DELILA: sharing information and digital literacy resources

as open educational resources

Dr Jane SeckerCentre for Learning Technology

London School of Economics and Political Science

Aberystwyth University: 9th December 2010

Outline of talk

• Me and my role• Information and digital literacy• Introduction to open educational

resources (OERs) • The DELILA project

– Overview and project aims– The audit– Creative commons licensing– Barriers to sharing

• Conclusions

The Centre for Learning Technology at LSE

• Service to support and promote learning technology initiatives in traditional face to face courses

• Using Moodle for course content, discussion groups, video / audio files, online assessment and other functions

• Also support a range of other technologies: lecture capture, voting systems etc.

• Centre Director, 4 X Learning Technology Specialists, Technical Administrator, Learning Technology Librarian

• For more details see: www.lse.ac.uk/clt

My role• Liaise between CLT and Library• Provide advice and training to staff about digital

copyright issues• Co-ordinate the digital literacy programme• Help integrate electronic library resources into

the learning environment (Moodle)• Advise academics over information literacy and

best method of presenting resources (online reading lists)

• Teach information literacy course to PhD students• Teach on LSE’s PG Certification in Higher

Education

Today’s library users….

• Have different expectations about how to find and access information - Amazon

• Have different expectations of the library

• Have difficulty with evaluation and critical thinking but are good at copy and paste

• Don’t always get copyright• Need help from librarians –

information literacy

Information and digital literacy

• In pairs ….– What is information literacy?– what is digital literacy and how does

it relate to information literacy?– are there any other terms that might

also be used?

Information literacy definition

CILIP definition“Information literacy is knowing when and

why you need information, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner.”

SCONUL seven pillars of information literacy

• breaks this down into seven areas

SCONUL 7 Pillars

Other IL Definitions

ALA– “to be information literate, a person must be

able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."

CAUL– "Information literacy is an understanding and a

set of abilities enabling individuals to recognise when information is needed and have the capacity to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."

Digital literacy definition

• Digital literacy is the ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and analyze information using digital technology. It involves a working knowledge of current high-technology, and an understanding of how it can be used. Digitally literate people can communicate and work more efficiently, especially with those who possess the same knowledge and skills.

• Research around digital literacy is concerned with wider aspects associated with learning how to effectively find, use, summarize, evaluate, create, and communicate information while using digital technologies, not just being literate at using a computer.

Wikipedia, Digital Literacy

DigEuLit Project

The ability to use ICT and the Internet becomes a new form of literacy – “digital literacy”. Digital literacy is fast becoming a prerequisite for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship and without it citizens can neither participate fully in society nor acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to live in the 21st century. (European Commission, 2003)

Information literacy in practice

• Generic skills training sessions• Subject specific training sessions• Embedded training (in academic

programmes) including core course for LSE undergraduates

• Online resources: quizzes and activities

• Support for different groups

Digital Literacy in practice

• Generic programme aimed at staff and PhD students

• Online resources• Embedded training in some Masters

programmes • Embedded training in core course for

LSE undergraduates• In both cases writing a strategy to

underpin this work

Introduction to open educational resources

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student or self-learner. Examples of OER include: full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world.

JISC OER Toolkit

OERs

• Term first used by UNESCO in 2000• Covers a wide range of learning resources –

activities, files, objects• Famous OER projects include MIT

OpenCourseWare initiative and Open University OpenLearn project

• Provide open access to high-quality education resources on a global scale

• Relates to other ‘open’ movements• Many resources licensed using creative

commons

Introduction to Creative Commons

• Creative commons is an alternative to copyright – some rights reserved

• Creative commons licences are standard licenses you can attach to a piece of work (text, image, video etc.) to indicate you are happy to share it under certain terms

• Flickr makes use of creative commons licences

• You can search for creative commons content

How can you find OERs?

• Specialist search engines including:– DiscoverEd– Jorum http://www.jorum.ac.uk/ – Xpert http://xpert.nottingham.ac.uk/

• Other search engines

Why, why, why DELILA?

• Information literacy / digital literacy needs to be embedded into new teachers training

• Many librarians have already created valuable resources

• Sharing helps model best practice• Sharing saves time and money• Sharing is good for your institution and

your reputation

DELILA: overview

• LSE, University of Birmingham and CILIP Information Literacy Group

• Developing educators’ learning and information literacies for accreditation

• Part of the JISC / HEA OER programme

• OMAC Strand – 11 projects to develop materials for HEA accredited courses

• The PG Cert at LSE is one example of an accredited course

Aims and objectives

• To provide a model of embedded digital and information literacy support into teacher training at higher education level;

• To release a small sample of open educational resources to support embedding digital and information literacy education into institutional teacher training courses accredited by the HEA including PGCerts and other CPD courses;

• To customise local repositories to provide access to these resources.

Work packages

1. IL Audit2. Mapping of digital/information literacy to HEA

framework3. Review of content to ensure content can be

made open4. Conversion of material to appropriate format

(licensing etc)5. Repository customisation6. Deposit of content7. Dissemination and publicity8. Quality control and evaluation

The audit

• Birmingham and LSE audited their IL and DL resources currently used in teaching

• Collated material on a spreadsheet• Noted details such as:

– Title, description, file format, nominal hours, level (UG, PGR, Staff)

– Included information about 3rd party materials

• Audit report now in draft format

Some example of LSE materials

• Example 1: MI512 Information Literacy course for PhD students– 6 workshops (2 hours)– Covers literature searching, using the

internet, research materials, specialist sources (archives, data) managing information, keeping up to date

– Lesson plan, workbooks, PowerPoints and Moodle course

Example 2: Web presence workshop for academic staff

– 3-4 hour workshop for academic staff– Covers developing your web

presence, institutional, social and personal web presence, writing for the web

– Hands-on activities, discussions and presentations. Lesson plan and PowerPoint

Example 3: Going beyond Google

• Generic IL training session • Covers advanced use of the

internet, internet evaluation criteria, Google Scholar, Google books, other search engines

• 1.5 hour class• Lesson plan, workbook and

PowerPoint

Finding information literacy resources

• Use Jorum for find UK resources• A-Z list on IL RLO wiki• US / Canadian initiative: ANTS• Other informal ways

– Search library websites– Through personal contacts

Barriers to sharing

• Activity – you need to teach and information skills course for first year undergraduate students about literature searching. What would you do? Would you search for resources created by others?

• Would you be happy to use materials created by someone who was a colleague? Who was at another institution?

• What are the advantages of doing this?• What are the disadvantages?

Barriers to sharing

• Lack of awareness and understanding

• Lack of skills• IPR / copyright• Technical issues• Institutional policy• Personal – where’s

the value to me?

Next steps for DELILA

• Review and select content appropriate for accredited courses

• Customising our repository software to facilitate sharing of OERs

• Deposit of resources in local repository and in JorumOpen

• Quality control and evaluation• Publicity (on-going)

Keep up to date with DELILA

• Project blog and website http://delilaopen.wordpress.com

• Look out for presentations, publications and workshops

If you are interested in information literacy

• LILAC (Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference) 2011 in London in April 2011

• Student places are sponsored each year to include full delegate place, travel and accommodation

• Last year’s student wrote an article in the Journal of Information Literacy

• Further details on LILAC website

Thanks for listening! Jane Secker j.secker@lse.ac.uk

My blog: http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/blogs/socialsoftware/

My bookmarks: http://delicious.com/lse_lassie

Further readingCILIP (2004) Information literacy: definition. Available at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/policyadvocacy/learning/informationliteracy/default.htm

DELILA Blog: http://delilaopen.wordpress.com/ European Commission (2003) eLearning: Better eLearning for Europe

Directorate-General for Education and Culture. Luxembourg. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities

Godwin, P and Parker, J. (2008) Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0. Facet Publishing.

LASSIE project website: http://clt.lse.ac.uk/Projects/LASSIE.php Research Information Network & Consortium of Research Libraries (2007)

Researchers’ use of academic libraries and their services London: RINRowlands, et al (2008) The Google generation: the information behaviour

of the researcher of the future. ASLIB Proceedings. 60 (4) 290-31.