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

Digital Literacy in an e-world: The 8th Annual E-Books Conference

On Thursday 30th October 2008 we were one of five speakers at the E-Books Conference at the Lighthouse in Glasgow. The Lighthouse is an amazing building and I took the opportunity to take the lift to the sixth floor to see the roof top view of Glasgow which must be amazing at night time so will need to do a return visit.

We had been asked to do a presentation about the work of the project and wanted to incorporate the conference theme so decided to call our presentation The Scottish Information Literacy Project "From ICT to Digital Literacy the importance of information literacy" (see project website events page for link to presentation) linking the start of the project with the Drumchapel Project (John Crawford) and recent consultancy work on Digital Literacy.

presenting - e-book / Digital Literacy event

Other speakers included Paul Riley (The Welsh E-Books Consortium), like Scotland, Wales is a good size for collaboration on a national basis and Paul described some of their collaborative developments. Talking to him afterwards he expressed interest in the framework and the possiblity of Wales doing something similar. Hopefully they will be able to pursue this and as we will be in Cardiff for the 2009 LILAC Conference we can check on any progress.

John Coll gave an overview of the Business Information Services at the National Library of Scotland (Scotbis), whilst most enquiries are made electronically their resources are predominately print although they do collect both print and electronic publications / editions and offer clients / customers the option of accessing information sources in person (free of charge) or sending paper copies for a fee. I spoke to John at lunch time about the work the project is involved in within the workplace and also the forthcoming SIN (Scottish Information Network) meeting on Blogging which unfortuantely had to be postponned due to lack of numbers.

After lunch Sarah Fahmy (JISC) talked about JISC Collections for Schools and Jim Henderson (LTS) talked about the Online Reference Resources offered by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) in partnership with JISC through GLOW (a national digital network for schools which will provide tools to underpin Curriculum for Excellence learning and teaching approaches). It was really good to see the material that will be available to schools and also to see schools now benefiting from JISC collections.

The last speaker was Duncan Chapell from Glasgow School of Art - InfosmART: using the Web to Deliver Information Skills to Arts Researchers. One of the highlights of Duncan's presentation was the use of the project National Framework to inform the development of their information literacy programme. The other was their / his use of images (Visual Literacy) both within InfosmART and his presentation as Art students use of visual images is not surprisingly very high. It made me remember the old adage a picture tells a thousand words.

All in all the day seemed to be a success both event and project wise. Interestingly their seemed to be more mention of information literacy rather than digital literacy.

Photo courtesay of Jill Evans (SCURL)