Scottish Information Literacy Project

I see the LILAC 2010 draft programme for the parallel sessions are now posted on the LILAC 2010 website and that my presentation is first up in the parallel sessions for the conference.

Monday 29th March 2010

3pm – 3.45pm Begin at the beginning – Information Literacy in primary schools  - Christine Irving

4.25pm – 5.10pm  Employability and information literacy: a review of a training programme - John Crawford

Tuesday 30th March 2010

12.10 – 12.40 Developing an information literacy community of practice in Scotland - Lesley Thomson (the program has Thomson with an p)

12.45 – Scottish Government information literacy in the work place – measuring impact -Morag Higgison and Jenny Foreman

Will need to have a look and see who else is presenting plus presentations of interest.

Happy New Year to everyone.

First day back in the office and I’m busy working my way through my emails. It feels strange to be in the office without John but as he said in his last posting although he has retired from the university he is still going to be active.

Just before Christmas I received some good news, confirmation that my contract had been extended to the end of March 2010 to enable me to finish the work still to be done re Information Literacy, Primary 1, 2, and 3 teachers and the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland so that is what I will be concentrating on for the next 3 months. It also means that I will be able to attend / speak at LILAC in Limerick 29th – 31st March 2010.

In the meantime I’ll continue to blog and add to the IL framework but  will need to look for a new home for the National Information Literacy Framework (Scotland) as it is important that this continues and that a number of people will be able to contribute to it’s evolution. Will let you know of any developments in that area.

The 100th blog which is in itself quite a milestone as we have made 100 posts in a little over a year, and my last as Director of the Scottish Information Literacy Project. Following the latest reorganisation here, I will be taking early retirement under the University’s Voluntary Early Release scheme and will be leaving the University tomorrow 18th December. However Christine has a contract until the end of March as there is work for Learning and Teaching Scotland still to complete.

I have every intention of continuing to be active in information literacy. I have been asked to guest edit a special issue of Library Trends, and I will be contributing to a couple of planned books. I am also thinking about writing a book about information literacy in non formal educational situations with Christine. I have recently been elected to CILIP Council and will be keen to promote the ‘gospel of information’.

I would like to take this opportunity of thanking all the project partners, collaborators and supporters for the valuable contributions which they have made without which the Project could not have been so successful.

 I am very pleased to say that Lesley Thomson and Jenny Foreman are taking the Community of Practice forward as an online vehicle to keep everyone connected.

As a CILIP councillor I will be fairly visible but I am sure Christine can act as a contact point where necessary.

It has been a real pleasure working with Christine over the past five years during which she has built up an impressive reservoir of expertise especially in the education sector which I hope she will be able to continue to deploy after the Project ends.

 Best wishes to all our readers for a Happy and Restful Christmas and a prosperous and information literate New Year. 

John

A couple of weeks ago (November 30^th- 1st December) I attended an invitation only conference in Wales on the theme of ‘An Information Literacy Strategy for Wales?’  which was held at the attractively situated if geographically inconvenient University of Wales conference centre at Gregynog House.

All LIS sectors and Welsh education were represented and I was particularly impressed by the willingness of all sectors to work together and learn from each other.

The initial presentations were devoted to reviewing the various sectors and the familiar theme emerged of pockets of excellent good practice which were not being supported by an overarching strategy. I spoke about the work of the Scottish Information Literacy Project and the lessons which Wales can learn from it. After dinner there were sectoral discussion groups and I joined the public librarians and was impressed by their grasp of the role which public libraries can play in informal learning and the good work they are already doing.

The following morning Gareth Evans from Caerphilly Public Library spoke about the work he has been doing with the Open College network which could well be replicated elsewhere.

The conference concluded with a list of action points which included:

• The production of an overview/vision statement (urgent)
• The development of a strategy and Framework
• Making cross sectoral/partnership contacts including outside the LIS sector
• Developing a National Forum for Information Literacy in Wales
• Appointing an Information Literacy Development Officer for Wales
• Accrediting library staff information literacy training skills
• Include IL concepts in teacher training
• School librarian posts should be a statutory responsibility
• Pursue media literacy issues through Ofcom

However if these objectives are to be achieved funding will be a key requirement

Open Meeting 2009

The Scottish Information Literacy Project’s third Open meeting took place on Wednesday 16^th September 2009 at Glasgow Caledonian University and about 45 people attended. It was a genuinely cross sectoral event with people attending from all library sectors, educational agencies, government organisations including the Scottish Government and academia.  Inevitably a few people dropped out at the last moment through illness or other commitments. Unfortunately this included our keynote speaker, Professor David Smith, who had to pull out through illness.  

The theme of the day was information literacy as part of the wider skills agenda as one of the Project’s successes has been locating information literacy (IL) within this agenda. I began the day by giving an overview and update of the Project including some of the initial findings of the evaluation which we have done of the excellent employability skills courses which Inverclyde Libraries run.  This drew attention to health as an employability issue and the difficulty in disentangling personal from vocational motivations. This provoked a lively audience discussion during which it emerged that people from different library and educational sectors had shared concerns.  Next Jenny Foreman, the Scottish Government’s Information Literacy Librarian spoke about the Scottish Government’s Information Literacy Strategy. This was very much a policy level presentation explaining the need for a strategy and the issues likely to be encountered in developing it. Jenny also described how the policy is turned into practical training. Her colleague, Lesley Thomson, Knowledge Management Officer at the Scottish Centre for Regeneration then described the Information Literacy Community of Practice which she and Jenny are launching and will host and lead. She explained the principles behind a community of practice and how the website will operate. All are welcome to join and contribute. For further details contact either Lesley.Thomson2@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or Jenny.Foreman@scotland.gsi.gov.uk who will gladly sign you up.

After lunch Christine Irving, the Project Officer on the Scottish Information Literacy Project, spoke about the restructuring of the Scottish Information Literacy Framework which is being restructured to make it a genuine lifelong learning document incorporating early years, the workplace, employability and lifelong learning. It is being physically restructured as a weblog so that postings of current activities and developments can be added. It is also interactive and comments and postings can be made. It includes exemplars of good practice from all educational sectors. There is, as yet, less on the workplace and lifelong learning but the work we are doing on the workplace and employability is helping to enrich it. It can be found at http://caledonianblogs.net/nilfs/ and through the project website http://www.gcal.ac.uk/ils/framework.html .

Next Lou McGill, an elearning and Information Management Consultant reported on a JISC funded study Learning Literacies for the Digital Age (LLiDA) - http://prezi.com/vv_ynswlwwkv/ see also Project website http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/llida/ . LLiDA is a study of academic, ICT and information literacies across a range of HE institutions including Glasgow Caledonian and takes the form of institutional audits with overall analyses and best practice exemplars drawn from participating institutions. She found that IL people were further ahead in their thinking than other learning literacies areas. Flexible education will be needed as it is impossible to predict future employer needs. She feels that there are still to many ‘silos’ in HE each with its own language. Academic teaching is slow to change and there is resistance to a holistic agenda.

IMcCracken Open Meeting 2009

The last speaker was Ian McCracken, Learning Resources Manager at Govan High School – Connections between Information Skills and wider skills: the Future Skills Project where he and his colleagues have developed a Future Skills System of 71 skills which pupils can acquire which includes IL.  The Future Skills System is matched to Standard Grades, local and national business requirements, curricular and extra curricular work and the Curriculum for Excellence. Ian also mentioned the problem of a common language as Lou had. The Framework has been in existence long enough for Ian to be able to identify the most used skills throughout Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes as ‘Analytical Skills’, ‘ICT E-Lit’ and ‘Gathering facts’ which have pretty obvious IL implications.

All in all it was a most useful day and a great deal of information was exchanged in informal discussions as well as the formal sessions. Similar issues were identified across a range of sectors and practical difficulties round employability and linking vocational skill training and personal development were reviewed.  The PPTs and accompanying documents will appear shortly on Slideshare as we are running out of space on allocated space with the university and will be linked to the project web event page http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/events.html. All the presentations were excellent and represent a great deal of work by those who gave them and I would like to thank all who contributed.

The third Scottish Information Literacy Project Open Meeting will take place on Wednesday 16^th September between 10.0am  and 4.15 pm  at Glasgow Caledonian University. It is a free event to encourage maximum participation.  The programme is enclosed below.

As with last year’s event there will be a strong focus on partnership involvement with presentations by  Project partners and supporters. This year’s theme is Information literacy within the wider skills agenda as defined by Government policy as the Project has been successful in locating information literacy within this agenda. Professor David Smith, the co-director of the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, has agreed to deliver a keynote reviewing the educational policy background to developments in information literacy.

To reserve a place email us as below listing: name, job title, email address and indicating any specific dietary and/or disability requirements by Friday 4^th September.

Best wishes

Dr. John Crawford,                          Christine Irving

Library Research Officer,              Researcher / Project Officer

Milton Street Building                    Milton Street Building

MS004, (ground floor)                   MS005, (ground floor)

Glasgow Caledonian University Glasgow Caledonian University

Cowcaddens Road                           Cowcaddens Road

Glasgow, G4 0BA                              Glasgow, G4 0BA             

Tel: 0141-273 -1248                          Tel: 0141-273 -1249

Email jcr@gcal.ac.uk                       Email christine.irving@gcal.ac.uk

Project website    www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/

Project blog          http://caledonianblogs.net/information-literacy

Scottish Information Literacy Project Third Open Meeting – Wednesday 16^th September 2009

Information literacy and the skills agenda: a day devoted to linking information literacy with skills strategies at all levels                

Glasgow Caledonian University, Hamish Wood Building W115

Programme

9.30 – 10.00 – Registration and coffee/tea

10.00- 10.10 – Welcome and overview. Dr John Crawford, Director, Scottish Information Literacy Project

10.10-10.55 – Keynote. Information literacy and the knowledge society:  implications for higher education.  Professor David Smith, Co-director, Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning

10.55 -11.05 Comfort break

11.05-11.50 – Project overview and update.  John Crawford

11.50- 12.30 – The Scottish Government’s information literacy strategy and the launch of the Information Literacy Community of practice website. Lesley Thompson, Knowledge Management Officer, Scottish Centre for Regeneration and Jenny Foreman, Information Literacy Librarian, Scottish Government

12.30- 13.30 – Lunch

13.30 – 14.15 – Restructuring the Scottish Information Literacy Framework.  Christine Irving, Project Officer, Scottish Information Literacy Project

14.15 -15.00 – Learning Literacies for the Digital Age, a JISC funded study (LLiDA).  Lou McGill- eLearning and Information Management Consultant

15.00 – 15.20 Afternoon tea

15.20 – 16.05 – Connections between Information Literacy Skills and wider skills:  The Future Skills Project. Ian McCracken, Learning Resources Manager, Govan High School. 

16.05- 16.15 – Summary and close

Most presentations to run for 45 minutes including time for questions

As part of the work commissioned by Learning and Teaching Scotland Curriculum for Excellence Literacy Team the project is carrying out an online survey of Scottish school librarians and their knowledge and use of Curriculum for Excellence with regard to information literacy.

We are aware of some IL activities in this area:

• piloting and creating new activities
• mapping IL activities across the CfE Learning Experiences and Outcomes
• mapping IL activities to the four capacities

but would like to get a clearer more detailed picture of all activities to enable activities, concerns and ideas including ways to optimise school librarians efforts to support information literacy and the CfE to be shared with other school librarians, local authorities and LTS CfE Literacy Team in order that we can promote the valuable work / contributions school librarians are playing in CfE. 

We would therefore be grateful if school librarians and local authority departments responsible for education resources for schools within their area would take time to complete the online survey at SurveyMonkey which consists of 10 questions.   

The survey will run for six weeks until the 4th September 2009.

I will be sending this message out to email distribution lists and would be grateful if it can be circulated as widely as possible.

Thank you for your support in advance.

Christine

The Post Open Space meeting was held at Glasgow Caledonian University on 15^th June 2009 as a direct result of the Open Space meeting of 27^th March 2009 organised and facilitated by Skills Development Scotland staff (http://caledonianblogs.net/information-literacy/2009/05/01/open-space-technology-meets-information-literacy/) bringing together key stakeholders from education sectors and employability, skills and information agendas to identify key factors in information literacy promotion. Attendees from the event were invited to the Post Open Space to identify key issues which might be progressed and formulate action points.

Those present included representatives from COSLA, the Scottish Government Information Service, school libraries, the Centre for Lifelong Learning (University of the West of Scotland), STUC and independent researchers. Unfortunately none of the staff who organised the Open Space meeting was able to attend but Lynn Haughton who works for Skills Development Scotland (currently on secondment to LTS) did attend.

There was a lengthy discussion reviewing some of the issues arising from the Open Space event. The main issues identified were:

• The need to agree a common vocabulary across the education, skills, employability and workplace sectors
• Information literacy as part of the employability and skills agenda
• Training trainee teachers in information literacy

Agreed actions:

• Lesley Thomson and Jenny Foreman from the Scottish Government agreed to set up an online community of practice to facilitate further discussion and action
• Information Literacy as part of the wider skills agenda will be promoted by the Centre for Lifelong Learning (University of the West of Scotland) including to the West of Scotland Wider Access Forum staff based there. It was subsequently agreed that the Centre for Lifelong Learning would try to raise interest in training trainee teachers in information literacy among staff in the education department there.
• Contacts would be maintained and developed via the online forum

Reading through the June 2009 IFLA Information Literacy Section Newsletter  I came across quite a few bits of information that I thought many of you might be interested in. Items include:

• Using RSS feeds for Current Awareness
• Faculty and Instructional Technology Conversations – what your faculty and IT staff say about Information Literacy when you’re not in the room. Information Literacy and IT Fluency
• Scotland Health Services Information Literacy Portal
• Are they Really Ready to Work? Employers Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce  (I haven’t read this 64 page pdf yet but the title sounded of interest). 
• The Project Open meeting on the 16th September 2009 gets a mention.

If you haven’t looked at their newsletter before then it is worth a look.

Just back from a 2 day JISC Regional South West Summer Conference – The Learner Experience where John and I were asked to do a presentation about the project  - initial feedback from the organisers is that it was well received.

We shared the presentation slot with Exeter College talking about their information literacy work, issues etc. They are using CILIP’s information literacy definition and looked at Rudyard Kiplings wise words “I keep six honest serving men … Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who” to inform their rational, aims and objectives leading to a strategy and a mission to “raise the profile of Information Literacy in the college by creating greater awareness across all sectors of the Exeter College community”. They have also been:

• carrying out some research into what skills students from the colleges link schools are coming in with
• developed Explore & Discover Information Literacy Tools – 3 modules which include lesson plans
• a new learning portal that has an i-zone

Some interesting work being done with the potential for greater collaboration in the South West region of England through the JISC Regional Office. Will be interesting to see how they get on.

Other sessions of interest included Dr Neil Witt, University of Plymouth who has been involved in several JISC projects including a JISC project called Web2Rights ”to develop practical, pragmatic and relevant Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and other legal issues toolkits to support … in their engagement with next generation technologies.” Have a look at their website Web2Rights which includes a six minute animation, resources and toolkit. Also UsPaCe which “aims to support the needs of WBL learners and mentors via the creation and sharing of resources and by providing online student support for learners in the work-place to be accessed via desktop or mobile devices. Additionally UsPaCe will support and allow tutors, mentors, learners, employers to interact, communicate and share ideas experiences and knowledge.” as Neil said “not reinventing the wheel but re-using the wheel to make a better vehicle.

As to be expected with e-learning there was talk about e-portfolios (Elgg and Mahara) and iGoogle (looks on a quick look to be similar to Netvibes) which I need to investigate at some time as I don’t really know anything about them and much talk about Web 2.0 and a range of e-tools but little about the necessary skills required. Although in one of the sessions information skills was mentioned by an academic and the ‘digital native theory’ was discussed in another again by academics who felt that the theory was unfounded and based on second hand results.

Once the conference presentations are available I’ll provide a link.