Notebook or My Personal Learning Network

In our 24/7, always-connected world where we are inundated with information from all sides, the ability to identify quality resources to inform our research and actions has become a major focus in higher education. Digital Content Curation, as it is called, is something that many faculty believe they should be teaching their students, but they are not sure where to start. I have created a model of Digital Content Curation that faculty can use to help students sharpen their digital literacy and research skills (Garner, in press).

The MOOC: Information Literacy Online has been released. The MOOC is available in: English, German, Catalan, Spanish, Croatian and Slovenian. There are six main modules:
Module 1: Orienting in an information landscape
Module 2: Research is a journey of inquiries
Module 3: The power of search
Module 4: Critical information appraisal
Module 5: Information use: the right and fair way
Module 6: Let’s create something new based on information and share it!
Additionally there are a couple subject-specific modules (in the English-language version, but only one in the German and Croatian versions and none in the Spanish). There is text and pictures, plus some videos and quizzes.
This is the outcome of a European project (articles etc. about the project here - this article gives an interesting and detailed account of the guiding principles and practicalities).
The content can also be re-used under a Creative Commons license.
Go to https://informationliteracy.eu/en

Preference for autonomous versus directed learning for the acquisition of information competencies (ICs) was analyzed among undergraduate social science students according to gender, degree program, belief in importance, and self-efficacy. Data were gathered using the IL-HUMASS (Information Literacy Humanities Social Sciences) online survey from students at five public Spanish universities enrolled in audiovisual communication, education, information science, pedagogy, journalism, psychology, social work, and tourism undergraduate programs during the 2013–2014 academic year. Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and chi-square tests, as well as discriminant analysis, were performed. The results revealed a higher preference for the directed learning style in the four IL competency categories: searching, evaluation, processing, and communication-dissemination. Audiovisual communication, education, and journalism students showed a predilection for autonomous learning, whereas information science and psychology students preferred directed learning. Higher scores in belief in importance correlated with a greater preference for autonomous learning. In contrast, higher levels of self-efficacy were associated with a greater preference for directed learning.

The following case study investigated the efficacy of Information Literacy (IL) pedagogy on undergraduate research in a credit-bearing library instruction class. More specifically, the study analyzed student success and sought to determine whether written reflection and practice strengthen IL skills, including the fundamental ability to develop a research question and thesis statement. Developing research questions and formulating thesis statements are among the most challenging duties of a young researcher. From high school through undergraduate, students often have minimal experience conducting research. They may not know where to begin the research process and what steps are necessary. Student frustration is exacerbated by the fact that typically IL instruction is one-shot guidance, given only once in a semester, making it difficult for a librarian to cover all that is needed. Can a semester long, credit-bearing course aid student success in research and improve IL skills? The instructors introduced several techniques to improve IL skills, and instructors evaluated three class assignments based on their college’s core competencies. Additionally, instructors collected and analyzed students’ written reflections of their progress and an end of semester survey as both qualitative and quantitative data.

The next session I attended at the i3 conference was Edward Luca (an academic librarian at the University of Sydney) on Truly embedded librarianship: rethinking information literacy through understanding disciplinary information practices in higher education.
Starting as a subject librarian in pharmacy, his question to the literature was "how can we embed information literacy within a disciplinary context". The conclusions seemed to be that information literacy was genrally left to librarians, and that is was dominated by one-shot sessions, which may not be contextualised. He noted that the solution to this was often aiming to tie the IL education to student needs for assignments. However, there did appear to be a lack of real collaboration between librarian and faculty.
The value of "embedded" librarianship was seen as it being user-oriented, with closer collaboration, with sometimes even physical embedding within a department. Luca moved on to look at varying information practices within disciplines, and relating information literacy to that.

Digital literacy is like any other core curricular subject. It is no longer an option, just as reading and math are not. Students must be digitally competent if they are to be successful in school and in their professional and personal lives as adults. Indeed, 3 out of 4 of the best jobs for many years to come will involve digital expertise.

Information Literacy started out as library skills. How do we update these essential tools to help us navigate the digital age?

A recent study revealed students at an international school in Finland significantly outperformed U.S. students on tasks which measure digital literacy in social media and online news. The researchers suggest this may be due to the Finnish and International Baccalaureate curricula’s different way of facilitating students’ critical thinking skills compared to the US system and curriculum. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Research in International Education in April.

The Internet is a swelling ocean of information, and navigating through its steady flow can often be challenging. This is certainly true for a student who is not information fluent, so what are some smart online research strategies? Luckily this question falls within the realm of Information Fluency, which involves the 5As process:

• Asking the right questions
• Acquiring the knowledge
• Analyzing the content for relevancy and credibility
• Applying the knowledge to our use
• Assessing the effectiveness of our message

ECDL Foundation launched its latest module, Information Literacy at an event in Prague, Czech Republic, this month. The module covers the essentials of finding, evaluating and working with online information.

UNESCO has launched the Five Laws of Media and Information Literacy (MIL). The graph is in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese). The graphs are also available on the UNESCO MIL website. 

The Arabic and Russian versions are coming soon.

Studies suggest that many U.S. students are too trusting of information found on the internet and rarely evaluate the credibility of a website’s information. For example, a survey found that only 4 percent of middle school students reported checking the accuracy of information found on the web at school, and even fewer did so at home (New Literacies Research Team & Internet Reading Research Group, 2006). At the same time, the web is often used as a source of information in school projects, even in early schooling, and sites with inaccurate information can come up high in search rankings.

What does digital literacy mean in 2016? I'm currently working with the New Media Consortium (NMC) on a research project (supported by Adobe) aimed at answering that question, and you can play a part. We're surveying people to see what they currently think is in digital literacy: technical skills, human skills, policies, platforms, and definitions.…