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A presentation at the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL2014), by the InformAll initiative, on how information literacy - the know-how, skills and competencies needed to handle information, whatever form this takes - might be made more relevant to individuals and organisations at the interface between higher education and employment.
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Transferability of information and data literacy beyond higher education
European Conference on Information Literacy ECIL2014Dubrovnik, 22 October 2014
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Ralph Catts – University of StirlingStéphane Goldstein – Research Information NetworkJane Secker – London School of Economics and Political Science and CILIP IL GroupGeoff Walton – Northumbria University
• A coalition of partners working together to promote the value of information and research data literacy in HE and beyond
• A collectively-run programme to enable activities which help to advance LIS knowledge and skills
• Grant-funded by Higher Education Funding Council for England until end of 2014, managed by the Research Information Network
• Changed its name from RIDLs June 2014
Important premise:
• Partners not limited to the library world: others players have a stake!
• Important to build a network that capitalises on different outlooks
• Academic librarians, data management specialists, career & professional development experts, information sciences researchers… and now reaching out to stakeholders beyond academia
What is InformAll?
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InformAll programme 2014
• Providing networking opportunities and collective source of expertise for its members
– Re-launching as a membership-based organisation
• Criteria for describing, reviewing & assessing training interventions
• Information / data literacy (IDL) and employment: investigating how IL is perceived by players at the interface between HE and employment
– Basis for widening the dialogue about IL to sectors where information literacy is less well recognised
• International engagement
– UNESCO, IFLA, European Commission…
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InformAll, IL and employment
• Examination of IDL as a transferable attribute for individuals as they move from higher education into the world of employment
– Snapshot of views from a sample of players at the interface between HE and employers: careers advisers, professional bodies, accreditation agencies, employers, trade unions and other employment-related bodies
– Research based on interviews with representatives from these different groups
– Consulting with these players has provided an opportunity to generate some interest in IDL among stakeholders that do not usually reflect much on these issues. Can we build on that?
• Report setting out and analysing these findings published September 2014
• Annotated bibliography on IL in the workplace
• This work to serve as a basis for a dialogue between interlocutors at the interface between HE and employment to consider jointly how information and data literacy relates to their policies and practices
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What we should now consider…
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Challenge: how to develop awareness of the relevance of IDL to the policies and practices of those at the interface between higher education and employment? How to attract and sustain their interest?
Three sets of issues to set the scene:
1. How IDL is defined and understood in employment settings
2. Fitting IDL in workplace cultures and environments
3. Making the case for IDL
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1. How IDL is defined and understood in employment
settings
Information and data literacy by another name
• Based on literature review of IL in the workplace by Williams, Cooper and Wavell (2014)
• Workplace IL places a greater emphasis on:
– social, informal, contextualised processing of information
– the transformation of information to knowledge
– information creation, packaging, and organisation
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Key differences from IDL in HE settings?
• Less emphasis on search skills and finding information
• People are key information sources
• Relatively little use of libraries
• No need for everyone to have all IL skills
• Information processing is a shared activity
• New projects seen as exciting challenges in contrast to how they might be viewed in education
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Some workplace information literacy terminology
Effective use of Information
i-Skills
Information Competencies
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Using information
for problem solving
Keeping up to
date
Managing information Dealing with
information overload
Environmental scanningUsing information
for decision
making
Defining workplace information literacy
“[....] an information literate workforce that can locate, evaluate and effectively use information is the key to the success of many organisations” (Kirton and Barham, 2005, p. 366)
“For a law firm, being information literate means that staff have the capacity to stay up-to-date and give timely, correct, and relevant legal advice.” (Gasteen and O’Sullivan, 2000, p. 112)
“Workers who develop information resilience have the capacity to connect and engage with information in order to solve problems, adapt to change or to novel situations, transform workplace practices and to reduce possible sources of conflict or stress that arise when there is uncertainty about the type of information that is required, or where to locate it in the information landscape.” (Lloyd, 2013, p. 225)
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2. Fitting IDL in workplace cultures and environments
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The junction between HE and workplaces
• ‘Never the twain shall meet’? – those times are long gone. Virtually all students want a ‘good’ job.
• Who is responsible for preparing people for employment – employers or academics?
• The notion of three domains of knowledge –
– professional, workplace, and academic theory
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Social identity and workplace culture
• People modify their public position to fit in with their workplace culture (i.e. social identity is influenced by the community of practice)
• Workplaces overtly induct new graduates – partly to suppress new knowledge that threatens current practice
• Hence HE needs to help people to learn how to maintain appropriate norms and values
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The interface of three ways of knowing
Academic knowledge and ethics
Professional knowledge and values
Workplace knowledge and culture
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Recontextualising knowledge
• The responsibility for putting academic knowledge to work in society rests with HE.
• We must engage students in authentic learning and assessment experiences to ensure that IDL is efficiently transferred to professional and workplace cultures.
• This is done by engaging learners in scenarios where they can practice managing workplace cultures and social identity issues.
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3. Making the case for IDL
• IDL is not well recognised outside academia as a term and as a concept
• Students find it difficult to transfer IDL skills learnt in academia to the workplace
• However, many of the core ‘soft’ skills identified by companies tend to fall within the remit of IDL
• How do we solve this problem?
• One possible solution might be to gather case studies from the workplace and then illustrate how the skills required by employers match IDL
• But how do we get the message to employers more generally?
National perspectives (1)
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National perspectives (2)
We need to consider:
• Who are the main advocates for information and digital literacy in your country?
• How do they make their voice(s) heard?
• Are there any networks in place (formal or informal) to bring the message to a wider audience?
• In what ways do they engage across sectors?
• What about international engagement?
– Is it important?
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Issues for discussion
To repeat, this is the challenge: how to develop awareness of the relevance of IDL to the policies and practices of those at the interface between higher education and employment? How to attract and sustain their interest?
Some questions in addressing the challenge:
• How might the concept of IDL in the workplace might be explained in a language that relates to the needs and priorities of these stakeholders?
• What are the merits and/or usefulness of generating a dialogue with stakeholders at the juncture between higher education and employment (on the basis of the experiences of InformAll and initiatives elsewhere)?
• What might be done (strategies, approaches…) to generate interest among these stakeholders in the relevance and application of IDL to employment contexts, and what are the barriers to doing so?
• Can initiatives such as InformAll be a vehicle for moving this agenda forward?
References
• Evans, K., Guile, D. and Harris, J., 2007. Putting Knowledge to Work: Project Report. London, Institute of Education.
• Gasteen, G. and O’Sullivan C., 2000. Working towards an information literate law firm. In: C. BRUCE and P. CANDY, eds, Information Literacy Around the World: Advances in Programs and Research. First edn. Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, pp. 109-120.
• Goldstein, S., 2014. Transferring information know-how – Information literacy at the interface between higher education and employment. InformAll. Available at http://www.researchinfonet.org/infolit/ridls/transferable-skills/transferable-il/
• Kirton, J. and Barham, L., 2005. Information literacy in the workplace. The Australian Library Journal, 54(4), pp. 365-376.
• Lloyd, A., 2013. Building information resilient workers: The critical ground of workplace information literacy. What have we learnt? European Commission for Information Literacy: Communications in Computer and Information Science. Springer. Volume 397, 2013, pp. 219-228.
• Williams, D., Cooper, K and Wavell, C. (2014) Information Literacy in the Workplace: an annotated bibliography. Robert Gordon University Institute for Management, Governance & Society (IMaGeS) in association with InformAll. Available at: http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Workplace-IL-annotated-bibliography.pdf
• Photo credits: slide 1, Stéphane Neckebrock; slide 6, Glen Scarborough; slide 11, Jeff Miller; slide 18, Víctor González – all on Flickr, Creative Commons
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Thank you for taking part!
Interested in joining InformAll? Go to www.informall.eu - #informall
Ralph Catts – [email protected] Stéphane Goldstein – [email protected]
Jane Secker – [email protected] Geoff Walton – [email protected]
Want to continue the InformAll discussion informally?Please join us for a drink, and maybe a bite, this evening at 7:30
in Dubrovnik, at the harbourside Poklisar restaurantInstructions: enter old city via Pile Gate and walk down main street and exit to harbour through harbour gate.
Turn right and facing the harbour look for Ralph and others at the last restaurant with the Coca Cola signs.
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