This was presented by Sheila Webber on 9th May 2011 at the CILIP University Science and Technology Librarians' Group meeting. In it she identifies some of the factors that may affect the way in which a supervisor interacts with and guides the student, which have implications for the way in which teh student may develop information literacy. Additional notes have been added for this Slideshare version (in blue)

1. Information Literacy and the role of the
supervisor: a supervisor‟s perspective
Sheila Webber
Information School
University of Sheffield
May 2011
With additional
notes for this
Slideshare version
Supervisor
Examiner

2. Variations in supervisors
• Education/culture “the powerful impact of the supervisor‟s
previous experience as a PhD student on how they
supervise now.” (Lee, 2008: 268)
• Supervisory styles
• Discipline
• Research approaches “this is your tiny part of the existing
project” to spending first year refining your question
• Conceptions of research This presentation identifies some
ways in which doctoral supervisors
• Stage of career may vary. These variations include
differences in the way they
• Structure of the PhD programme supervise. The differences can
affect the information literacy of
Sheila Webber, 2011 their students

3. Underlying this presentation is the view that a supervisor will have a big impact on his or her
doctoral student, as it is an influential one to one relationship that lasts several years. The
student may model the supervisor‟s behaviour, including information behaviour.
I will not be talking further about differences in doctoral programme structure (e.g. in the UK the
main focus throughout is on the student‟s original research, in the USA there is more emphasis
on taught modules; in the UK the viva is closed, in some other countries it is an open event)
Firstly, supervisors‟ experience or conception of research can vary. Brew (2001) identified four
ways of experiencing research, as outlined on the next slide.
There has not been research in this area, but I would hypothesise that there might be slightly
different information behaviour associated with different experiences of research. For example,
someone with the “trading” experience may be focused on purposive searching (to complete a
paper, or to fulfil the requirements of a project), whereas someone with a “journey” conception
may put high value on browsing, encountering and serendipity, as they explore areas around
their subject of interest.
Sheila Webber, 2011

4. Conceptions of research (Brew, 2001)
• Domino: research as a series of tasks, issues etc.; distinct but
linked & to be synthesised
• Trading: “What is in the foreground are the products of
research: publications, grants, and social networks. These are
created and then exchanged in a social situation for money,
prestige or simply recognition.” (p277)
• Layer: exploring & illuminating existing & new layers of
meaning
• Journey: “The content or topic of the investigation is less
important than the issues or underlying questions posed, or
the ways in which they dovetail with the researcher‟s life or
career” (p279)
Sheila Webber, 2011

5. The next slide lists the different approaches to doctoral supervision identified by Lee
(2008). An experienced and empathetic supervisor may vary their approach depending
on the needs and preferences of the student, but the supervisor is likely to have a
preferred or default approach. I think that my espoused approach to supervision is
“emancipatory”.
Again, this is going to have an impact on information approaches and conceptions of
information literacy as well. The functional supervisor may be focused on ensuring that
the student has just “ticked the boxes” as regards requirements for information literacy
training, the supervisor focused on enculturation may encourage the student only to
value those information behaviours which are important in the specific discipline, the
emancipatory supervisor may put an emphasis on encouraging the student to find their
own information style.
Sheila Webber, 2011

6. Approaches to supervision (Lee, 2008)
• Functional: project management “I know of places where
there is a PhD factory.” (Lee, 2008: 271)
• Enculturation into the disciplinary community (supervisor as
gatekeeper, coach)
• Critical thinking: students questioning their work, supervisor
challenging, evaluating
• Emancipation: student growing, reflecting; supervisor
mentoring “Your job as a supervisor is to get them to the
stage of knowing more than you” “I want it to have changed
how they see the world” (p274)
• Developing a quality relationship (reciprocal) between
supervisor and student
Sheila Webber, 2011

7. Eva Hornung
Remote location student
Librarian working full time in Dublin, Ireland
Successful viva in March 2011
Phenomenographic approach
Irish solo librarians‟ conceptions of CPD
In the
Dr Yazdan Mansourian
presentation Assisstant Professor, Tarbiat Moallem
I presented
videoclips of
University, Tehran, Iran
two of my Graduated successfully 2006
students,
Eva and
Grounded theory approach
Yazdan Information Visibility on the Web and
Conceptions of Success and Failure in
Sheila Webber, 2011
Web Searching

8. I also quoted from interviews undertaken as part of a three year project funded by the
Arts and Humanities Research Council 2001-2005. 80 academics were interviewed, 20
in each of 4 disciplines; from a variety of universities, and a mix of age, gender and
responsibilities.
The next slides give quotations in which the academics give accounts of their own
information behaviour, e.g. when writing a paper. They illustrate the different information
behaviours, and the different meanings of information, in different disciplines
Academics interviewed for the AHRC-
funded project investigating UK
academics‟ conceptions of IL and
pedagogy for IL
Sheila Webber, 2011

9. Discipline
CHEMISTRY ACADEMIC 08: “Well, sure, say I‟ve got a paper to write
on a chemical structure. The chemist has often written that part, the
chemical part of the paper, you know, how it was made. They‟ve given
me some of the background information. I would like perhaps to bring it
up to date and stuff like that, particularly from my own perspective in
structural chemistry, so what I will do is I will read the paper, I will check
the references, I will check similar reference on Web of Science, the ISI
one, so you can kind of put in a reference and get similar ones to that
one or ones who have been cited by or cited in that paper, so then you
can sort of by that method you can find similar papers, and you can
also search for subject in these databases as well, so I try to get the
best set of references out of these journal-kind of databases. Then
putting the structural similarity aside, I will use a chemical database,
Cambridge crystallographic database.”
(Quotation from AHRC-funded research into conceptions of IL)
Sheila Webber, 2011

10. …so developing IL with focus on
• Formal search
• Collaborative information and writing behaviour
• Specific types of information; e.g. textual, chemical
structures
• Journal article publication, set structure
• Current literature
Sheila Webber, 2011

11. ENGLISH ACADEMIC 11: I am usually starting off with a certain set,
maybe one, maybe several of I would think of as primary texts, texts
which are my primary focus and then on from that, I would be using
my prior experience, the virtual bibliography that I have in my head,
so to speak, to go to ancillary texts to cover my knowledge and to
increase my knowledge of what has already been written,
established, argued, about those texts, and then to see if there is a
point at which that debate which has been set up, because that is
what I take literary criticism to be, a debate or a forum that has been
set up about a particular writer, about a particular text, uh, where my
point of entrance might be, so, you know, one may get some sort of
an idea about it. The start will be there but the next step is to see
there is the possibility of—I‟m sliding around on my metaphors
here—whether there is the possibility of actually making a
contribution in the forum that is already there about that text.
Sheila Webber, 2011

12. ENGLISH ACADEMIC 10: Yeah, a lot of people as sources. And just
being plugged into the field, um, and um, and, and, and just reading
papers, reading the literature and that kind of thing. I am not sure
hand-on-heart that I more than a handful of times went to the MLA
databases and typed in a search term to find out material, which
might show the limits of my, uh, my own, um, research. I think it‟s
more just working with the field and I think that has made a big
difference for me, I think, I think in fact… I‟ve never had anybody
comment on the fact that I lack that kind of thing, it‟s usually the
reverse. Usually people say, „This is very well read in the field,‟ so it‟s
small, but it‟s a small field, so… minor XXth Century XX poets, so I‟ve
been very, very lucky I think. I get surprised quite… but usually
people in the scholarly community talk about things and about what‟s
coming out, new books, and you know what‟s coming out and you
know what‟s around, because people are always talking about it.
Sheila Webber, 2011

13. …so developing IL with focus on
• Relationship with your disciplinary community
• Understanding, evaluating etc. the conversations
around your texts/field of study
• Journals, books or other contributions to the
conversation as output
• Keeping in touch with current thinking
Particularly if this was combined with an enculturation approach to supervising, it
means that the information literacy being advocated (explicitly or implicitly) by the
supervisor was going to be very different from discipline to discipline. It also means that
if a student had a “functional” supervisor, who pointed a student towards generic IL
education, the student might not be well placed to integrate him or herself into the
information world of his or her discipline. Sheila Webber, 2011

14. Research approach
CIVIL ENGINEERING 17 “… what I have found in my experience is that those
people who, who say are in the fields of science, technology and engineering
are usually quite illiterate really in terms of the information in their own discipline,
and I think that is primarily because they are always given a research topic, you
know, it‟s usually the result of some of their, you know, some other kind of, you
know, their grant has come specifically to support a certain project, so they come
into with that question already. And they usually know nothing about it and then
they go away and find out about it. Whereas those who are doing more
qualitative research, say like something, you know, stemmed from something
more in themselves, they have a more personal, from before they start the
research, it comes from an interest within themselves and they are already a
little bit more aware of what is going on in their field and their discipline, so there
are those two aspects, but really what I am trying to do is get them to the point
that they can be literate in their discipline and its wide, wider context to generate
a suitable thesis for research.”
Sheila Webber, 2011

15. “It helped In the previous slide, the academic was
identifying different research approaches,
me find which to some extent may be related to
disciplinary differences. Some PhD students
may simply be “given” their research question
the main or hypothesis, told what research methods to
use, and be part of a larger research project.
This requires little exploration of the literature,
focal point but rather very purposive and precise
searching. In contrast, a student developing
their own research question may spend more
of my PhD or less the first year in exploring the research
literature and the research methods literature
to identify a meaningful question or hypothesis.
…” In the presentation, I played a videoclip of
Yazdan Mansourian describing the iterative
process of refining his research question and
then returning to the literature.
Sheila Webber, 2011

16. The next slide shows the criteria that someone examining a PhD at Sheffield University
uses, when deciding whether or not to award a candidate a PhD, following submission
of the written PhD and the viva.
As you see, they are very brief (the criteria at other universities where I have examined
PhDs are similar). They obviously have to be broad enough to cover PhDs in all
specialisms, but they provide a focus on what is really important.
Sheila Webber, 2011

17. Criteria for examining PhD
• Is original work which forms an addition to knowledge
• Shows evidence of systematic study and of the ability to
relate the results of such study to the general body of
knowledge in the subject
• Is worthy of publication either in full or in an abridged form
• In addition, the form of the thesis should be such that it is
demonstrably a coherent body of work, i.e. includes a
summary, an introduction, a description of the aims of the
research, an analytical discussion of the related findings to
date, the main results and conclusions, and sets the total
work in context.
University of Sheffield Research and Innovation Services. (2011) Guidance Notes for
Examiners of research degree programmes . Sheffield: University of Sheffield

18. Q: What does your PhD mean to you?
Here I showed two videoclips
in which Eva and Yazdan said
“If I had to do it what the PhD meant to them.
To me, they illustrate how a
good doctoral candidate is not
again, I’d do it just concerned about “the
piece of paper”, but values the
doctoral experience and has a
again …” passion for their research
beyond the PhD.
“.. give “Lifelong ambition”
something
back …” “An exploratory
Sheila Webber, 2011
journey”

19. Researcher Development Framework
Although I am
not a fan of skill
lists, I think the
RDF makes a
good attempt to
capture skills and
knowledge In another
required, and presentation in
think it is good this seminar,
that it includes Moira Bent
attitudes as well showed how the
as behaviours. SCONUL 7
Pillars of
information
literacy could be
aligned with the
RDF
Vitae®, © 2010 Careers Research and Advisory
Centre (CRAC) Limited. Sheila Webber, 2011

20. “All Postgraduate Research students will participate
in the Doctoral Development Programme (DDP).
The DDP will provide research students with a range
of skills and competency-based training
opportunities orientated both towards their specific programme
of study and towards future employment. In particular, as an
outcome of engaging with the DDP, during research studies,
doctoral graduates will possess advanced skills in inquiry,
communication and organisation. They should also be able to
reflect critically and take a creative approach to issues in and
beyond their field of research expertise.” (p17)
University of Sheffield Research and Innovation Service. (2010) Code of Practice for research
degree programmes 2010-2011. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.
Sheila Webber, 2011

21. Doctoral Development Programme:
Sheffield University
This is the structure of the
new development
programme for doctoral
students at Sheffield. I
think that it is good that
doctoral students have
structured frameworks for
development (to avoid the
horrors of non-supervision
that might have been
experienced in times gone
by) but they also may
leave out the creativity,
attitudes etc. from the
RDF & may convey
generic / simplistic notions
of information literacy. © University of Sheffield
Sheila Webber, 2011

22. Approaches to supervision (Lee, 2008)
• Functional: project management
• Enculturation into the disciplinary community (supervisor as
gatekeeper, coach)
• Critical thinking: students questioning their work, supervisor
challenging, evaluating
• Emancipation: student growing, reflecting; supervisor mentoring
“Your job as a supervisor is to get them to the stage of knowing more
than you” (p274)
• Developing a quality relationship (reciprocal) between supervisor and
student
Returning to Lee‟s (2008) categories, essentially, these frameworks embody a “functional”
approach to doctoral supervision. I think that having this as part of your approach is essential,
but on its own it may not be a very rich experience for the student, nor enable them to explore
and develop their information literacy fully …
Sheila Webber, 2011

23. Chemistry: Information literacy as…
1. Accessing and searching … since it may not
chemical information take account of
richer conceptions
2. Mastering a chemist's information of IL, such as some
of those given here
skill set (these were the
conceptions of IL
3. Communicating scientific discovered from
information chemistry
academics in our
4. An essential part of the 2002-5 research)
…
constitution/ construction/ creation
of knowledge (Results from AHRC-funded research into conceptions of IL)
Sheila Webber, 2011

24. … nor develop these behaviours and
attitudes which the RDF identifies as
required for an effective researcher
Example
3. Creativity • Behaviour:
• Develops new ways of working; has novel ideas
1. Inquiring and realises their potential
mind • Identifies new trends; creates new opportunities
2. Intellectual • Develops convincing and persuasive arguments
insight to defend research
3. Innovation • Takes intellectual risks; challenges the status
quo
4. Argument • Attitude:
construction • Takes a creative, imaginative and inquiring
5. Intellectual approach to research
risk • Is open to new sources of ideas
Vitae®, © 2010 Careers Research and Advisory
Centre (CRAC) Limited. Sheila Webber, 2011

25. I finish with the next slide, showing the Information Literate University. This is because I
feel that this support structure of an ILU is needed to ensure that all students can
experience an information literate doctoral journey. The support and development
enabled by an ILU (more rounded and creative than that specified by a functional
doctoral programme, or the individualities of a supervisor) would be important in the
student‟s development of an information literacy of value in his/her discipline, in his/her
career, and in his/her life as a citizen.
Sheila Webber, 2011

26. Information literate Information literate
staff & managers Curriculum
• IL in disciplinary
curriculum
• IL as discipline
Staff
development Information Literate
for IL University Information
literate
students
Management for IL
•Strategy; Policy; Information
•Resourcing; infrastructure;
•Knowledge & Records
literate research
Copyright Sheila Webber and
Bill Johnston, 2010

27. Sheila Webber
Information School
University of Sheffield
s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk
SL & Twitter Sheila Yoshikawa
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Graphics: Sheila Webber
unless otherwise stated

28. References
• Brew, A. (2001). “Conceptions of Research: A
phenomenographic study.” Studies in Higher Education,
26(3), 271-285.
• Lee, A. (2008) “How are doctoral students supervised?
Concepts of doctoral research supervision.” Studies in
Higher Education, 33(3), 267-281.
• Webber, S. and Johnston, B. (2010) The Information
Literate University. Video of talk presented at Lund
University, Sweden, August 2010.
http://uwap03.uw.lu.se/KongressCentrum5/Viewer/?pei
d=9d3f3d440b6d4b5f953c08d4594b5424
Sheila Webber, 2011