scholarly journals We Have to Talk about Collaboration: How a University Library and Writing Centre Work Together to Better Help Students with Information Literacy

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Olsson ◽  
Annika Bindler
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
Team Approach ◽  
Organizational Boundaries ◽  
University Library ◽  
Writing Tutors ◽  
Routine Basis ◽  
One Stop

Many academic libraries are asked to do more for less money. By reaching out to other academic services, for example, the writing centre, might make it easier to fulfil the expected goals placed upon the library by the University administration (Ferer, 2012). However, there are also pedagogical reasons for collaboration. Academic librarians and academic writing tutors who transcend the traditional organizational boundaries within a university can together provide a more integrated picture of information seeking and the writing process for their students. This team approach, which emphasizes helping students become independent and active learners, can strengthen their academic skills, such as information literacy, that are essential when attending university.Nevertheless, in Sweden the few university libraries that house writing centres simply share a location rather than collaborate on a routine basis. Umeå University Library is unusual because the Library and Writing Centre are organized in the same unit, Scholarly Communication, and work as a team. Collecting this expertise into one location allows students more comprehensive support and convenient access: "one-stop shopping" (Cooke & Bledsoe, 2008). Drawing on our practices, we will describe Umeå University Library’s collaborative approach to teaching information literacy.Academic librarians are taking a greater role as literacy educators in helping students create personal knowledge (Elmborg, 2006). This personal knowledge is then transferred into writing where students demonstrate their evaluation and understanding of sources and through writing enter the conversations in their field, thereby finding their own voice. Rather than compartmentalizing these information seeking and writing processes, librarians and writing tutors can work together with students to help them navigate and come to understand that these processes are intricately linked.

scholarly journals Re:Learn

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Borg ◽  
Marie-Louise Eriksson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Collaborative Learning ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Web Course ◽  
Writing Tutors ◽  
Collaborative Learning Environment ◽  
Academic Information

Librarians and writing tutors in higher education are working intensely to teach information literacy to students. But the extent to which this work is done collaborative or separately differs greatly between the universities. •How can we facilitate collaborative learning on questions regarding the teaching of academic information literacy? •How do we relate this teaching to various national and international frameworks and guidelines? •How do we find new ways and methods for writing tutors and librarians to work together? •Is it possible to create a platform to facilitate the exchange of ideas and tools? These are some of the questions that led us to start this project: to develop an open web course on student learning of information literacy in higher education. But instead of targeting students in higher education the target group for this course is librarians and writing tutors at Swedish universities. The project is funded by the Swedish library Association.The purpose of the course is to: •Place information literacy in an academic context, where academic writing is included together with information seeking, referencing, plagiarism etc. •Develop national cooperation on issues related to the teaching of information literacy and academic writing •To facilitate online peer learning between collegues on issues related to teaching information literacy and academic writing •Develop a platform for sharing experiences regarding tools and methods The participants will get the opportunity to participate in workshops and PBL-inspired group work on themes regarding the teaching of information literacy in higher education. In this way we hope to facilitate a creative and collaborative learning environment. The first iteration of the course will take place April-May 2021. This presentation will be about the development of the course and what we have learned so far.

scholarly journals Hooking Up Data with Literacy: Creating an Educational Framework for Uppsala University Library

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-44
Author(s):  
Nadja Duffner-Ylvestedt ◽  
Johanna Rayner
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Hooking Up ◽  
Data Literacy ◽  
Library Education ◽  
University Library ◽  
Teacher Survey ◽  
Educational Framework ◽  
The University

Uppsala University Library offers a range of workshops and lectures for students and researchers in order to help them improve their information seeking skills, academic writing and critical scientific thinking. Our library education program mainly focuses on sources such as books or scholarly articles but students in many subject fields often face additional challenges since they have to handle large amounts of data. We identified the fact that we were hardly incorporating data management in our library education as a potential weakness.  This project was developed in order to determine if the library should get involved in teaching data literacy.The project involved gathering knowledge on how data is being taught at the university by conducting a student and teacher survey. A data module was developed and incorporated to the existing framework focusing on information literacy. The module was tested and evaluated by a pilot group of students. Our findings indicate that the University Library should begin teaching data literacy. We believe data to be one of the current challenges for Academic libraries and a key for staying relevant for students and researchers. 

scholarly journals Re:Learn

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Louise Eriksson ◽  
Linda Borg
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Digital Competence ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
Web Course ◽  
Writing Tutors ◽  
Teaching Information

Today many librarians and writing tutors are teaching information literacy in higher education. How can we facilitate collaboration on questions regarding this teaching? How do we relate our teaching to various national and international frameworks and guidelines? Is it possible to create a platform for the exchange of ideas and tools? How do we develop new methods for writing tutors and librarians to collaborate? These are some of the questions that led us to start this project: to develop an open web course on student learning and information literacy in higher education. But instead of targeting students in higher education the target group for this course is teaching librarians and writing tutors at Swedish universities. The project is funded by the Swedish Library Association. The purpose of the course is to: Place information literacy (where academic writing and information seeking both are natural components) in an academic context Develop national collaborationon issues related to the teaching of information literacy and academic writing To facilitate online peer learning between colleagues on issues related to teaching information literacy and academic writing Develop a platform for sharing experiences and best of practices regarding tools and working methods Strengthen the digital competence in the professions The participants in the course will get the opportunity to engage in inspirational workshops and PBL-inspired group work on for example flipped teaching, active learning, digitization issues and open networked learning with a focus on information literacy. In this way we hope to facilitate a creative and collaborative learning environment regarding the teaching of information literacy in higher education. The first iteration of the course will take place in October-December 2020 and will be held in Swedish. This presentation will be about the planning and development of the course. We will present the work done so far and look forward to feedback and input to the ongoing work.

scholarly journals The highway to student´s hearts: An improvement of the online tutorial Søk & Skriv based on a collaboration between academic writing experts and librarians

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Solveig Kavli ◽  
Amund Børdahl
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Project Group ◽  
Online Tutorial ◽  
Search For Information ◽  
The University

The online tutorial Søk & Skriv (Search and Write) was launched March 2007. The site has been under continuous development, from being an online tutorial in mainly information literacy connected with academic writing, to covering broader aspects such as intellectual property rights and thorough views on ethics and academic guidelines related to student work. The original Søk & Skriv is the result from a joined project between the academic libraries of Bergen University College, the Norwegian School of Economics and Bergen University Library. To improve the product we have extended the project group with the academic writing unit at the University of Bergen. The University of Oslo library has also joined the project group, in this way the online tutorial reaches further out nationally. The point of departure for launching the new version of Søk & Skriv is based in the findings from our online survey; Søk & Skriv i et brukerperspektiv: Rapport fra spørreundersøkelsen høsten 2010; a Danish evaluation done on three different online tutorials in information literacy in Norway called Studerende, læring og webtutorials, and readings on the so called Google generation. Our findings indicate that the generation n, persons born after 1980 tend to use a small amount of time to search for information (Feiertag and Berge, 2008). Information search as sense-making Information search is understood as an action. As you go along doing your searches you must decide and evaluate whether and how the information at hand will be useful for your research (Dervin, 1999, p.745). Like Dervin we understand information search as sense-making. The source alone is not the authoritative voice, but is dependent on the student who must define the value of the text, and take a stand. This also coincides with the use of Stephen Toulmins model on argumentation (Toulmin, 2003; Rienecker 2012, pp.299-319), both in the text the students are reading, and in the text they are to write themselves. By using Toulmins model in Søk & Skriv we demonstrate a tool on how to read and evaluate the sources by questioning the sources at hand. The purpose is to enable the students to decide whether the information will be useful for their research. Students must demonstrate how (and why) the sources they find are relevant for their thesis. The aim of this article is to present the work we have done in our new version of Søk & Skriv where the goal is to get students from generation n to invest time in searching, reading, evaluating and writing; and to connect their writing with ethical use of sources. The new version of the product www.sokogskriv.no is the result of a thorough collaboration between academic writing experts and librarians.   ReferenceDervin, B.B. (1999). On Studying Information Seeking Methodologically: The Implications of Connecting Metatheory to Method. Information Processing and Management 35(6), 727-750. Feiertag, J. & Berge, Z. L. (2008). Training Generation N: how educators should approach the Net Generation. Education + Training 50(6), 457-464. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1740424 Forras, P., Kavli, S., Mikki, S., Austrheim, G. & Elvebakk, E. (2011). Søk & Skriv i et brukerperspektiv: Rapport fra spørreundersøkelsen høsten 2010. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1956/4781 Hyldegård, J., Lund, H., Moring, C., Pors, N.P., & Schreiber, T. (2011). Studerende, læring og webtutorials: En analyse af 3 norske læringssystemer. København: Det informationsvidenskabelige akademi.

scholarly journals NTNU Academic Writing - developed with UX

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Lillevoll Lorange
Keyword(s):  
Learning Styles ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Visual Learning ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
University Library ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Other Information ◽  
The University

In spring 2017, the University Library of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) launched VIKO, the redesigned tool for fostering information literacy and academic writing skills. The digital and technological development as well as new requirements for information literacy and academic writing skills have made it necessary to revise this tool. A working group at NTNU University Library developed and carried out an electronic survey to map specific needs of students, teachers, and researchers. We involved our users in developing our information literacy tool in order to give them a more useful user experience. We asked the following questions: Is information about academic writing something you need? Where do you go to find information about this? What kind of content do you desire? The answers suggested that “Yes!” this was something both students and teachers wanted. They were eager to get all the information they needed in their studies in one place. Results of this survey and additional depth interviews with students and staff have been the starting point for both the updated content and the new graphical design of VIKO. To accommodate the wish of having all information in one place, all content is now placed on the University Intranet together with all other information relevant for the students. A page listing relevant topics helps students navigate in the content relating to academic writing. The content of the redesigned tool is structured into four topics: defining a research topic, finding sources, structuring your text, and using and citing sources. We know that people have different ways of learning, so offering content for different learning styles like visual learning, auditory learning, and read/write learning will contribute to improving the learning outcomes.

scholarly journals Publishing Literacy for Researchers

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Mikki ◽  
Ingrid Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Classical Text ◽  
Academic Curriculum ◽  
Feedback Questionnaire

The purpose of this paper is to present an example of teacher-librarian collaboration (TLC) in a highly diverse branch of geography as a part of bachelor's seminar teaching. One can say that everything is geography if the phenomenon in question is delimited in a certain region, place or space. Thus every other discipline provides its methods, paradigms and information sources into the use of geography. This obviously presents a challenge to the librarian as he tries to support the geography students' information seeking. The topics can vary between cellular biology applications to sociological perception which also means a large variety in information needs. In our paper we aim to describe different approaches of collaboration this kind of variety requires based on the experiences and feedback gathered in a project, the aim of which was to integrate information literacy (IL) into the academic curriculum. Collaborating with teachers with different backgrounds and from different scientific traditions can be challenging for the librarian. Not only the information sources, databases and methods are different but it is the whole approach to the science that is different. Thus it is fairly obvious that the competence of a single librarian or a teacher is not sufficient for an effective IL instruction. The key here is the collaboration when librarian's information literacy and teacher's academic subject competence complete each other. A successful TLC gives opportunity for both marketing the idea of information literacy and the competence of a library professional. It may also increase the efficiency of teaching and studies and even shorten the time for a student to graduate. Especially in the case of seminar teaching TLC seems to give a valuable opportunity to instruct the students' seminar thesis along the way. In 2008, Kumpula Campus Library launched a project to integrate the IL teaching into the academic curriculum and to enhance the collaboration between the campus library and academic staff. The aim of our case project was to support the bachelor level students in their work of their bachelor's thesis. The librarian participated in the bachelor's seminar by giving a lecture about information literacy and a personal guidance in the students' information seeking process. The main idea was to make a timely intervention in order to give the best possible support to the academic writing across the curriculum. The importance of a timely intervention is well described in the classical text of Carol C. Kuhlthau (1993). The students came from the department of geography in the faculty of science of the University of Helsinki. The personal guidance session was conducted together with the seminar teacher to support both academic writing and information seeking process. After the seminar, the effect of the IL teaching was evaluated by a feedback questionnaire.

scholarly journals Information Seeking MOOCs at the University of Helsinki

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-60
Author(s):  
Taina Kettunen ◽  
Kristina Weimer ◽  
Valtteri Vainikka ◽  
Päivi Helminen
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Master's Degree ◽  
Master's Level ◽  
English Version ◽  
Continuous Development ◽  
Content Integration ◽  
Literacy Teaching ◽  
University Library ◽  
The University

The University of Helsinki is a multidisciplinary university with about 31 300 students and 7800 staff. Our bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes were recently redesigned and started off in the autumn semester 2017. At the Helsinki University Library, this led to the reorganization of our information literacy teaching in order to be able to connect with larger amounts of students. In autumn 2017, we launched two new MOOCs: a Finnish language one for bachelor’s level and an English version mainly for master’s level students. Currently, the MOOCs are compulsory in some study programmes and voluntary in many others. Our main goals were to make the MOOCs interactive and to collaborate with departments to get these courses integrated into their curricula at the point when students need these skills the most. This article discusses what we have learned during the process of constructing MOOCs and how we tackled the main challenges of meaningful content, integration and interaction. The MOOCs are in continuous development based on received feedback.

scholarly journals Teacher-librarian collaboration (TLC) in a highly diverse branch: supporting information literacy of geography students

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kakkonen ◽  
Antti Virrankoski
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Classical Text ◽  
Academic Curriculum ◽  
Feedback Questionnaire

The purpose of this paper is to present an example of teacher-librarian collaboration (TLC) in a highly diverse branch of geography as a part of bachelor's seminar teaching. One can say that everything is geography if the phenomenon in question is delimited in a certain region, place or space. Thus every other discipline provides its methods, paradigms and information sources into the use of geography. This obviously presents a challenge to the librarian as he tries to support the geography students' information seeking. The topics can vary between cellular biology applications to sociological perception which also means a large variety in information needs. In our paper we aim to describe different approaches of collaboration this kind of variety requires based on the experiences and feedback gathered in a project, the aim of which was to integrate information literacy (IL) into the academic curriculum. Collaborating with teachers with different backgrounds and from different scientific traditions can be challenging for the librarian. Not only the information sources, databases and methods are different but it is the whole approach to the science that is different. Thus it is fairly obvious that the competence of a single librarian or a teacher is not sufficient for an effective IL instruction. The key here is the collaboration when librarian's information literacy and teacher's academic subject competence complete each other. A successful TLC gives opportunity for both marketing the idea of information literacy and the competence of a library professional. It may also increase the efficiency of teaching and studies and even shorten the time for a student to graduate. Especially in the case of seminar teaching TLC seems to give a valuable opportunity to instruct the students' seminar thesis along the way. In 2008, Kumpula Campus Library launched a project to integrate the IL teaching into the academic curriculum and to enhance the collaboration between the campus library and academic staff. The aim of our case project was to support the bachelor level students in their work of their bachelor's thesis. The librarian participated in the bachelor's seminar by giving a lecture about information literacy and a personal guidance in the students' information seeking process. The main idea was to make a timely intervention in order to give the best possible support to the academic writing across the curriculum. The importance of a timely intervention is well described in the classical text of Carol C. Kuhlthau (1993). The students came from the department of geography in the faculty of science of the University of Helsinki. The personal guidance session was conducted together with the seminar teacher to support both academic writing and information seeking process. After the seminar, the effect of the IL teaching was evaluated by a feedback questionnaire.

scholarly journals Co-redefining and co-creating Academic literacies in PhD education

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mai Trang Vu ◽  
Magnus Olsson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Academic Literacies ◽  
University Library ◽  
Writing Tutors ◽  
Academic Resource

Our presentation discusses the practices and findings from a PhD workshop series at the Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University Library, Sweden. The partnership between librarians, writing tutors/researchers in supporting PhD research has recently become a new reality with Information Literacy courses offered as tools for resources and searching (Hassani, 2015; Paasio & Hintikka, 2015; Garson,2016). The insights from our course contribute to this literature by re-conceptualizing “academic literacy”, including Information Literacy, in doctoral education. Adopting Academic Literacies (Lea & Street, 1998, 2006) as our workshops’ underlying framework, we propose literacy beyond individual, transferable cognitive skills of writing and reading. Rather, it is an interrelated, dynamic, and situated set of knowledge, skills, and personal attributes that help PhD students acculturate into disciplinary discourses, the academic community, and wider social contexts. Our course approaches literacy holistically as comprising Research competence, Information literacy, and Academic English, with consideration to social processes (power, identity, and authority). The workshops cover critical reading, the literature review, writing abstract, communicating research and writing papers, but the PhD students are also encouraged to make sense of their writing by having critical, inquiry-based reflections about themselves, academia, and social discourses. The results from the first three workshop seasons emphasize knowledge co-creation – between academic librarians and researchers, and between workshop instructors and PhD students, as one key principle in developing academic literacies. The findings indicate that Information Literacy can be seen beyond tools and resources but rather a springboard that stimulates PhD students’ critical thinking in their becoming researchers. The positive feedback from the participants also gives the rationale for the expanding roles of the library (Delaney and Bates, 2018). These workshops have strengthened our belief that collaboration is one important strategy for librarians and writing tutors/researchers to acquire the skills of the future. Authors Mai Trang Vu, PhD, works at the Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University Library, and Department of Language Studies, Umeå University, Sweden, [email protected]. Magnus Olsson, Academic Librarian, Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University Library, Sweden, [email protected].   References Delaney, Geraldine, & Bates, Jessica. (2018). How Can the University Library Better Meet the Information Needs of Research Students? Experiences from Ulster University. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 24(1), 63-89. Garson, D. S. (2016). Doctoral students becoming researchers: An innovative curriculum. Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education, 8(1). Hassani, A. E. (2015). The role of Information Literacy in higher education: An initiative at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco. Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education, 7(1). Lea, M. & Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157–72. Lea, M. & Street, B. (2006). The ‘Academic literacies’ model: Theory and applications. Theory into Practice, 45(4), 368–77. Paasio, A-L, Hintikka, K. (2015). An Information Literacy course for doctoral students: Information resources and tools for research. Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education, 7(1).

Exploring Internet and Media-mediated Health Information within the Context of Personal Health Management

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelagh K. Genuis
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Health Management ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Personal Health ◽  
Étude Qualitative ◽  
Informal Information ◽  
Etude Qualitative

This qualitative paper explores how health information mediated by the internet and media is used and made valuable within the life of consumers managing non-crisis health challenges, and how informal information seeking and gathering influences self-positioning within patient-clinician relationships. Findings have implications for health information literacy and collaborative, patient-centred care.Cette étude qualitative explore comment l’information sur la santé relayée par Internet et les médias est utilisée et rendue utile dans le contexte de consommateurs gérant des problèmes médicaux non urgents, et comment la recherche et la collecte d’information informelles influencent l’auto-positionnement dans la relation patient clinicien. Les résultats ont des applications dans la maîtrise de l’information médicale et les soins collaboratifs centrés sur le patient.

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