Integrating Information Literacy education at program level, University of Rwanda. Workshop 1. Facilitator: Kent Pettersson, Blekinge Institute of Technology

1. Information literacy at
University of Rwanda
and BTH
Information literacy - teaching in
practice

2. What is the task ahead
during these two days?
• Lectures by Kent about the
background and initiative to
integrate Information Literacy (IL)
into the curricula at BTH.
• The CDIO initiative
• Learning objectives explained

3. Continued
• The (global) problem of IL
integration.
• Learning objectives as a way to
describe learning content
• Learning objectives as a tool for
assessment and examination

4. Continued
• Recommendations for the teaching of
IL
• The learning objectives of IL training
explained
• Teaching examples of IL training
(perhaps)

5. The training
•
•
•
•
Presentation - Kent
Group work - you
Discussions – you and me
Individual work or collaborative –
longer process as preparation for
follow up in March

6. Objective
• The overall goal with this workshop is
to produce a program for IL training
at department level. This program
could e.g. be communicated with a
brochure describing the IL training
program.

7. Exercises
• The exercises will take form of group
discussions. These discussions could
preferably be summarized in written
form. The names of the group
members should also be attached. An
oral summary after the exercise will
also be done.

8. Part II
IL in our setting
• Rwandan problems of integration of
IL training is not a local problem –it’s
global
• Libraries seem often to be parted
from subject specific teaching
• Old fashion teaching methods
support this partition

9. Continued
• PBL (problem based learning) force
students to use the library
information sources
• The Faculty of health at BTH use
this methods. They also demand them
to work evidence based and use
scientific material

10. Hindering factors
• Academic pride – don´t come here and think you
are anything
• Don´t know what services there are and possible
to expect from the library
• Don´t know what a librarian do, can do and know
• Has an old fashion view of the library
• Doesn´t want to disturb
• Doesn´t come in mind
• Work overload

11. IL training at BTH
• 3700 full time students, coming down
to 2700 within 3 years
• 8 librarians with 10- 25 years of
experience
• Continues cut downs of staff due to
government policies

12. Continued
• Priorities according to what we see
as important – teaching IL priority
number 1
• All librarians have a teaching duty
• Total amount of teaching was 2012
1407 hours, which equals a mean of
10% of a librarians year work

13. Continued
• My personal teaching amount is about
20%
• The trend has been an increased
teaching volume year by year
• Not unreasonable to think that the
teaching volume could be 25% of a
librarians year work

14. Thoughts about the
future
• IL more integrated into the curricula
as a generic skill
• Librarians working together with
academic staff or as such
• Librarians more subject oriented
• Double diplomas?

15. Exercise I
• Form three groups and discuss:
• What IL training do you do at your
department?
• Who performs it?
• What are the plans for the future?
• What are the obstacles and problems

16. Part III: The integration
of IL at BTH
• Emphasis on generic skills at BTH and
Sweden/Europe (methods for
learning, writing, reading,
communicating and IL
• A CDIO (conceive, design, implement,
operate) process started to develop
these skills within engineering

17. IL at BTH
• Quite often ad hoc and intermittent
• Disruptions – dependent on
agreements with benevolent teachers
• Standing alone – not always knit into
the subject
• Not systematic with clear learning
objectives and examinations

18. What did we do
• Studied examples from other universities
and especially the Borås model and the
Southeast IL model
• Started to formulate the criteria's for IL
and teaching examples
• Contacted the BTH Board of Education
and presented a plan for IL training

19. Continued
• Received a commission from BTH
Quality Assurance Council to review
the IL training and generic skills
together with educational program
directors. And suggest actions.
• The review is not concluded at this
date

20. Legislation
• Higher Education Act. 1 chapter 8§
states that: the students, in their
field of study, are requested to
develop an ability to "seek and
evaluate scientific knowledge " and
"follow the knowledge development."

21. Degree objectives
• For Bachelor degree: the student
should know to " demonstrate the
ability to search, collect, evaluate
and critically interpret relevant
information in an approach to a
problem."

22. Interpretation
• The legislation compels the
universities to integrate IL into the
curricula as we interpret it
• The responsibility lies on the
university management and
departments
• IL not only a matter for the library

23. Academic implication
• The generic skills and IL must be
written into course plans and
accordingly examined
• The library can offer support and
training in IL as a way to reach the
objectives. But is not responsible

24. Excise II
• Discuss what your strategy could be
to convince the university
management that IL training is
necessary for the quality of the
students results
• Are there comparable legislation in
Rwanda – find out

25. The proposal to Board of
Education at BTH
• Summary: Students need to become information
literate, a general ability that should be a
mandatory part of the education.
• Information literacy (IL) is best learned in
integration with other subject specific teaching.
• The library offers tailored program instructions
that can be developed together with the program
coordinator at the Departments

26. Scope
• The aim should be that all program
students will receive training in IL.
Also students taking independent
courses should be subject to the
same teaching whenever relevant.

27. Subject extension
• Teaching should be integrated with the subject
studies. For student motivation, it is important
that teaching is perceived as relevant and related
to the subject studies. This means that it is the
course content and requirements governing the
content and goals of education in information
literacy. Teaching that is integrated with subject
studies will also support the topic learning.

28. Right time
• It´s of great importance that the teaching of IL
occurs when it is most relevant with regards to
the subject studies. It is usually when students
have a task that requires information retrieval,
for instance when associated with project work or
thesis writing. It is also important that the
training is not done too early or too late in the
work process.

29. Progression
• Teaching should be done incrementally during the
education time and closely follow the progression
of the courses and the knowledge development of
the student. Progression in IL teaching means
that the teaching content and objectives vary
during training sessions and is tightly connected
to the progression within the subject studies.

30. Objectives in Education
and Curriculum
• Expected learning outcomes for IL should
be included in the curricula documents
whenever the need for these skills is
present. This is to ensure that the skills
actually are developed during the
education. This also favors the continuity
in the cooperation between the library and
the program education

31. Example of course plan
• Scientific methods

32. Examination
• It´s of vital importance that the expected
learning outcomes of IL are examined. The
design of the course content and the tasks
the students are obligated to fulfill,
largely determine what the student learn
and accordingly make them more
motivated. It is desirable that the
examination of these skills is integrated
into the courses

33. Exercise III
• Discuss the relevance of these
recommendations. Is there anything
you would add or that you find
questionable? Could the
recommendations be applicable to
Rwandan conditions?

34. Five goals for IL
• The overall expected learning
outcome is that students should have
developed the ability to search,
evaluate and use information for
effective independent learning in
both studies and in working life.

35. Students are expected
to:
• 1. justify the choice of relevant information sources to
meet various information needs, and to assess the reliability
of different sources
2. formulate queries, construct a search strategy, master
various search tools and reflect on the outcomes of
information retrieval
3. know the different ways of acquisition and access to both
paper and electronic documents
4. be able to use information in accordance with the
copyright rules
5. discuss and actively participate in the scientific
information flow

36. Goal 1 - to justify the choice of relevant
information sources to meet various
information needs, and to assess the
reliability of different sources.
•
- know the different types of publications that are important in
their own field of science - regarding features , reliability,
underlying examination (e.g. peer reviewing) and timing of
publication
- is familiar with and can identify the difference between primary
and secondary sources and know when it is appropriate to use one
or the other. (Important to take into account the views in
different topics )
- knows how different types of information is used in the research
process – for systematic literature search , as background
information, for theory and method development etc.
- can interpret the information about documents which are given in
databases , catalogs and bibliographies
- know the importance of citation level within their subject area
- has a critical approach towards sources

37. Goal 2 - to formulate queries, construct a
search strategy, master various search
tools and reflect on the outcomes of
information retrieval
•
- Can assess where it is appropriate to seek information for a particular
task (databases, library catalogues , the web, contacts etc.)
- Able to formulate queries based on the research questions that they are
working with, by picking out information-bearing words and be able to find
alternative keywords, both controlled vocabulary and uncontrolled
keywords and keywords of their own.
- Have knowledge about where and in what form the information is
published, both scientific and non-scientific.
- Have knowledge about different search strategies and know at what
stage of the search process a search strategy is suitable.
- Is familiar with and know how to use their keywords with search tools
such as Boolean operators , truncation, masking , and know that search
tools are used differently within different databases.
- Can determine the outcome if a search is reasonable and revise it based
on the outcome

38. Goal 3 - know the different ways of
acquisition and access to both paper and
electronic documents
• - Examines the scope of the information retrieval systems,
content and organization.
- Selects effective methods to get the information needed
from the information retrieval systems.
- Uses various search systems to get information in
different forms.
- Uses various classification systems to locate documents
within the library
- Uses electronic or personal services that are available to
gain access to the information needed (e.g. interlibrary
loans, research units, public information sources , experts
and practitioners).

39. Goal 4 - be able to use
information in accordance with
the copyright rules
• - Understand what copyright and proper use of copyrighted
material implicates.
- Comply with legislation, institutional praxis and good
custom regarding the use of information sources e.g.
obtaining, storing and disseminating text, data, images and
sounds in a lawful manner.
- Understand what plagiarism is and not presenting the work
of others as their own without reference to the information
sources used and with the use of an appropriate reference
style.

40. Goal 5 - discuss and actively
participate in the scientific
information flow
•
- Know how research is conducted with communication of ideas and
results , publications, conferencing systems, the peer-review
process and Open Access Publishing.
- Know the quality criteria’s of published research and rankings of
scientific journals.
- Know how and where a work of their own could be published.
- Know what literature- and systematic reviews are and the
contexts in which these methods are used.
- To assess the characteristics of scientific publishing in contrast
to popular science information
- Know how systematic surveillance of the scientific information is
managed

41. To do before the follow
up in Kigali, March 2014
• See document from me Karlskrona
2013-11-25, for details
• Find out about a subject area within
a department
• Write a suggestion of a teaching
program
• Integrate learning objectives

42. Final
Murakoze chani