• ‘it is necessary to start literacy programmes from a very early age’ (p13)
• ‘good CPD is an essential element of any successful programme, as it develops teachers’ skills, puts the teacher in charge and so helps build the necessary commitment at school level’. (p13)
• moving beyond basic literacy - “the need to move children beyond a basic level of literacy in order that they can fully engage with modern society and the workplace” (p14-15)

As indicated earlier, the Commission agreed from the outset that literacy is a continuum that extends beyond basic literacy skills. Different levels of literacy are needed; for example, for undertaking a modern apprenticeship, for most jobs (SCQF level 5) and for Further and Higher Education. In this age of information overload via the Internet, it is important that all youngsters are equipped with analytical skills so that they can understand not just the information that is provided but also its validity. Did the author of the information have a vested interest in persuading the reader of a particular version of the truth? Literacy is also not the sole responsibility of local authorities and schools. Literacy should go beyond the remit of formal education and become embedded across society in order to ensure continuous development. Partnership working, involving the public, private and voluntary sectors, is key if poor literacy across society is to be challenged. (p14 – 15).

• ‘If young people are to develop these higher-order intellectual skills, it is crucial that they are explicitly taught’.

Young people should be made aware at the outset what skills they are going to acquire and why they are important. At the conclusion of any unit of work, they should be reminded of what they have learned and be made aware of its application. This element of metacognition is a crucial part of sound learning at any level. It is no less significant when dealing with learning at an advanced level. (p16)

Govan High School (project partner) is actively doing this with their co-ordinated system of skills, called “Future Skills” see posting about Ian McCracken, Learning Resources Manager, Govan High School presentation at the 2009 Project Open Meeting .  

It is important that the skill is seen as being of widespread application. The ability to use knowledge, understanding and skills in areas other than the one in which they were acquired is essential. In some highly specialised areas of learning, skills may be needed for very specific purposes and have few applications in other contexts. The higher-order skills, like analysis and critical thinking, which are associated with advanced literacy, are not like this; they have everyday significance in much the same way as basic decoding. They are the transferable skills of the 21^st century. (p16)

Within the recommendations are the following which we would certainly endorse and support:

• A national strategy should set priorities for assisting children to move beyond basic literacy by improving standards of comprehension and higher-order literacy skills. This strategy should be informed by research and by good practice.
• Progress of local schemes should be carefully monitored and good practice shared in a systematic process of continuous improvement and professional development.
• Raising levels of higher-order literacy-related skills should be a priority objective within the Curriculum for Excellence development programme. (p18)

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.

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

It arose out of the fact that pupils were unable to identify their own skills and confidently use them in a wide range of situations. This led to an unsuccessful search for a comprehensive pre-existing framework of skills with the result that Philip and Ian set out to compile their own with the full involvement of staff and pupils.  An initial list of ‘hundreds of skills’ was pared down to a definitive list of 71 future skills which are prominently displayed around the school and are used in every subject.  This has not meant an abandonment of the curriculum or the teaching skills as a separate subject because an examination of the Curriculum for Excellence showed that the skills were already there. They had not been noticed before.  A matching exercise on skills demanded by a range of employers was successfully carried out. The skills are divided into seven groups – the communicator, the contributor, the doer, the sorter, the originator, the connector and the decider. The communicator, for example, has skills which include creative writing, e-literacy, presentation skills and objective reporting while the contributor has team skills, participation skills and is environmentally friendly. Skills booklets were devised so pupils could self assess the skills they learned in lessons and extra-curricular activities. There are also skill cards for teachers who can nominate pupils who make progress in a particular skill. The details of the skills booklets are fed into a growing computer database which offers interesting analytical possibilities to support further development and to inform key areas.  Information literacy is, of course, one of the skills and occurs regularly in all the booklets. Ian is now analysing the database to identify the frequency of the appearance of IL skills and how they relate to others. The results should be interesting.

The event was attended not only by teachers but also people from other education sectors and those concerned with learning and skills development. The Future Skills Framework is likely to be influential well beyond the school sector.  Some further detail can be found in a Times Educational Supplement Scotland article. See URL http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=2638693. You can also watch two PPTs which describe the developmental processes and outcomes in detail. govan-1-journey-so-far1 govan-2-nuts-and-bolts

After an introduction by CILIPS President, Margaret Forrest, Rhona Arthur, Assistant Director of CILIPS/SLIC spoke about a range of initiatives currently ongoing in Scotland (libraries as learning centres, readership development, workforce development and next generation qualifications) plus how information professionals support skills development and the tools we have.  The Scottish Information Literacy project and framework was mentioned by Rhona. She also referred to the credit crunch and that there was an increase in Public Libraries for IT and skills courses and that 45% use libraries for learning, supporting their studies or homework.

She was followed by Peter Godwin, Academic Liaison Librarian, University of Bedfordshire, who overviewed the main issues in IL teaching and talked about various web 2.0 tools and how they can be used to support IL teaching. Joanna Ptolomey, chair of the Scottish Health Information Network, introduced a health literacies theme by speaking about health inequalities, a particularly important theme in Scotland. Good quality patient information, to be effective must avoid ‘healthspeak’ and use clear, simple language.

The last morning speakers were Jenny Foreman and Lesley Thompson, from the Scottish Government Information Service who are among our most active partners. They spoke about the joint work they did with us on the use of information by Scottish Government civil servants and the actions they have taken which include introducing advanced internet searching training and the development of an information literacy strategy for the Scottish Government.

After lunch, Margaret McKay, a JISC e-advisor talked about assistive technologies which can benefit those with disabilities. This presentation has a strong practical focus with ideas which can be implemented across all library sectors.  Andy Jackson, Teaching and Learning Librarian at Dundee University, returned to teaching themes by demonstrating the Cephallonian method of information literacy instruction with the help of the audience and showed the advantages of moving away from the traditional resource based methods of teaching.

After the afternoon break the focus was on public libraries and prison libraries. This included a joint presentation by Liz McPartlin, Community Access Librarian, Stirling Council and Richard Smith, Reader in Residence about a reader in residence scheme at Cornton Vale women’s prison to develop reading amongst the women and their families, promote use of the library and creative reading and create links between the women and community libraries. The reading groups are also used to help prisoners to explore their problems.

Paul McCloskey, Library development Officer SW Neighbourhood with City of Edinburgh Council reported on various outreach activities in Edinburgh including learning programmes, a book bus and the Libraries4U scheme. Kate King (Edinburgh Prison Library Officer and Sighthill Library Bookstart Worker) finished off the joint presentation with an impassioned and enlightening presentation on the impressive new prison library at Saughton in Edinburgh and the amazing work she does there to develop the 1^st ever Family Event inside the prison and support prisoners for release. She certainly demonstrated that she was “reaching out to the hardest to reach and are helping them discover something that everyone in this room already knows Libraries Can Change Lives – and reading and books can help!”

It was a most useful day with a cross sectoral audience drawn from most library sectors.  The two presentations on IL training were of particular benefit to those outside the HE sector and the training theme was further explored by Jenny and Lesley while there were two useful presentations on health literacy/assistive technology issues. Other speakers covered the role of the public library in education and training, and its continuing role as an agent of community education and development.  Issues like prison provision, deprivation and exclusion were also covered.

Congratulations to Catherine Kearney, Assistant Director of CILIPS/SLIC and her colleagues for efficiently planning and managing the day.

This was followed by short presentations by senior staff from the Scottish Qualifications Authority, the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland and Jobcentre Plus. Points emerging included the need to invest in skills development in times of recession while Mark Batho, of the Scottish Funding Council, raised a lot of interest by calling for the revival of sandwich courses which as well as being beneficial to students create good university links with employers. It might also be an opportunity for students to practise IL skills learned from IL training programmes.

This was followed by a cross party panel of members of the Scottish Parliament although unfortunately there was no one to represent the Scottish National Party.  Most of the time went to answering questions from the floor. There was much discussion about whether skills training should be sector specific or generic although no general view emerged. There was also a feeling that there is an overemphasis on youth training at the expense of older people. I attempted to raise IL within the context of employability skills training but the politicians did not seem very interested.

Rather more productive was the afternoon session at which each skill group had a general discussion. Identifying learning demand and the difficulty employers themselves have in identifying training needs was a key theme echoing the findings of David Gibbons- Wood at Robert Gordon University. Robust, accurate data is needed to plan training.  Currently too much market information is anecdotal. As there seemed to be an interest in information issues I reported on our work with Inverclyde Libraries in incorporating IL training into their employability training programmes.  Overall a useful day and it was helpful to learn something about the problems of particular skill sectors. Having established contact with the Lifelong learning sector I think we are now firmly in their loop. Although the politicians did not seem very interested in IL the Lifelong learning sector clearly is.  Our advocacy policy in general is to target the people who speak to the people who make the decisions and starting off at a technical rather than a political level seems the best way forward.

Objectives of the seminar included:

• Understand the context: within schools/colleges the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence and the RSA’s Opening Minds Project and, more widely, the need to enhance skills for individuals of all ages to meet their needs and the changing needs of employers.
• Identify and list areas where RSA Scotland and Fellows could make a contribution at local or national level.
• Establish priority areas for action and consider how these can best be tackled by RSA Scotland and Fellows.

It was interesting to learn of the Opening Minds Project in England with its five key competences: learning, citizenship, relating to people, managing situations and managing information which are developed in the classroom through a mixture of instruction and practical experience. It reminded me of the Curriculum for Excellence 4 capacities: successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens. Managing information was what we understand as information literacy:

Students should have:

• Developed a range of techniques for accessing, evaluating and differentiating information and have learned how to analyse, synthesise and apply them
• Understood the importance of reflecting and applying critical judgement, and have learned how to do so.

It was also interesting to hear about the Curriculum for Excellence Health and Wellbeing draft Experiences and Outcomes. Hillary Hall a Development Officer involved in writing the draft outcomes and experiences highlighted the ‘Planning for Choices and Changes’ element which involves skills and using available information.

Throughout my learning I am supported in preparing for significant changes in my life by:

•  developing strategies which help me meet challenges, manage change and build my resilience
• reflect regularly on my strengths and skills, to help me plan my next steps
•  raising my expectations, developing my potential and recognising and celebrating my achievements
• using available information, advice and guidance to help me make informed choices and develop personal planning.

The above reflects the work Ian McCracken at Govan High School has beeing doing with a school wide initiative to identify skills that pupils will need not just at school but for life and a common definiton and understanding of what these are. This also reflects the work we are doing with Skills Development Scotland (Career Scotland section) on Information literacy skills and career self-management.

The RSA has drawn up an Education Charter which sets out the principles they believe should inform future development of education for young people, in which they include all kinds of learning, whether formal or informal, and whether offered by schools, college, universities, training organisations or elsewhere. Again much of their work is aligned and resonates with the work we are doing.

David had not previously given much thought to a role for information literacy in workplace training but he is interested now. There will be more feedback from his work in due course which should be very useful and we will continue to collaborate.

For more information about the project see the Business Skills for Growth website 

which aims ‘to bring together evidence on the topic of skills utilisation to provide a clear picture of the nature and extent of the current evidence base’.  Naturally I read it from an information literacy perspective and therefore found it somewhat disappointing as the extensive list of references has nothing about information although there are a couple of useful education references. Although the researchers interrogated a range of databases Library and Information Science Abstracts was not among them. However there are some useful lessons for us.  

The occasion of the report is the lack of evidence of a ‘conclusive and causal correlation between increased investment and skills and increased productivity’. (p.1) Attention is therefore moving away from simple skills acquisition to how skills are actually used in the workplace i.e. – skills acquisition which is defined as:

‘Skills utilisation is about ensuring the most effective application of skills in the workplace to maximise performance through the interplay of a number of key agents (e.g. employers, employees, learning providers and the state) and the use of a range of HR, management and working practices. Effective skills utilisation seeks to match the use of skills to business demands/needs.’ (p.2)

The last sentence seems particularly important although what we have been finding out suggests that businesses are not very sure themselves about what training they need. The study reports that both Scotland and Wales invest proportionately more in training in the workplace than England although this is not reflected in productivity (p.14). ‘Policy development needs to be linked to business need rather than simply trying to increase the number of people gaining qualifications’. (p.15).

The Scottish Skills Strategy has two main aims:

·         Skills must be acquired

·         Skills must be effectively utilised in the workplace in order to improve productivity  (p.18)

The report identifies three approaches to Skills Utilisation: (pp.2-5)

1.      the market driven workplace approach which focuses on individual workplaces

2.      The state driven workplace approach in which the state takes the lead

3.      The holistic approach in which the state collaborates with a range of agencies

However the report finds that substantive evaluation of these approaches or evidence of direct impact on productivity is lacking and that, not surprisingly, the large organisation is most important. Such findings are not encouraging for a country of SMEs.

On p.6 the report notes:

‘The evidence identifies a link between skills utilisation and a range of workplace matters such as employee motivation, job design, employee participation, equality issues, collective agreement and well being.’

While this may not be the most original observation in the world it does highlight points which have to be borne in mind when promoting information literacy in the workplace.

Pp.75-76 offer the most relevant quotes for information literacy:

Marchington and Wilkinson (2005) argue that the management of learning and transfer of knowledge have been shown to have a major effect on skills utilisation. If the learning fails to be integrated into wider business practices, it will become a barrier to the utilisation of new skills.

Ahlgren et al. (2007) identified good practice in workplace learning and found managers had an important role in the following practices:

• Promotion of open communication and encouragement of informal and social forms of learning
• Encouragement of employees’ ability to learn and to bring new knowledge, skills and experience into the workplace
• Welcome new knowledge and found it applicable in the workplace

Some food for thought perhaps

There were two introductory keynote presentations which included such points as the growing number of businesses using IT, and the need for IT staff to focus on the needs of their employers. The need to focus on the generation which did not grow up with the Internet was emphasised and our old and highly relevant friends, soft skills development, including problem solving were mentioned.

Much of the rest of the day was taken up with discussion and feedback sessions. Our study of information usage in the workplace and our round of meetings, following on from it, suggested that the public sector is a promising area and that getting the message over to Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s) is the biggest problem.  This and similar issues surfaced – how do you target the right people in organisations? ; SMEs don’t look ahead and plan for the future. Timing, mode of delivery and length of training were all discussed. The need to find out what companies want is crucial as universities often don’t do this. Also mentioned is the need to involve the Scottish Trades Union Congress and particularly its learning representatives who, as we learned from our meeting with the STUC’s Everyday Skills Committee on Tuesday 25^th November, have an excellent grasp of workplace training needs. Significantly nobody from the STUC had been invited to attend. Suggested solutions included an annual event where people from SMEs could meet university staff, which sounds like a good opportunity for IL advocates.

After the first discussion session feedback included developing employability skills and improving course content. Increasing funding training weighted in favour of SMEs was also mentioned.

In the discussions there was quite a lot of criticism of the teaching of IT in schools which was felt to be out of date, boring and lacking in relevance to pupils. This, in turn, raises a major policy issue: the absence of any University input to Curriculum for Excellence planning. While this is a big issue it suggests that our Framework which links secondary and tertiary education is quite pioneering. 

After lunch there were short presentations by several participants who included Christine Sinclair, the executive director of the Institute of Business at Adam Smith College. They work actively with schools in developing the Curriculum for Excellence and also have an advisory board of employers who have, inter alia, urged the need for more soft skills training.

Finally we were invited to suggest a training area into which the SFC might put money and asked to break up into groups to discuss it. Our group spent a lot of time discussing the developing of targeted training for SMEs which would have be funded by SFC since SMEs obviously won’t do it themselves. We all agreed that market research was needed to find out what SMEs want and appropriate mode of delivery is essential whether online, face to face or mentor mediated. An administrative structure would need to be put in place to make it work effectively.

Overall it was a useful day with the main message being that the promotion of eskills and IL training face similar problems