TEMPUS Visit Report - Nazlin Bhimani

describes visit to Uzbekistan funded by TEMPU

Information literacy: a 21st-century graduate skill.

There is a heightened awareness in higher education of the crucial role of information literacy in teaching and learning. The paper defines information literacy; encourages collaborative partnerships between academic teaching staff, librarians and learning support staff; and proposes an institution-wide systematic development of information literacy in teaching and learning. The paper also makes reference, from a librarianʼs perspective, to some of the key findings of a study undertaken by researchers at Middlesex University on user behaviour in the electronic environment specifically as it relates to information literacy in the academic context. The paper proposes a way in which these skills can become integral to the teaching and learning strategy of a higher education institution in the second decade of the 21st century

E-learning and libraries

Learning in most academic institutions has relied on the provision of library resources to both support and supplement what is being taught and researched. This chapter focuses on the research process of students in the digital environment and discusses the challenges they and service providers in the library face in terms of accessing and making available academically relevant information resources. In order to understand these challenges, a consideration of how developments in technology have changed scholarship in the digital environment is important. Further, the evolving role of the information professional is considered in connection with these changes. The deluge of information, both open-access and subscribed, affects the way in which users search for and access information sources. Thus an appreciation of the information-seeking behaviours of researchers is imperative if educators are to provide the relevant support, manage user expectations and ensure the successful provision of an information service in the twenty-first century e-learning environment. The (often younger) tech-savvy, multi-tasking user who is fluent in the use of mobile technologies, conversant with social media and Google, YouTube and Wikipedia, often has different expectations of the academic digital library. These expectations are quite often dashed and users may end up discouraged, as they may not have the appropriate skills to navigate the different search platforms that publishers make available to academic libraries. Users require skills that include knowledge of different types of information resources and an understanding of the most appropriate ways for searching, locating, accessing, and critically evaluating information, as well as using and managing this information. ‘Information literacy’, as these information and literature search skills are referred to, go hand-in-hand with digital literacies, which allow users to make the best use of the technologies employed by information providers such as libraries. These literacies, in turn, form the gamut of academic literacies that ensure that learners leave formal education with the appropriate skills to enable them survive in the work place and to continue their learning throughout life. The chapter also discusses ways in which academics can work collaboratively with support staff within educational institutions and offers practical solutions to improving the student learning experience through collaborative practices

Special Collections as a catalyst for flexible pedagogical approaches: three case studies

University Special Collections are increasingly being recognised as a valuable pedagogical resource in higher education teaching and learning. The value of historic artefacts as a cross-disciplinary tool to promote higher order thinking processes such as criticality, questioning and narrative construction is well-established in the museum education literature and is gaining increasing attention in teaching and learning development. In this paper, we present three case studies in which we explore the application of Special Collections in a range of learning development contexts, in order to help students engage with their discipline and discipline-specific higher order skills. Our case studies are explorative in the sense of ‘trialling’ the use of historic artefacts in the classroom, to inform our next steps and development of our method. We conclude with our reflections on the process and outcomes of our explorations, to inform our practice and that of other educators looking to apply this method

JISC User Behaviour Observational Study: User Behaviour in Resource Discovery: Final Report

The report discusses the information-seeking behaviour of students and researchers working in the Business and Economics disciplines using subscribed and freely available Internet resource discovery systems in three UK HE institutions: Cranfield University, London School of Economics and Middlesex University. The institutions were chosen as examplars of the Russell Group, the 94 Group, and the Million+ groups of universities in the UK. The intention was to describe and gain a better understanding of: (i) how different users (undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers) currently seek information on the existing resource discovery systems, (ii) the roadmap used in a user’s information seeking journey, and (iii) their expectations and needs based on their understanding and experience of using the Internet to find information resources for academic study. In addition, we hope to inform JISC, publishers of electronic resources, and librarians working in the HE sector about user behaviours and the issues relating to resource discovery systems. The data was obtained from an observational study and in-depth interview of 34 participants. Each participant was studied on an individual basis and each session lasted up to two hours. The analysis of the data provided an insight on: resource discovery systems used by participants and what they found to be useful, users information search behaviour and strategies when seeking information, the issues that affect their searching behaviour, problems and difficulties users experienced with library resources, issues related to physical library services as well as recommendations for the publishers and librarians in order to improve the use of electronic resources

Accounting students and communication apprehension: a study of Spanish and UK students

Accounting is about measuring and communicating. Accounting bodies and employers have expressed opinions, which have been supported by research results, advocating that greater emphasis is placed on the development of communication skills throughout the education and training of accountants. Consequently, an increasing number of accounting programmes now include communication skills as educational objectives or learning outcomes, and have integrated activities into the curriculum specifically to develop these skills. It is important to recognise that certain factors can severely restrict the development of communication skills; a major factor is communication apprehension. Research suggests that the existence of high levels of communication apprehension will make efforts to improve communication skills ineffective. Previous research findings indicate that accounting students have high levels of communication apprehension. This paper compares and contrasts the levels and profiles of communication apprehension exhibited by accounting students at the (UK University) and those at the (ESP University). The levels of communication apprehension are also compared with those of students from other disciplines at the same institutions. The results confirm the high levels of communication apprehension in European accounting students. There are notable differences between the two countries however in certain underlying factors.</p