22 research outputs found
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Navigating the information landscape
Preprint of column segment to be published in Serials Librarian 61(3), 2011.This article explores the tension between the structures by which the library organises and presents information, and the ways in which students and researchers access, use and conceptualise knowledge. I suggest that while knowledge structures are vital to learning and research, an overemphasis on structurality is mistaken, and can lead to an inappropriately positivist approach which impedes the research mission. The article examines various metaphoric ways of negotiating meaning and navigating information structures, and of crossing the threshold of structuralit
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Developing a New Curriculum for Information Literacy: reflections on our Arcadia Fellowship research
Overview of project design, methodology and execution for a 10-week research fellowship on information literacy
A new curriculum for information literacy: executive summary
Information literacy can be defined as a set of skills, attributes and behaviour that underpins student learning in the digital age. It has been linked to graduate employability and increasingly UK universities are developing information literacy strategies to inform how they ensure students acquire these competencies during their undergraduate studies. Information literacy programmes or sessions are often run by academic libraries; however, in order to be most effective, experts recognise that information literacy should be embedded within a subject curriculum and ideally taught in partnership with academic and academic support colleagues, rather than in one-off sessions run by librarians. SCONUL's Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model, widely accepted in higher education, sets out the skills and attributes that an information literate person should have. In practical terms, however, how information literacy is taught varies widely across higher education. In addition, recent research suggests that the information-seeking behaviour and needs of students are changing (CIBER, 2008), largely driven by the changing experiences and expectations of 'the Google Generation' who have grown up with access to the internet being the norm. While the Google Generation and 'Digital Native' terms have been debated and widely criticised (Jones, et al, 2010), it is clear that information literacy programmes over the next five years will need to adapt and respond to the needs of current students. This short project developed a practical curriculum for information literacy that meets the needs of the undergraduate student entering higher education over the next five years. It consulted widely with experts in the information literacy field, and also those working in curriculum design and educational technologies
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ANCIL in action: progress updates on A New Curriculum for Information Literacy
Secker & Coonan’s 2011 research on A New Curriculum for Information Literacy (ANCIL) positions information literacy as a vital, holistic and institution-wide element in academic teaching and learning. Rather than taking a competency-based approach in which abilities and performance levels are delineated prescriptively, ANCIL is founded on a perception of information literacy as a continuum of skills, competences, behaviours and values around information, centred in an individual learner engaged in a specific task or moving towards a particular goal. ANCIL offers both micro- and macro-level approaches to reviewing the information literacy support offered in an institution. With its emphasis on active, reflective and transferable elements in learning, ANCIL lends itself well to practical course design and lesson planning. By reviewing the structure and content of individual sessions through the ANCIL lens, it is possible to enhance information literacy teaching significantly even where provision is restricted to one-shot or front-loaded training sessions.
In addition, ANCIL’s holistic mapping of information literacy, together with the interprofessional and collaborative approach this entails, allows departments or whole institutions to audit where, how and when provision is offered to and encountered by the student in the course of his or her learning career.The original ANCIL project research was supported by the Arcadia Programme at Cambridge University Library