Slightly amended version of a presentation given in February 2007 at teh University of Sheffield, by Sheila Webber

1. Information Literacy in your
discipline
Sheila Webber s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk
This presentation was originally given as part of an internal University of Sheffield
seminar, organised by the Centre for Inquiry Based Learning in the Arts and Social
Sciences, in February 2007. The seminar aimed to enable academics to develop the
information literacy portion of their Departmental Learning, Teaching and Assessment
Strategies. Slight amendments have been made to the ppt in June 2015

2. Strategic University of Sheffield focus
on IBL and IL
Inquiry Based Learning
• carry out extended independent enquiry, formulating relevant
questions and engaging critically with a wide range of evidence;
Information Literacy
• demonstrate the core capabilities and skills of information literacy,
interacting confidently with the nature and structure of information
in their subject and handling information in a professional and
ethical manner;

3. SCONUL 7 Pillars model for Information Literacy
Note that a 2nd edition of the 7 Pillars was published in 2011:
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/17_2.pdf

4. Disciplinarity & information
• What is seen as “Information” and “good
information” differs by discipline as well as by
context
• Some concerns about students vary by discipline
and some are the same

5. Research study
• The following slides draw on a phenomenographic
study of UK academics’ conceptions of information
literacy, and of teaching information literacy
(Webber et al. 2005a & b)
• Academics in 4 disciplines (Marketing, English,
Chemistry and Civil Engineering) were interviewed
for the study (20 academics in each discipline, from
a variety of UK universities)

6. A few quotes from our research
“What you have got, at least, what I am seeing to a large
degree in my classes here, is students having little or no
real appreciation for any other sources of information apart
from the internet. And even then, on top of the poor
choices they make in selecting a source, then on top of that
you have a general inability to really gauge the quality of
the information they are finding.” (Marketing, interviewee
20)

7. Interviewer: Are there any other challenges that you see to
providing information literacy instruction?
Marketing Interviewee 10: Um, the preconception on the
behalf of students that it is a skill and that it doesn’t matter.
Yeah, the ‘We are academic. We got here because we had
four As, or at least three As at A Level and therefore we
need to be very, very academic and these skill-based
things are a bit beneath us.’

8. “I think one of the key things is to help them to identify
quickly whether or not a book is going to helpful for
their research, because that is one of the biggest
problems we find. They spend far too long going
through books that aren’t going to be helpful for
them.” (English Interviewee 5)

9. • News Stories
• Journal & magazine articles
• Books
• Observation (e.g. how
shoppers behave)
• Other people & agencies
(researchers, consultants etc.)
In Marketing, information resources
were, for example …
• Statistical data
• Market research data
• Google
• Article databases e.g.
ABI/Inform
• Company websites
• Company accounts
• Librarians

10. ..therefore information literacy could
include
• Making sense of &
manipulating numerical data
• Using people effectively as
information sources
• Being up to date with the
latest information

11. In English, information resources
were, for example …
• Manuscripts
• Journal articles
• Books
• Video & sound recordings
• Performances
• Newspapers (inc. archives)
• Libraries, archives & museums
• Colleagues
• Websites (e.g. about a writer)
• Artefacts (e.g. rune stones)

12. ..therefore information literacy could
include
• Judging the relevance one
critical text against another
• Knowing implications of a text
being published in a particular
form
• Using archives effectively

13. Issues for the Department of
Information Studies DLTAS include …
• Varied specialisms: chemoinformatics to
librarianship, therefore variations in IL
• Applying IL in the Web 2.0 environment
• IL not progressed equally well in all programmes:
CILASS project investigated this: now have to act
on its findings

14. We had carried out a review of which elements of Information Literacy were covered in
different modules, including whether they were assessed

15. Exercise: Information literacy and
students
• What issues most concern you about your students’
information literacy?
• Write on post-its
• One or more post-its per person (may be different for
different cohorts of student)
• 5 minutes individually
• 5 minutes conferring with person next to you
• Feedback

16. References
• Webber, S., Boon, S. and Johnston, B. (2005a). A comparison of UK
academics’ conceptions of information literacy in two disciplines:
English and Marketing. Library and information research, 29 (93), 4-
15.
• Webber, S., Boon, S. and Johnston, B. (2005b). British academics
from different disciplines: comparing their conceptions of pedagogy
for information literacy
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/formist [English version of:
Webber, S., Boon, S. and Johnston, B. (2006). Comparaison des
conceptions pédagogiques de la maîtrise de l’information chez des
universitaires britanniques de différentes disciplines. Actes des
5èmes Rencontres Formist: Lyon: 2005. Lyon: ENSSIB.]