Trip to Sheffield

Discussions and presentations with staff and students at Sheffield University, Department of Information Studies

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday 11^th March we were off to Sheffield at the request of Sheila Corrall and Sheila Webber of the Department of Information studies at Sheffield University to do some work with students. On the morning of Thursday 12^th March we did a two hour seminar with the post graduate students who turned out to be a lively bunch.  Our theme was our information literacy journey and how we have moved from a fairly educational/scholastic view of information literacy to much more lifelong learning based view in which information literacy should be seen as a key skill for career choice, progression, CPD, workplace decision making and, of course, lifelong learning because you can’t ‘do’ lifelong learning unless you are information literate. Our change of view has been influenced by the many people we have met who have reinterpreted the excellent CILIP definition in the light of their own qualifications, experience, work and learning needs. For example when we first talked to the Careers Division of Skills Development Scotland we had not given much thought to the role of information literacy as a career choice skill but after our discussions with them we have very much changed our view.  We have also abandoned the ‘ibrarianly’ view of what constitutes an information source and now accept people as just a valid source of information as a book or a website and people can be evaluated as sources in exactly the same way as a traditional source.  We were very pleased that this approach went down well with the students who are clearly well ahead of traditional thinking.

In the afternoon we gave a PPT presentation to PhD research students and some of the staff which generated a useful discussion at the end. Overall a useful experience and an opportunity to present our ideas to the next generation who seemed to appreciate our ideas.

See also Sheila Webber’s weblog posting about the visit – http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2009/03/visit-from-scottish-information.html

National Literacy Conference Towards Excellence

We have both had our heads down for a while with backroom matters hence the lack of postings but we were out and about last week.

On Tuesday 10^th March we attended the National Literacy Conference, held at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. We had been invited by the Literacy Team of the Curriculum for Excellence and the event was organised by Learning and Teaching Scotland. Most of the attendees were teachers but there were a few librarians. The day was mostly taken up with parallel workshops but there were two presentations which kick started the day. The first by HMIE: Mary Ritchie and Janie McManus on some wonderful examples of good practice that they as inspectors had come across that engaged with learners and highlighted that it was all about developing and planning opportunities for learners to use their literacy skills at an appropriate level to meet their needs and that learning must go out beyond the classroom. There were so many good practices that they didn’t have much time to talk about Journey to Excellence (http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/journeytoexcellence/index.asp) and the Professional Development Pack (http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/journeytoexcellence/learningtrails/index.asp ) they are working on which they are keen to engage and talk about. Something we need to investigate further.   Next was an introductory keynote by Professor David Booth of the University of Toronto who has spent a lifetime researching and promoting reading and had some good ideas on how to encourage it.

The morning workshops included an impressive presentation by Pamela McLean, the Access Co-ordinator at the Mitchell Library who works mainly with primary schools to promote educational visits to Glasgow libraries to encourage the use of the Libraries’ resources. This includes some basic information literacy training. Perhaps her service could work with school libraries to develop a more co-ordinated approach to information literacy training in schools.  A second morning seminar was about Glow which is naturally of interest to librarians. The presentation revolved around a case study of work by an English teacher. While this was very informative the discussion flagged up a worrying ignorance of copyright issues by teachers and clearly they lack guidance and advice. With the coming of Glow this is a bigger issue than before. In higher education most universities have copyright advisers who are usually librarians. Perhaps schools should have copyright advisers too and who better to do it than the school librarian. At lunch time we had a chat with the GLOW team about this issue and discovered there is a section on GLOW about copyright but unfortunately it appears that those teachers who are using GLOW have still to discover this resource.

The first afternoon session included a presentation by Louise Ballantyne, a primary teacher currently on secondment to Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Literacy Team. John attended this presentation and Louise spoke about her ‘Real and Relevant’ information literacy training material which is aimed at Primary 6-7 and early secondary. Among the sources she has used is our Framework.  The session was extremely well attended and she was kind enough to refer to our work and hand out some of our leaflets.  Her materials should be available on the Learning and Teaching Scotland website in the autumn. Meanwhile Christine attended another excellent presentation by Anne Louise Nicholson, St James’s Primary, Paisley on using Glow to Promote Literacy (Primary) in which it was amazing to see how Primary 1/2 pupils were engaging with Glow, having fun and learning. Children who didn’t participate much in class seemed to find their voice using Glow. This wasn’t just using technology for the sake of it but showed that with innovative learning and teaching very young children can work at their own level using all the technological advances available to them.  Anne’s conclusions was that it had lead to  – fun and meaningful learning, more ambitious learning, richer language experience overall, able to tap into real life events and involve children, easier collaboration, use of experts to educate (a local painter (artist), wider audience for work to be showcased, easier to evidence using Glow.

The final afternoon session Christine attended was Literacy across the Curriculum – two English teachers who have been working in partnership with a Science (Physics) teacher and a History teacher in different schools in East Dunbartonshire to improve pupils understanding in different subjects through the development of literacy skills. Common areas of concern where; written accuracy (basic spelling, punctuation) and poor quality of extended written responses; in both cases the extended written responses were addressed through note taking and skimming and scanning techniques which lead me to ask the question of whether the school librarians had been involved in this work. Silence! The answer was no and I asked why not since these skills and competencies were the school librarians professional skills and competences. Fortunately there were other presentations which did involve school librarians. As a profession (library and information) we need to do more advocacy work with the teaching profession.

During the coffee and lunch breaks we were entertained by a wonderful school band from Turnbull High in Bishopbriggs. The performance on the drums was particularly spirited. Every conference should have a school band.

RSA Exploratory Seminar on Developing Work on Education and Skills

John and I recently attended an RSA in Scotland (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce) seminar in Edinburgh to identify ways in which RSA Scotland and Fellows can make a contribution in the field of Education and Skills in Scotland. A topic close to our hearts and we were not disappointed by the contributions and discussion which took place nor the excellent chairing of the event by Louise Macdonald.

Objectives of the seminar included:

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  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.


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  Identify and list areas where RSA Scotland and Fellows could make a contribution at local or national level.


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  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:

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  Developed a range of techniques for accessing, evaluating and differentiating information and have learned how to analyse, synthesise and apply them


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  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:

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   developing strategies which help me meet challenges, manage change and build my resilience


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  reflect regularly on my strengths and skills, to help me plan my next steps


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   raising my expectations, developing my potential and recognising and celebrating my achievements


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  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.

Visit to Robert Gordon University Business School

On Tuesday 17^th February Christine and I went to Aberdeen to visit David Gibbons - Wood, a senior lecturer in the Business School at Robert Gordon University who has obtained over £400,000 in European funding to run training programmes for SMEs in the Aberdeen area. So far he has enrolled 20 businesses that are providing 70 participants although he wants 175 people in total.  He is offering 12 courses in ‘bite sized chunks’. There will be an online forum to identify what learners want to do. However a blended learning approach will be used as wholly online delivery is unlikely to be successful. He is finding that individuals are more motivated than organisations which tend to focus on short term objectives.  He has been interviewing representatives of local SMEs. A lack of time available for training was the most cited problem in developing business skills in the organisation followed by a lack of money. From the list of subjects proposed the most popular was Marketing, followed by Finance, Enterprise Skills, leadership and E –Business.  This is interesting information for those interested in information usage in the workplace as marketing has fairly obvious possibilities. However there are clearly going to be problems of uptake with any form of training.

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 

Scottish Government's Skills utilisation literature review

I have been reading the recently published Skills utilisation literature review, a report by CFE for the Education Analytical Services, Lifelong Learning Research, Scottish Government (Executive summary and full text vailable at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/12/15114643/0)

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