I read somewhere a few years ago about a university that was embedding Information Literacy into its’ PG Cert program, thus reaching lecturers and academic staff this way, spreading the importance of Information Literacy Skills.
Even as a trained Librarian, being out of the mode of study for so long, I am finding, that even with my knowledge and good intentions, how easy it is to mess up, if you don’t record everything that you might later want to go back to. It is a habit, no doubt, for those who research all the time. However, for those starting out, or even those returning to education after a long break, the process of information gathering, recording, and summarising etc, should, surely be the first thing that we learn, because everything else depends upon us having this ability, and despite our best intentions, very few students will leave school with the required skills for university.
I have been reading how plagiarism is a growing concern. Surely, if students are better educated in information retrieval, the incidents of Plagiarism will decline. Of course, there will be those who choose to plagiarise, but it will help to eliminate the plagiarism through lack of understanding and bad practice. It is such an essential skill, yet it is not required to be on the curriculum at school or at university. There are a growing number of Librarians and academics working together to teach Information Literacy. Frameworks for Information Literacy in Higher education, exist in the USA, with the ACRL framework for Information Literacy, (2016) and in the UK we have the CILIP Information Literacy group and the SCONUL Seven Pillars! But is that enough?
One example of how Librarians and academic staff have worked together in UAL, can be found in Duncan, A, (2019), Crossing the threshold: innovations in information literacy. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Vol 4 / Issue 1 pp.16-22.
Alexandra Duncan, Academic Support Librarian at Chelsea College of Arts worked with a Fashion Management Course Leader at London College of Fashion, to design and embed three classes using the threshold concepts of information literacy to teach information literacy.
This is a great example of what can be done. There are of course (or would be) concerns if all academic staff suddenly wanted this to happen (which of course it should!), for their courses. There simply isn’t the time or the number staff needed to go around. So maybe one of the biggest problems is (as always) resources. If staff had more time, maybe more collaborations like the one mentioned above, could take place.
Embedding IL into the Curriculum is full of issues and concerns. In McCluskey, (2011), a survey of academic staff showed that they were reluctant to embed IL as part of their course because they were not confident enough to teach it themselves and would need more training first.
References
Duncan, A, (2019), Crossing the threshold: innovations in information literacy. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Vol 4 / Issue 1 pp.16-22.
McCluskey, (2011), Creating Information Literacy Partnerships in Higher Education. Library & Information Research. Vol 35. No. 111. Available at: https://doi.org/10.29173/lirg259 (Accessed: 12/3/2023)