Please excuse us while we blow our own trumpet

We’re honoured (and excited) that ANCIL was chosen as one of four significant UK information literacy models described in detail by Justine Martin in her report, Learning from Recent British Information Literacy Models, which was submitted recently to ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force in preparation for a revision of the Standards.

Justine carried out extensive research for this report, not only studying the four IL models in great depth but also conducting interviews with 11 of the authors. The models she chose were

• ANCIL
• SCONUL’s 2011 revision of the Seven Pillars
• National Information Literacy Framework Scotland
• Information Literacy Framework for Wales

Justine’s analysis identifies a number of elements common to all four frameworks, the two most significant being “the need for holistic, flexible frameworks and information as integral to learning” (6). She writes that

The model authors are not the first to advocate for a holistic, flexible process that embeds information literacy into learning environments, but their documentation provides direction in how this paradigm, with the two interrelated categories, can be achieved. (7)

And the report notes that ANCIL is unique in explicitly including a focus on transition. Justine suggests that

The transition strands in the ANCIL model help raise awareness about instructor and employer expectations through reflection and self-assessment outcomes and activities. Furthermore, transitions are not limited to social environments; the authors also see transitions in terms of helping students move from dependent to independent learner. By outlining transitional learning outcomes, information literacy practitioners can close the gap between expectations and students’ actual skill, while increasing students’ critical thinking and cognitive skills. (21-2)

It’s incredibly exciting to see our work highlighted alongside high-profile and established frameworks, but it’s even more elating to have it explored and analysed systematically and rigorously to such a high standard. We may need to put that trumpet down now and have a glass of wine to celebrate!

Image credit: mawel on flickr.com, CC BY-NC 2.0

You can download our handout and action plan, view the presentation, or just have a think about our 8 ‘top tips’ …

Jane and Emma’ tips for doing research in your day job

1. Find your thinking space (hint: this may involve coffee/fresh air). Where’s yours?

2. Modify your attitude to time – your research may well become your hobby! When’s your best thinking time?

3. Build a partnership: working with someone else is highly motivating, boosts your confidence, and means you can divide up the work. Who could you buddy up with?

4. Look out for funding opportunities: keep an eye on networks, JISCmail lists, and other resources and contacts. Where might you start looking?

5. Find your niche. What do you do that no-one else is doing? What do you love about your research field?

6. Develop your online identity, for greater recognition and to take part in a wider conversation. What platform(s) will you use to do this?

7. Present your ideas early: share and develop your existing resources, slides or ideas. You can present your work through so many different channels: blogs, Twitter, Slideshare, Mendeley, JORUM … What platform(s) will you use to do this?

8. Think about whether you want ‘academic’ publication in addition to the channels you’re already using to publish your ideas (see point 7). If you do: listen to your students’ questions and conversations about how to present their work and where to publish. Learning from them not only helps us offer better support, it will also make us better researchers.

Our new book came out shortly before Christmas published by Facet. Emma and I were thrilled to receive our copies and it is available to buy now! The book is divided into ten chapters with an introduction, conclusion and afterward. We have contributions from a fabulous group of people, including Sarah Pavey, Geoff Walton, Jamie Cleland, Moira Bent. Clare McCluskey, Isla Kuhn, Libby Tilley, Andy Priestner, Lyn Parker, Helen Webster and Katy Wrathall. Thank you to everyone who made this book possible including John Naughton.

My presentation on Librarians as Teachers Integrated in the Curriculum is online. I was also really excited to see the event written up in the Times Higher this week. Many of the other speakers talked about the importance of collections, research support, excellent learning spaces and excellent service. I was talking about librarians as teachers and how using ANCIL, librarians can find ways to integrate information literacy into the curriculum, working with academic staff and other colleagues. This was the first leg of the ANCIL 2012/13 tour. Further dates to be announced in due course!

A few weeks ago I presented a lunchtime seminar with Maria Bell to LSE Library staff and some colleagues from the Centre for Learning Technology. We were reporting on the ANCIL at LSE study that we have been undertaking with Darren Moon from CLT since the Spring. Our slides are available online, however, we are also in the process of writing up as a report to circulate internally at first.

The work had moved on a little since we presented in Finland in August, but also presenting to an internal audience meant there was a slightly different slant on the talk. In reviewing provision for undergraduate students across the institution we found there were areas of good practice. LSE is quite unusual in having a core course taken by all undergraduate students, called LSE100, Understanding the Cause of Things. However, we also found that in many departments, information literacy is not embedded in the curriculum, but offered to students on the basis of need, and often provided by central services in the form of one off workshops. We spoke to people about what they understood information and digital literacy to be, and whether they felt there was a need for this in undergraduate education. Academic and academic support staff were largely agreed that this is crucial and that students were clearly arriving in higher education with a limited understanding of what was expected of them.

There were some interesting findings about attitudes from students, who predictably were very driven by recommendations from their lecturers, reading lists and other sources in Moodle, our VLE. They also were often unaware of the expertise and help that librarians could offer them. One question I still have, is whether in the course of an undergraduate degree we can prepare students to be truly independent learners and to develop their research skills. Is this the purpose of the undergraduate degree. And if we don’t do it hear, then what does it mean for a student taking a one year’s masters course, who then needs to get up to speed so quickly. Hmmm, lots of food for thought! And look out for the report coming soon!

We have interviewed staff across LSE to find out how joined up our provision is, with services such as Teaching and Learning, Careers and Language Centre and with what is embedded into academic programmes We also carried out focus groups with students to find out what they want from the Library in terms of learning support. The workshop gave people a chance to try mapping their own provision in their institution. Our presentation is on Slideshare at: http://www.slideshare.net/seckerj/ifla2012final

The IFLA conference was a great opportunity to meet librarians from all around the world, including Scandinavia, United States, South Africa, Uganda, Namibia, Australia, Singapore and others. . Keynotes for the conference were given by Kirsti Lonka who is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Helsinki who spoke about designing engaging learning environments for the future and the value of physical spaces (and libraries) to support learning (see my previous post). The second keynote was from Carol Kuhlthau, who is Professor of Information Science at Rutgers University and has written widely in the field of information seeking behaviour.

Highlights of the conference included a valuable session on seemless delivery of learning support services from Vicki McDonald at Queensland University of Technology, who spoke about joining up information literacy with academic skills. Courtney Bruch and Carroll Wilkinson from the US spoke about organisational culture, change agency and emotional intelligence: research findings for fostering librarian ownership of IL Programs. They have also written a book on this subject. Sharon Favaro from Seton Hall University, New Jersey spoke about teaching IL to first year students through knowledge management tools and there were lots of overlaps in her findings and our work at LSE. I also attended an excellent session from Portsmouth University about developing an information literacy framework for library staff to enable them to better support students.

Tampere was a fabulous city on the banks of two lakes, with a rich industrial heritage and many former factories and mills. Known as the Manchester of Finland, it was great to have an evening reception in the town hall and see some of the city on an afternoon tour. We also had a chance to visit the ‘Moomin Museum’ for those of you old enough to remember the strange hippo like creatures created by Tove Jansson.

So building on the handouts we created for the conferences, I have tried to describe each strand of the curriculum concisely to find out if teachers feel they cover aspects in their own teaching either formally or informally, if they refer students elsewhere and if it is embedded in their curriculum or as a standalone session.

This week I also had the opportunity to take this to a forum of departmental tutors responsible for undergraduate students in each academic department at LSE. The forum is chaired by our Dean of Undergraduate Studies who I also had a chance to interview. She seemed to recognise the value of a curriculum such as ANCIL while stressing it must be embedded in the discipline to be meaningful to students! She also suggested immediately that we should be more ambitious saying this went beyond skills and was linked to how education needs to change in light of new technologies. Some of what she said reminded me of Lord Puttnam’s keynote at LILAC about us needing a digital pedagogy not to digitise the old pedagogy.

So what next? More interviews with staff next week and some student focus groups I hope! We have also had questionnaire returned from most of the liaison librarians at LSE now, which is highlighting some interesting issues about the teaching and support they provide. I am now getting very excited and have also circulated the survey to our graduate teaching assistants at LSE! Watch this space.