Prepared by Laura Santana and Bukola James

1. Developing information skills globally: experiences
from UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and the
Wikimedia Foundation
Laura Santana
Bukola James
Laura Santana
laura.pazzio@gmail.com
Contacts
The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong
Learning (UIL) is an international
education Institute based in Hamburg,
Germany, that focuses on promoting
adult and continuing education, literacy
and non-formal basic education. Its
mission is to create conditions for the
right to education and learning as part of
UNESCO’s educational mandate,
including contributing with research,
capacity-building, networking and
publication on lifelong learning topics.
The Institute is also home to a library
specialized in lifelong learning, adult
education, adult literacy and non-formal
education that supports researchers,
scholars, students and policy makers.
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
Community Libraries International Portal
The UIL Library, in partnership with the
Mortenson Center for International Library
Programs, USA, is currently developing the
Community Libraries International Portal
(CLIP) to promote networking, information
sharing and capacity development to
support community libraries globally. One
portion of the provision of content to
foster knowledge sharing with the global
network of community library stakeholders
included an extensive mapping of
resources available from all regions of the
world regarding book donations, training,
communities and networks, funding and
grants, library development, literacy
programs, publications and research, and
toolkits and manuals.
Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom -
Nigeria
Secondary school teachers must
participate in a development training
course to learn how to integrate Wikipedia
into their classrooms and enhance their
media and information literacy (MIL) skills.
This program aims to assist teachers and
students in Kwara State Nigeria to improve
their ICT skills, media and information
literacy skills, content writing skills, reading
culture, and to provide them with an
alternative format for learning new things
outside of the regular school curriculums,
while improving Wikipedia. It also has the
potential to improve their research skills,
such as the ability to make sense of
information, the ability to verify, evaluate,
and shift reliable information from
information chaos, and the ability to use
the information to create new knowledge.
By tying Wikipedia to the components of
UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy
(MIL) framework, it will also assist
instructors to understand and use
Wikipedia as a learning tool. In addition,
this training will help to bridge the digital
gap by encouraging collaboration among
students and fostering better relationships.
International Librarians Networking Program
The Wikimedia Foundation is a non
governmental international organization
headquartered in San Francisco, California.
It is a nonprofit international foundation
that provides the essential infrastructure
for free knowledge using Wikipedia and its
sister projects, such as Wikidata,
WikiCommons, and Wikivoyage among
others.
Wikimedia Foundation
As both CLIP and Reading Wikipedia in
the Classroom aim to foster
informational skills development, shared
goals were identified among programs:
- Promote capacity building for librarians
and educators;
- Encourage information sharing;
- Increase literacy and reading habits;
- Increase Media and Information
Literacy skills; and
- Stimulate self and lifelong learning.
Learnings
In order to improve the outreach and
impact of these programs, strategic actions
are proposed:
-Necessary alignment with international
and educational policies;
-Need to consider users’ level of digital
literacy and access to ICT equipment;
-Promote Media and Information Literacy
skills using UNESCO MIL framework;
-Localization of content to meet users
needs (regionally and locally);
-Promote community engagement by
fostering content production and sharing
among stakeholders;
-Partnership with local and global
organizations to help scale programs, and
-Encouraging collaboration and resource
sharing can help bridge the digital divide.
Key Takeaways
As part of the American Library
Association’s International Librarians
Networking Program (ILNP), the authors of
this poster met weekly during a 3-month
period to share relevant work experiences
and collaborate.
Throughout ILNP, the authors identified a
common scope within the skills
development programs they were engaged
with:
-Community Libraries International Portal
(CLIP)
-Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom
program in Nigeria
Global skills development programs
Bukola James
bukolajames2017@gmail.com
Wikimedia Projects training -
Nigeria
Photo CC: UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning website
Photo CC:
Linason Blessing
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong
Learning’s Library
Photo CC:James Moore200