presentations, but then I wouldn't be able to understand most of them (not speaking Portuguese) even if I was attending physically rather than virtually. For those of you who can speak Portuguese, the information is at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcrb2tvr_6fr6jj7 As you will gather, my presentation will be in English, so I will report on my experience on or after the 29th!

Photo by Sheila Webber: The chestnut trees are starting to blossom in Weston Park.

Meeting on draft Scottish IL framework

Things move apace in Scotland. Following the announcement of the draft information literacy Framework for Scotland a couple of weeks ago, an open meeting has been scheduled on 23 May, 2pm to 4.30pm in A 313, Govan Mbeki Building, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, Scotland, to explain the Framework. A copy of the draft framework is available from http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/framework.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Blossom in Weston Park, Sheffield, April 2007 (includes falling white blossom)

Computers in Libraries

The Computers in Libraries (CIL) conference is taking place April 16 - 18, 2007 (i.e. NOW) in Arlington, USA. This year it's being blogged by lots and lots of people. There's a CIL wiki at http://cil2007.pbwiki.com/ which has links to the individual blogs, plus a link to Technorati, where (when I just looked) there were already 177 posts tagged for CIL2007 and 250 photos (including photos of other people blogging....)

I dunno ... perhaps this is all getting a bit much.

Photo by Sheila webber: Blossom, Weston Park Sheffield, April 2007.

UKeiG Annual Seminar

The UKeiG Annual Seminar is Riding the waves or treading water? Confronting the challenges of a volatile electronic environment, London, UK, Wednesday, 13 June 2007. "The aim of the day will be to highlight and discuss key pressure points on e-information professionals at a time when rapidly changing technologies are forcing us to make tough decisions on service prioritisation." Talks include: Information Literacy in the Age of Amateurs. Peter Godwin, Academic Liaison Librarian, University of Bedfordshire & 2 talks from Dr. Jan-Martin Lowendahl Research Director, Gartner: Digital natives hit the workplace: fodder for digital culture wars? and Emerging IT trends and tools to deal with hype, maturity and alignment. More info on the UKeiG website http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/
2007/june/ridingthewaves.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Limpsfield churchyard, April 2007.

American Competitiveness in the Internet Age

I don't think I picked up on a short report that emerged from the Information Literacy Summit held in the USA in October 2006. It has brief accounts of three panels on three themes: The Global challenge; The student and worker challenge; The public policy challenge. One of the interesting points I picked out was the contribution of Jan Magill (Director, Workforce and Education Programs Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce). "Magill described the Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to create a work readiness credential. It was developed to help evaluate entry-level workers’ ability to think critically and to use information effectively in decision-making." Unfortunately, when you go to the website of the initiative (launched in January) at http://www.workreadiness.com/, information use is not one of the nine skills which are highlighted. The National Work Readiness Credential is based on the Equipped for the Future (EFF) "applied learning standards" e.g. the 9 skills are a subset of 16 described by EFF. Information literacy isn't in these 16 skills either, but it does include Gather, Analyze, and Use Information as one of the 13 common activities for people in any of the three roles identified in the EFF material (which are citizen/community member, worker, and parent/family member). This all looks worth more investigation.

Another nice quote from the report in the Public Policy challenge section is from Patrick Callan (President, The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education) who "suggested that perhaps information literacy does not have a high profile because nobody is against it; it is, in fact, rather universally approved. However, its general acceptance means that there is no debate, no discussion, no conversation about information literacy—as there is with other more controversial curriculum issues. Callan remarked, 'Information literacy isn’t sexy; it’s just essential.' "

Perrault, A.M. and Roth, L. (2006) American Competitiveness in the Internet Age. National Forum on Information Literacy. http://www.infolitsummit.com/Documents/InfoLitSummit16Oct2007B.pdf

Photo by Sheila Webber: Cherry blossom, Greenwich park, April 2007.

Innovate

Volume 3 issue 4 of Innovate (April/May 2007), an American education journal, focuses on "the Net Generation". Articles include "an overview describing the learning styles and preferences of Net Generation learners", an article about teenagers' use of social networking online, a report of "a research project that analyzes the differences and similarities between traditional and nontraditional students in regards to comfort with technology and attitudes about learning", and a reflection on "how the Net Generation accesses, creates, and uses information". The issue is online at http://innovateonline.info/index.php .

Photo by Sheila Webber: Camellia, Greenwich Park, April 2007.

Nordic summer school on information Literacy

The Nordic summer school on information Literacy (Nordisk sommerskole om informasjonskompetanse) takes place in Iceland, at Reykholt, 11 – 15 June 2007. The course leaders are Jude Carroll, Ralph Catts and Christina Tovote. The details are in Swedish at http://landbunadur.is/landbunadur/
wglbh.nsf/key2/hhjn6yzm8x.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Limpsfield churchyard, April 2007.

Public library standards & resource for 9-18 learners

Some of this is rather Old News which I meant to post this some time ago. The new news is that new public library quality standards for public libraries in Scotland have been published. The document is:
Scottish Executive & Scottish Library and Information Council. (2007) Building on success: a public library quality improvement matrix for Scotland. SLIC. http://www.slainte.org.uk/files/
pdf/slic/plqim/plqim2.pdf
The "quality indicators" are: Access to information; Community and personal participation; Meeting readers’ needs; Learners’ experiences; Ethos and values; Organisation and use of resources and space; Leadership. Helping people develop information literacy is mentioned under "access".

The older news is that in January Learning and Teaching Scotland launched a resource for pupils aged 9-18. It contains learning objects, plus notes for teachers which includes pedagogical rationale underlying the materials. In fact this material was delivered to L&T Scotland a while ago, I think, as it is a project in which Bill Johnston was involved (there is a research report,
Information literacy and study skills: an overview of research for LT Scotland, from him and Tony Anderson, also from Strathclyde University, on the website). http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/informationliteracy/index.asp

Photo by Sheila Webber: Water feature, Sheffield Station, April 2007.

ANZIIL Symposium series 7 announced

ANZIIL Symposium Series Seven has the theme Why we do what we do: theory and action, and it takes place in Hobart (Tasmania) Monday 29 - Tuesday 30 October 2007 "Symposium 7 continues ANZIIL's popular series of practical, case study driven symposia on information literacy. The Hobart Symposium will provide a theoretic basis for librarians to think about and apply in teaching programs, collaboration for curriculum development, and other services that develop information literacy in tertiary education." More details at http://www.anziil.org/index.htm later in the month.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Hoop pine at sunset, Yeppoon, Australia, June 2004.

500 postings

This makes 500 postings on this new blog, which started in September 2005. Sometime I will get round to adding some of the more durable postings from the old Information Literacy blog (April 2003-May 2005).

You may have noticed that I started using tags a while ago. I have done a little bit of retrospective indexing, but I haven't gone right back. When I've done that I will change the template and add a list of tags into the side panel. As you may realsise, you can already click on a tag at the foot of the entry and retrieve any of my postings with that tag (e.g. click on the tag weblogs & you get all the postings which have some connection with blogs). Obviously you can also search for any word in the text of the blog using the search function at the top left of the page.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Water feature, Sheffield Station, April 2007.

School libraries snippets

Some interesting thoughts evidently came up at the School Library Journal Summit that was held last November in the USA: here is the wiki, which includes a link to a page outside the wiki with the presentations: http://sljsummit.pbwiki.com/

The 2007 IASL (International Association of School Librarianship) Conference is being held in Taipei, Taiwan, 16-20 July 2007. The theme is Cyberspace, D-world, E-learning: Giving Libraries and Schools the Cutting Edge. See http://www.iasl-slo.org/conference2007.html

Something I hadn't come across: The Minnesota Educational Media Organisation Recommended Standards for Information and Technology Literacy (in schools): it also has other material on its website http://www.memoweb.org/index.html

Unrelated Easter Bunny-type P.S.: I think Miffy is very cute. The National Library of Scotland has just launchded an exhibition on to celebrate 50 years of Miffy: http://www.nls.uk/news/miffy_exhibition.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Live trees and chopped tree, Weston Park, Sheffield, April 2007.

National Information Literacy Framework Scotland

John Crawford announced last week that the first draft of the National Information Literacy Framework Scotland is available from http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/
framework.html

"This draft framework is being developed with secondary and tertiary partners using SCQF (Scottish Credit Qualification Framework) aims, structure and key features and existing frameworks and models. The Framework lists information literacy skill levels for all SCQF levels from access (School) through to PhD. We are also looking at applying it to the workplace and the wider community. There is an introduction explaining what information literacy is and how it can be used. You can also look at the skills appropriate to each level. An evaluation exercise of the draft framework is being carried out which involves the project partners from different sectors, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals' Information Literacy group, relevant professional bodies and email discussion lists. Project partners will pilot the draft framework in the 2007/2008 academic year; this piloting will provide exemplars which will be included in the framework of how the skills, knowledge and understanding at different levels can be mapped into specific subjects or course design. Comments and expressions of interest will be welcome."

Photo by Sheila Webber: Blossom in Weston Park, Sheffield, April 2007.

More blog posts on IL

Moira Bent has a posting about the seminar on IL which she organised on Monday at Newcastle, which featured Christine Bruce talking about her Six Frames for Information Literacy education and some interesting speakers. She has also posted about the seminar I ran last Friday (am I engaged in incestuous blogging?) and LILAC, on her blog.
This post is also an excuse for this photo of one of my windows, a few minutes ago, just after being washed. We only get our windows washed every few years so I tend to get over-excited about it. It is the first time they have been washed since I moved down the corridor to this nicer office. Yay, Spring light!

Other blogs on the LILAC conference

Looking around at other blogs, Pam McKinney did a good posting on the Inquiry Based Learning blog, about Ross Todd's keynote talk (http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=160), and here is a post about the BRUM project's presentation http://brumproject.blogspot.com/
2007/03/brum-at-lilac.html. There are two postings from Jane Secker, here and here, on the Social Software, libraries & distance learners blog. This is also a good point to introduce Peter Godwin's blog Information Literacy meets Web 2.0, at http://infolitweb.blogspot.com/. Finally, a posting from from the University of Durham Academic Support Team.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Wallflowers, outside Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, April 2007.

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

Visitors from University of Konstanz

On Monday I had a visit from two German researchers, Oliver Kohl-Frey (Information Literacy Coordinator, left) and Bernd Schmid-Ruhe (Project Manager, right) (they are pictured on West Street, just by the Department, about to catch a taxi). They are involved in an interesting series of projects at the University of Konstanz (see photo of brochures below). The first one was looking at information literacy education for undergraduates. The second one, that they are involved in at the moment, is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and focuses on those above the undergraduate level.

It is called Informationskompetenz II (or "Information Literacy 2"), with the subtitle Joint Project on Comparative Research in Information Literacy for advanced students and staff. They were asking for my views on various aspects of information literacy. I must still be dazed from last week - I felt afterwards I hadn't asked them enough about their project.

However, there is a lot of information about the project (note: in German) at http://www.ub.uni-konstanz.de/bibliothek/projekte/informationskompetenz.html. It includes material for several modules, available under a creative commons licence, namely:

Module 1: Die Welt der wissenschaftlichen Information (the world of scholarly information)
Module 2: Suchstrategie und erste Recherchen (search strategies and first searches)
Module 3-5: Bibliographien und Datenbanken I-III (bibliographies and databases)
Module 6: Internet
Module 7: Literaturverwaltung und eigenes Publizieren (managing your information, and publishing your own work)
Plus there is a section with information that is relevant across several modules, and documents that give overviews of all the material (e.g. an outline that identifies learning outcomes, materials and activities over all the modules).

UK web focus

I've just had an invite from Brian Kelly to be the next guest blogger (on May 1st) on his UK Web Focus blog: looking forward to this! His inaugural guest was Roddy MacLeod, and that was an interesting post, posing some provocative questions about UK library bloggers and there were a lot of good comments too. Hmmm .... perhaps I should do something like that too (I mean, have guest bloggers, not plagiarise Roddy's posting) imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Brian's blog is at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

Departmental research seminar

Last Friday (30th March) Dr Christine Bruce (Associate Professor, Faculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology, Australia) kindly agreed to give a research seminar in the morning, and to be one of the speakers at a research event in the afternoon. That's her (right) with me (left): I forgot to take any photos during the day, so it was left until after the meal on Friday evening (thus my glazed expression).

I had invited people particularly concerned with IL research at Sheffield to the morning event (e.g. students & staff doing IL projects and dissertations, and members of the CILASS Information Literacy Network). Participants had posed questions in advance and Christine responded with her thoughts and stimulated discussion around the questions. These included questions about Web 2.0 and information literacy, developing pedagogies for information literacy, and the issue of whether you can call information literacy "information literacy" in the workplace.

The afternoon was a free event, open to anyone, and there were about 30 people there, researchers, students and librarians. Christine talked about Information literacy: models from research. She discussed the nature and agenda for information literacy research, and give an insight into the models which have emerged from research by staff and students at Queensland University of Technology (see previous post). Then Professor Nigel Ford and I talked about Information Literacy research in the Department of Information Studies, and the UK research agenda. Here is the presentation powerpoint in pdf form: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/30-3-2007-webber-ford.pdf

After a refreshment break, Bill Johnston (Senior Lecturer, Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement, University of Strathclyde, Scotland) and I talked about Conceptions of information literacy of UK Chemistry and English academics. This presentation was based on research findings from the Arts & Humanities Research Council project “UK academics’ conceptions of, and pedagogy for, information literacy”. Here is the presentation powerpoint in pdf form: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/30-3-2007-webber-johnston.pdf. Finally, Nigel Ford and Andrew Madden had a conversation around research findings from the Arts & Humanities Research Council project Understanding the dynamics of information seeking: analysing searchers' strategic changes over time, funded February 2005-July 2007.

I felt rather zonked by the end of the day, since I was the prime organiser (with assisstance from Phussadee Dokphrom, one of my PhD students). However, I intend to follow it up with some more events focusing on IL and information behaviour, as there is a lot going on in this area here.

Christine Bruce at LILAC

Obviously I've got some catching up to do, blogging a couple more of the LILAC sessions from last week. Christine Bruce (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) was one of the keynote speakers. She talked inspiringly about the transformational value of information literacy, and she also discussed some of the models generated through research, including her famous "seven faces" model. Here are some links that cover some of the material she mentioned.

Concise description of the Seven Faces, on her website: Seven faces of information literacy in higher education (and obviously in lots of other publications too, including her book: Bruce, C. (1997). The Seven Faces of Information Literacy. Adelaide: Auslib Press.).

Bruce, C and Edwards, S L and Lupton, M (2006) "Six Frames for Information literacy Education." Italics 5 (1). http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5-1/pdf/sixframes_final%20_1_.pdf

Hughes, H. (2006) "Responses and influences: a model of online information use for learning." Information research, 12 (1). http://informationr.net/ir/12-1/paper279.html (Reflective online information use model, and Model of responses and influences in online information use for learning)

Middleton, M., Bruce, C., Partridge, H. and Edwards, S. (2006) "Developing a research culture and scholarship plan in information studies," in Lloyd, A.e and Pymm, B. (Eds.) Research Applications in Information and Library Studies Seminar: RAILS 2. 11-22. Charles Sturt University Centre for Information Studies, Wagga Wagga, NSW. Eprint available at http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00002092/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Dusk approaching the City Business District, Brisbane, Australia, July 2006.

My presentation at LILAC on the IL research literature

The last few days have been hectic, as I had to dash back from the LILAC conference on Wednesday to a rather heavyweight faculty learning and teaching committee meeting. Then the next day (29th) Dr Christine Bruce arrived in Sheffield from LILAC and Bill Johnston arrived from the his home University, Strathclyde (in Glasgow). On Thursday afternoon, Christine, Bill and I had some good conversations about information literacy, and the evening we were joined by some colleagues here (plus Ruben Toledano, who is pursuing a PhD on an information literacy theme at Robert Gordon University under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Williams; I am his external supervisor).

Anyway, to return to last Tuesday at LILAC: I gave a presentation co-authored with Bill Johnston, Reviewing the information literacy literature, highlighting issues emerging from a review of the research literature funded by the Higher Education Academy. In particular we talked about the research evidence on collaboration between librarians and academics, and also identified some issues in the research literature concerning the impact of information literacy. The powerpoint (in pdf form) is here: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/lilac-2007-webber.pdf. We identified that, although there are many articles which mention collaboration and say how essential it is, there are not many which actually investigate the collaboration itself. We note some ways in which people could explore this topic. We also discussed some of the issues with articles that look at "impact", including the over-emphasis on quantitative approaches.

Gateways to learning

Today at the LILAC conference (pic. of poster gallery on the right - with trademark LILAC balloons) I attended a session on the Gateways to learning project. This is part-funded by the European Social Fund, and involves 5 public libraries and 3 academic libraries in South East Wales. They aim to widen participation in learning through informal learning, which can be a bridge to formal learning. They target any one 16+ years old who is economically inactive e.g. unemployed. There had been a lote of redundancies in that part of Wales (e.g. from the Corus steel plant) and following on from this one of the things that was investigated by th eWelsh Executive was reasons for not participating in learning. This included reasons like lack of confidence and feeling intimidated by formal educational establishments, so libraries' role came to the fore in proposals.

There are people employed by the project who work one-to-one with learners (there have been 1500 of these information literacy taster sessions) and encourage the learners to work through little workbooks that enable them to compile evidence of acheivement in finding and using information to meet a real information need. If the learner completes it all successfully, they can then gain an Open College Network qualification. About 300 people have gone on to do this, sometimes going for the next level of qualification too, and/or investigating more formal learning options. Some of these people have previously had no educational qualifications.

One issue is that the project ends later this year, so that regular library staff are having to plan how they will continue this work, which is obviously meeting a need. I was very interested to hear about this project, as I get asked about public/academic library cooperation (the academic libraries focus on access students in particular, I was told, by the way). Iheard about it (and might have blogged too) when it started up, but hadn't followed its progress. The website is at http://www.gatewaystolearning.com/

LILAC conference

A brief blogging moment after the sessions at the LILAC (information literacy) conference, before the conference dinner. I was just in a session from Cathie Jackson (Senior Consultant, Information Literacy and Subject Librarian, Law, at Cardiff Univeristy). She was talking about the interactive subject guide they created on the Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities. It is available at http://ilrb.cardiff.ac.uk/oscola/ and it (and each diagram and interactive exercise, separately) is also available in JORUM, a free online repository for tertiary education: http://www.jorum.ac.uk/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Scarf and china , March 2007.

Writing for publication

Writing for publication was the title of a one-hour workshop that I facilitated at the LILAC (information literacy) conference in Manchester , UK, today. It was for people who wanted to write and publish more. I set up a little wiki, using pbwiki, which houses the handouts and now also a record of points that people made at the session (my first wiki! - pictured here). I'm not sure if the wiki will continue (there will probably be a better way of "building community"), but I gave out the password so that people at LILAC could edit it if they wanted. This is where the wiki is: http://librarywriting.pbwiki.com/

EBLIP

Volume 2 issue 1 of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice is available free at http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/
index.php/EBLip

Photo by Sheila Webber: Weston Park, Sheffield, March 2007.

Survey of Web 2.0 use

Published a few days ago. It says "This document deliberately contains very little analysis of the data as I’m interested to hear what other interpret from the charts" - perhaps they will be willing to share the JISC grant money too ;-))

White, D. (2007) Results of the ‘Online Tool Use Survey’ undertaken by the JISC funded SPIRE project. University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education
http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/
2007/03/jisc_spire_surveyresults.pdf

Technology to Teach Information Literacy

There is a call for chapters for a book called Using Technology to Teach Information Literacy, to be published in early 2008 by Neal-Schuman. They want "chapters co-authored by librarian and faculty teams that applied technology to teach information literacy. We are especially interested in novel approaches to information literacy and technology instruction". Please send any questions, and proposals of 1-2 pages to the editor, Tom Mackey, at mackey@albany.edu Proposals must arrive by April 16, 2007. First drafts of the completed chapters (25-30 pages) will be due on July 1, 2007. http://www.albany.edu/~mackey

The Global Challenge of Information Literacy

Articles related to any aspect of information literacy are invited for Vol. 32, Number 1 (Winter 2008) of the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science (CJILS), for an issue on the theme The Global Challenge of Information Literacy . The deadline for submission is June 29, 2007. Complete manuscripts of approximately 5000 words should be sent to Heidi Julien, School of Library & Information Studies, University of Alberta, 3-20 Rutherford South, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2J4. For manuscript guidelines please refer to the journal’s website at http://www.cais-acsi.ca/journal/guidelines.htm

Photo by Sheila Webber: St Anne's Knoll, Malvern, March 2007.

Shock of the social

My colleague Andrew Cox is giving a talk at the Shock of the social conference at the Said Business School, University of Oxford, on Thursday (22nd March 2007), coauthored with me, Philippa Levy and Peter Stordy. The presentation, The use of blogs in inquiry based learning, draws on our experience of teaching team and student blogging in our new core undergraduate module Inquiry in Information Management. You can find our teaching team blog at http://inquiry-in-im.group.shef.ac.uk/team/ (to see the presentation, select Shock paper final draft from the column on the right). You will see many ponderings from me on the blog, including a lengthy post Learning about my perspectives on blogging

Photo by Sheila Webber: Host of golden daffodils near the Star and Garter pub, Sheffield, March 2007. Had I taken it a few days later it would have been "host of golden daffodils with assorted beer and coke cans".

More educational conferences

Another virtual conference on 11-14 June 2007 : Innovating e-Learning 2007: Institutional Transformation and Supporting Lifelong Learning £50. More information here:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/
2007/06/online_conference07.aspx

Photo by Sheila Webber: Malvern, March 2007.

Finding development information

A free online publication is the Institute of Development Studies' A Good Place to Start - The IDS Knowledge Services guide to finding development information. It can be downloaded from http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/info/sliGoodGuide.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Blossom in Malvern, March 2007.

Publishing resources

The main web address for Charles Bailey's excellent resources on scholarly electronic publishing and open access is http://www.digital-scholarship.org/ He has been maintaining the publishing resource for years, over a decade I think, but some of the web addresses have changed.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Daffodils, Sheffield, March 2007.

IL article

An American news article provides varying views on information literacy and summarises some different approaches, including the Educational Testing Service test.
Foster, A. (2007) "Information Navigation 101." Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 March.
http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i27/27a03801.htm

Photo by Sheila Webber: view over Malvern, March 2007.

Embedding information literacy in the curriculum

The Yorkshire Universities Information Skills Group will be running a joint workshop with the CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group on Tuesday 22 May at the University of Sheffield, UK, Embedding information literacy in the curriculum. It is aimed at library staff who are just starting to teach information literacy, although may be of interest to more experienced staff. Includes: IL, what is it and why is it important? Debbi Boden and Ruth Stubbings; Why embed IL? - an academic's perspective, Aidan While, Director of Undergraduate Teaching in Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield; Does the subject make a difference? Sarah Taylor , Vic Grant, and Ellie Clement; A success story from the University of Leeds, Angela Newton.

Cost £35 plus £5.95 VAT (£30 + £5.25 VAT for CSG IL members). Details about travel to the venue are available from http://www.shef.ac.uk/visitors/mapsandtravel Contact Helen Harrington(h.harrington@imperial.ac.uk), with the following details: Your name: Institution name: Postal address: Email address: Addtional requirements, e.g.diet/access: Order number (if applicable) Queries to Lyn Parker (l.a.parker@sheffield.ac.uk) or Grace Hudson(g.l.hudson@bradford.ac.uk)

Photo by Sheila Webber: Worcestershire Beacon, looking to North Hill, Malvern, March 2007.

Change and challenge

A new book from Auslib Press is: Andretta, S. (Ed) Change and Challenge Information literacy for the 21st century. Adelaide: Auslib Press. ISBN 9 7809 8033 0106. The chapters are: Information literacy: the functional literacy for the 21st century: Susie Andretta
Three decades of information literacy: redefining the parameters: Sharon Markless and David Streatfield
Six frames for information literacy education: a conceptual framework for interpreting the relationship between theory and practice: Christine Bruce, Sylvia Edwards and Mandy Lupton
Models for reflection and learning: a culturally inclusive response to the information literacy imbalance: Hilary Hughes, Christine Bruce and Sylvia Edwards
Communicative competence in the information age: towards a critical pedagogy: Andrew Whitworth
Exploring the challenges of developing digital literacy in the context of special educational needs: Peter Williams and Andy Minnion
Does advocacy help to embed information literacy into the curriculum? A case study: Ruth Stubbings and Ginny Franklin
Facilitating information literacy teaching and learning in a Level 1 sport and exercise module by means of collaborative online and reflective learning: Greg Walton, Jamie Barker, Mark Hepworth and Derek Stephens
Go to Auslib Press for more details http://www.auslib.com.au/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Port Julia, near Adelaide, 2004.

16th Symposium BOBCATSSS 2008

Thanks to Chris Armstrong for information on the 2008 BOBCATSSS symposium taking place in Zadar, Croatia, January 28-30 2008. There is a call for papers, closing 15 May, and themes include: Information professionals in the information society; Information literacy (a holistic approach) ; Information ethics; Information behavior of different users groups. BOBCATSSS symposia are organised by students and particularly welcome student contributions. More information at http://www.bobcatsss2008.org/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Fish in Dubrovnik harbour, Croatia, May 2004.

User Education in the 21st Century

The British Business Schools' Librarians Group annual conference this year is User Education in the 21st Century. Speakers include Ruth Stubbings, Chris Powis and Peter Godwin. It takes place 27 - 29 June 2007 at the Marriott Hotel, Northampton, UK. Go to http://www.bbslg.org/conference.htm

Photo by Sheila Webber: Worcestershire Beacon, Malvern, March 2007.

Free information literacy event, Sheffield, 30 March

The Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, is holding a free half-day event on information literacy research, featuring speakers from The Department plus a visiting speaker: Dr Christine Bruce, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.
When Friday 30th March 2007. Registration from 1.15, programme starts at 1.40 and ends at 4.15.
Where Regent Court, Portobello Street, University of Sheffield
What Programme consists of: Introduction ( Professor Sheila Corrall, University of Sheffield); Guest keynote: Information literacy: models from research (Dr Christine Bruce); Information Literacy research in the Department of Information Studies, and the UK research agenda ( Sheila Webber and Nigel Ford); Conceptions of information literacy of UK Chemistry and English academics (Sheila Webber, University of Sheffield, and Bill Johnston, University of Strathclyde); Mining of search activity data to support information literacy (Professor Nigel Ford and Dr Andrew Madden, University of Sheffield). There will be opportunities for questions and discussion.
How much Free, but please register
How to register: Email Ms Phussadee Dokphrom at p.dokphrom@shef.ac.uk
More information at http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/march30.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Spring/winter, Weston Park, Sheffield, March 2007.

Educational conferences

1) International online conference sponsored by the REAP Project: Assessment design for learner responsibility taking place 29-31 May 2007. Keynote speakers include Mantz Yorke and David Boud. You can submit "a short reflective case study of an implementation, design or institutional strategy for assessment or feedback" by 28 March and registration for this virtual conference is free. Go to http://www.reap.ac.uk/eventsADLR.html for more info.
2) European LAMS Conference, 5th of July2007, University of Greenwich in London, UK. Call for papers is currently out, go to http://www.lamsfoundation.org/lams2007/

Italics special issue

I think I missed the Italics special issue in December 2006 (Volume 5 Issue 4) which had articles for the eLIT conference. These include Peter Godwin's "Information literacy in the age of amateurs: How Google and Web 2.0 affect librarians’ support of Information Literacy"; Anne Dickinson's "Transition to the next generation of e-learning: using mind mapping and accessible web pages as part of a university’s academic staff training"; Hesham Azmi's "Teaching Information Literacy Skills: A case study of the QUcore program in Qatar University"; and Ruth Hunn and Darien Rossiter's "Design and development of an online information literacy tutorial: evaluation and lessons learnt (so far) ." http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5iss4.htm

Photo by Sheila Webber: Owl fountain, Geneva, February 2007.

Training end users

Training end-users is an event from the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals. It is being held on 1 & 20 March 2007 in Birmingham, UK and 31 October & 15 November 2007 in London. More information from the CILIP website

Photo by Sheila Webber: St Anne's spring, Malvern, March 2007.

New article on our research

Yay, published at last, an article accepted for publication 14 months ago:

Boon, S., Johnston, B. and Webber, S. (2007) "A phenomenographic study of English faculty's conceptions of information literacy." Journal of documentation, 63 (2), 204-228.

Please contact me if you do not have access to JDoc and would like a copy. Here's the structured abstract:
"Purpose – The purpose of this research is to identify UK English academics' conceptions of information literacy and compare those conceptions with current information literacy standards and frameworks.
"Design/methodology/approach: Three year AHRB-funded study involving 80 academics interviewed throughout the UK and using the phenomenographic research method to discover variation in experience leading towards identification of qualitatively different conceptions of information literacy. Conceptions are then reviewed in light of previous research and current librarian-generated frameworks and standards.
"Findings – The findings identify UK English academics' conceptions of information literacy and show them to be both similar to and significantly different from conceptions described in previous research and librarian-generated frameworks and standards.
"Research limitations/implications – The research focuses on creating a conceptual snapshot-in-time for the 20 English academics taking part. The research implies that disciplinary differences in conception of information literacy are significant and suggests further research to assess disciplinary conceptual differences.
"Practical implications – Librarians working with English faculty on information literacy need to be aware of differences in conception between themselves and academics to work effectively. The paper also highlights the significance of information literacy in English faculty's teaching and research practices and this relevance suggests that information literacy should be integrated into course and curriculum design.
"Originality/value – The paper fills a major gap in literature on information literacy by focussing on conceptions of lecturers, thereby counterbalancing the abundance of work produced by librarians. The paper illustrates the complexity of English academics' conceptions of information literacy and informs academics' use and understanding of information literacy. "

Photo by Sheila Webber: Lac Leman, Geneva, February 2007.

Wikipedia

Jill/txt identified news about a politics module about the University of East Anglia where students are getting marks for editing and creating Wikipedia entries. I presume they must be downloading them and then working on them, since otherwise their work might have disappeared by the time it came to be marked. Interesting that this catches the headlines when the exercise itself is not that radical, but certainly it is a good exercise, as there are some very mediocre entries on Wikipedia (e.g.) in the information field, as well as on more sensitive topics.

BBC. (2007) "Students assessed with Wikipedia." BBC News, 6 March. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6422877.stm

Information literacy research

My Information Literacy Research module is running for the second year. It is a small class, eight students (from the MA Librarianship and MSc Information Management programmes), but I think that is OK for a specialist area like this. Last week one of last year's students, Rachel Adams (pictured right), came back to talk about her dissertation research, which was on information literacy needs in a public-sector legal department.

This week we are focusing on focus groups. Phussadee Dokphrom, one of my PhD students, will talk about the pilot focus groups she conducted recently at Silpakorn University, Thailand. The participants in her study were undergraduates and she was investigating their experiences of information literacy. Then we will carry out a focus group in class and reflect on how it went.

I'll mention a couple of items about focus groups:

Krueger, R.A. (no date: 2000?) Focus group interviewing. University of Minnesota. http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rkrueger/focus.html (Krueger is author of a book on the topic)

Walden, G. (2006) “Focus group interviewing in the library literature: a selective annotated bibliography 1996-2005.” Reference services review, 34 ( 2), 222–241.

Five Weeks to a Social Library

The Five Weeks to a Social Library course is drawing to a close. This is "the first free, grassroots, completely online course devoted to teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries". There are webcasts and links concerned with blogs, RSS & Social Bookmarking, wikis, Social Networking, Flickr and MMOGs, and "Selling Social Software". The course itself was limited in numbers of delegates, but the content is there free for anyone to use. My only problem at the moment is that I haven't got time to explore it properly, as there is lots of interesting stuff. The website is: http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Primroses near a path, Hellingly, Sussex, March 2007.

Information Online

The powerpoint presentations from the Australian Information Online 2007 conference (held January 30th to February 1st in Sydney, Australia) are available on their website:
which is here

Photo by Sheila Webber: Taronga zoo, Sydney, 2004.

Cyberspace, D-world, E-learning

The 2007 IASL (International Association of School Libraries) Conference will be held at National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan, 16-20 July. The theme is Cyberspace, D-world, E-learning: Giving Libraries and Schools the Cutting Edge. More info at http://www.iasl-slo.org/conference2007.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Hellingly, Sussex, March 2007.

IWR articles by me

I recently did a vanity search on the Information world review site and rediscovered articles I had written some time ago, mostly in my "business information" phase. They are all short-ish. In case anyone's interested:
Webber, S. (2001) "Getting what you pay for? Information world review, (168), 16-17. (For what it's worth this is the missing "grid on the facing page" referred to in the article).
Webber, S. (1998) “Lies, damned lies and surveys.” Information world review, (142) 1998, 37.

Webber, S. (1997) “The myth of the one stop shop.” Information world review, (131), 26.
Webber, S. (1997) “Pushing users over the edge.” Information world review, (126), 18.
Webber, S. (1997) “Dominance of English fading?” Information world review, (122), 20.
Webber, S. (1996) “Gaping holes in the net.” Information world review, (119), 20.

Information world review is the information industry magazine for the UK and the home page is at http://www.iwr.co.uk/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Chrysanths & orchids, Photoshop Fresco effect, Feb 2007.

Indian IL articles

Das, A.K. and Lal, B. (2006) Information literacy and public libraries in India. it is available here.

Ghosh, S.B. and Das, A.K. (2006) "Information literacy initiatives in India with special reference to emerging knowledge economy. " In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Literacy (ICIL 2006), June 14-15, 2006; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. https://drtc.isibang.ac.in/bitstream/1849/
289/1/InformationLiteracyICIL06_Paper_full.pdf

Rokib, M.A. [2005?] Information Literacy: A challenge for Bangladesh. Information Society Today. http://www.infosciencetoday.org/infoliteracybd.pdf

Shuva, N.Z. [2005?] Information Literacy: Bangladesh perspective. Information Society Today http://www.infosciencetoday.org/infolit.pdf

Photo by Sheila Webber: Geneva, dusk, February 2007.

Teaching information skills

PowerPoints are available for an event that took place on 7th February 2007 at the University of Northampton. The presentations were:

How does critical thinking fit into information literacy? Ruth Stubbings, Loughborough University

Perceptions of Information Literacy in the transition into Higher Education. Moira Bent, Newcastle University.

Selling coats in the Sahara: making information skills interesting? Chris Powis, The University of Northampton

So what does it mean? The impact of winning a National Teaching Fellowship. Jo Webb, De Montfort University.

Go to http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/events/displayevent.php?id=156

Photo by Sheila Webber: Geneva, Switzerland, February 2007.

Information Skills and Staff Development

Information Skills and Staff Development: Are you doing enough? is a workshop "for anyone involved in the development of staff at universities or colleges " offered by Netskills. Details at: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/
products/workshops/event/nhc-mar07-iskill2-r1/

New literacies sampler

From Dr Joolz' blog I learnt of a new book that can be downloaded complete:
Knobel, M and Lankshear, C. (Eds) (2007) A new literacies sampler. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. http://www.soe.jcu.edu.au/sampler/

I'll select a quote from right at the end from a chapter by Cynthia Lewis (n.b. I'm not pretending to have read everything before that yet!) "As these chapters so clearly depict, young people will continue to engage in a range of new literacies during their out-of-school hours [texting, my-space-ing etc.]. The question is whether we want to make school literacy more engaging for students and more meaningful to their present and future lives in a digitally mediated world. If so, then we need to understand the shifts in practices and epistemologies that have taken place and consider how these shifts should inform our teaching of reading and writing. This volume leads the way in helping us better understand these shifts in practice and the fears that attend them. Like the beginnings of writing research in the second half of the 20th century, this project is about the making of a discipline. As such it will involve re-envisioning what will count as literacy in our digitally mediated times and how our new conceptions should shape the teaching and learning of literacy in schools." (p236)

Photo by Sheila Webber: Decorated chocolate boxes in shop window, Geneva, Switzerland, February 2007 - all those little Panda eyes!.