• Begin at the Beginning: Information and Critical Literacy in Curriculum for Excellence Early & First Level (Nursery and Primary Schools) (powerpoint presentation) Begin at the beginning – Information Literacy in primary schools  (presentation abstract) – Christine Irving
• Employability and information literacy: a review of a training programme (abstract) Information literacy in employability training: the experience of Inverclyde Libraries. Evaluating a training programme (powerpoint presentation).  - John Crawford

The sessions were well attended and in true project style dealing with little covered information literacy areas / issues. The work of the project was acknowledged by project partners Lesley Thomson, Jenny Foreman and Morag Higgison, and Andy Jackson and by Bob Glass from Manchester Metropolitan University (didn’t realise that Bob was musical until I heard him play the guitar and sing at the networking evening)) who chaired John’s session.

Lesley’s presentation Developing an information literacy community of practice in Scotland was really interesting and I plan to continue participating in the community despite the end of the project and would recommend others to join. Just email Lesley.Thomson@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or Jenny.Foreman@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

Jenny and Morag’s presentation Scottish Government information literacy in the work place – measuring impact gave an insight into their information literacy work within the Scottish Government and their investigation measuring the impact. Ralph Catts (Senior Research Fellow at Stirling Institute of Education) one of the keynote speakers attended their session and commended them for evaluating what they were doing as it would be important in the difficult times ahead. Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear his entire keynote ‘Evaluating the Impact of Information Literacy’ as I had a plane to catch. I did hear the other keynotes including Tony Durcan Head of Culture, Libraries and Lifelong Learning for Newcastle City Council who spoke about the role of  information literacy and public libraries ‘Information is as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools and public health’

Andy Jackson was as ever thought provoking in his session / workshop Just enough education to perform: Information skills, professionalism and employability. He certainly made those who attended think as he suggested that HE needs to look further at graduate attributes and refocus their information skills teaching more towards the graduate. He cited the work of “Simon Barrie (2006; 2008) and others on concepts of ‘graduateness’ places information skills at the heart of what it is to be a graduate”. He also highlighted that HE should

• seek ways of engaging with the professions
• offer focused training
• make connections with local employment forums, skills agencies etc
• develop the workplace information profession.

The workshop activities he had us doing included thinking about What professional skills did we learn which have been useful in our career? And What attitudes or values did we feel we developed through attending University?. The next activity was we had to select an information skills activity from a list of six he gave us (the group I was in selected – Effective Internet searching) we were also given two Graduate Attributes (we had Develop enterprise skills and commercial awareness and Hold a perspective that acknowledges local, national and international concerns) which we were to build into a learning activity. Then we had to create a brief plan for our learning activity. The examples given in the feedback were interesting and I hope people went away and as Andy suggested actively sought out what their university was doing regarding garduateness and employability and engage with it demonstrating the role of the library / librarians.

Other presentations I attended included Geoff Walton’s ‘Having a shufti: using focus group findings to map unchartered territory in the information literacy landscape’ – informative as ever in relation to the learning support tool ASK (Assignment Survival Kit) http://www.staffs.ac.uk/ask/  I also attended Ruth Stubbing and Jo Myhill’s presentation Developing librarians as teachers to enhance the learner experience to hear about SirLearnaLot an online tutorial that aims to help library staff enhance their understanding of pedagogy so that they can feel confident in designing and delivering teaching.

There were a couple of interesting Posters:

• So-Young Kim (University of Tokyo) – What are the Post-Effects of Japan’s National Curriculum Standards? : Inquiry based Learning and Elementary School Libraries. So-Young Kim attended my presentation and was very interested in the work I was doing in schools.
• Katherine Reedy (Open University) – i-know  at the OU: information skills for the 21st century workplace. I have posted about this work previously.
• Sheila Corrall (University of Sheffield)  - Mapping Information Literacy Strategy. Sheila has done a lot of work in this area.

The project also got national mentions from both Wales and Ireland. A mention from Cathie Jackson (Cardiff University) who in her presentation An information literacy strategy for Wales: towards a national framework acknowledged that their inspiration came from the Scottish Information Literacy Project. Great news that they have got nine months funding to employ a project officer to take things forward for them and I wish them all the best. Ireland has also been inspired by the project and Dr Philip Cohen (Head of Library Services, Dublin Institute of Technology) attended both the project sessions and Lesley Thomson’s session on the community of practice in Scotland. I spoke to Philip and Siobhán Fitzpatrick the President of the Library Association of Ireland at the conference dinner and Siobhán gave us a mention in her address after the conference dinner. It is great to think that we have inspired so many people and countries.

It was also good to hear the minister who opened the conference that information literacy was a key support for lifelong learning and that the role of librarian and education was crucial at this time for developing the individual.

Christine Irving  scotinfolit@googlemail.com

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

• 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.