Information, research & the digital world - Rosie Sellwood & Anna Connell
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The Falmouth Award is an enhancement award designed to improve the employment prospects of graduates. The document discusses the changing information environment and relationship students have with information due to the rise of digital technologies and social media. It argues students today struggle with research, have limited vocabulary, and don't think critically. However, they are constantly connected via social media and have a sense of information overload. To improve employability, students need skills in problem solving, analysis, communication and literacy. The role of academic liaison librarians is discussed as helping make the connection between information literacy and the real world through approaches like metaliteracy.
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Information, research & the digital world - Rosie Sellwood & Anna Connell
- 1. Falmouth Award: enhancement award designed to improve the employment prospects of graduates INFORMATION, RESEARCH & THE DIGITAL WORLD Anna Connell & Rosie Sellwood
- 2. Who are our students? • Web 2.0 • Post-cookie • Digital natives
- 3. •AOL •Netscape •Yahoo •IE World wide web •Amazon •PayPal •eBay •Google Commercial web •Wikipedia •YouTube •Flickr •Google maps •Blogger •iPod Interactive web •LinkedIn •Etsy •MySpace •Facebook •Twitter •iPhone Social networking Dotcom bubble 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
- 4. Students: our experience • Struggle with research • Have a limited vocabulary • Don’t think critically
- 5. Their digiTal world… • Social media • Personalisation • Constantly connected • ‘Oversharing’ culture
- 7. …& Their relaTionship wiTh information • Passive • Sharing • Undiscerning • Superficial • Sense of ‘information overload’
- 8. Employability? • Problem solving & analysis • Communication & literacy “…drive forward the boundaries of knowledge and aim to encourage intellectual curiosity…”
- 9. H.E. environment • Education ‘consumers’ • Cuts to funding • Digital agenda • Changes to employment market
- 10. Student expectations • Instant gratification • ‘Service’ experience • Directed learning
- 11. Metaliteracy • Integrated literacies • Social media environments • Critical thinking • Collaboration
- 12. “metaliteracy provides an overarching model for connecting related literacies with an emphasis on emerging technologies” MACKEY, T.P. & JACOBSEN, T.E. (2014) Metaliteracy: Reinventing information literacy to empower learners
- 13. Information, research & the digital world • From IL to ML • Breaking down boundaries • Connecting to real world
- 14. Information as a commodity – the cost of the internet Personalised search Invisible web Copyright & creative commons Filter bubble Information control: state vs citizen Freedom of Information Data protection Snoopers charter Indexing the web – spiders, crawlers Privacy Digital footprint
- 17. Threads: state of flux The: information environment university & pedagogy role of academic liaison librarians
- 18. The information environment • Increasingly complex • Multimodal • Pervading social media • Post-information age
- 19. The university & pedagogy • HE & employability • Curriculum design • Learning cultures • Metaliteracy
- 20. The role of academic liaison librarians • Real world impact • Embedded librarian • Progressive (not reactive) • Increased visibility
- 23. Resources BRADLEY, Phil. 2013. Expert Internet Searching. (4th ed.). BRABAZON, Tara. 2013. Digital Dieting: From information obesity to intellectual fitness. Farnham: Ashgate. CARR, Nicholas G. 2011. Shallows : What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. (New ed.).London: W.W. Norton. CRAWFORD, Alice. 2012. New Directions for Academic Liaison Librarians. Oxford: Chandos. DEVINE, Jane and Francine EGGER-SIDER. 2014. Going Beyond Google again: Strategies for using and Teaching the Invisible Web. FEATHER, John. 2004. Information Society: A Study of Continuity and Change. (4th ed.). London: Facet. HALAVAIS, Alexander M. Campbell. 2009. Search Engine Society. Cambridge: Polity. MACKEY, Thomas P., and Trudi JACOBSON author. [2014]. Metaliteracy : Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners. London: Facet Publishing. O´ DOCHARTAIGH, Niall. 2012. Internet Research Skills. (3rd ed.).London: SAGE. PARISER, Eli. 2011. Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You. London: Viking. WALTON, Geoff and Alison POPE. (eds.) 2006. Information Literacy: Recognising the Need. Oxford: Chandos.
Editor's Notes
- Today I am also speaking on behalf of my colleague Anna Connell who couldn’t be here today. This paper is about the Academic Liaison librarian involvement in this enhancement (employability)award offered by Falmouth University, but it is also more than that as the experience has provided us with a lens through which to look at our students, their needs, the world they are stepping into and fundamentally, our role.
- Web 2.0/ Semantic Web (open, mobile and social) Post-cookie generation (1994 ish) Generation Z – digital native
- Timeline covers whole of their lives
- Our experiences as Academics Liaison Librarians – seeing students for 1:1 support and teaching sessions Struggle with approaches to research – lack of skills, lack of vocabulary – their lexicon is limited Struggle with critical thinking, they are fairly passive towards information – why is this?
- Personalisation – post-information age (Negroponte) “more than digital beings; we are also mobile, networked, interactive, virtual, and multimodal selves” p.47 Metaliteracy Oversharing culture – p. 6 Digital Dieting
- Rather than making their own judgements about information as a means of filtering, students are increasingly happy to allow the filtering to be done for them – through personalised searches, people who like, bought this also liked, bought that… Students are operating in their own bubbles - and exploring/ sharing information within these bubbles for personal, academic and professional purposes alike
- Their relationship with information in their digital world seems to be passive – the opportunity presented by the web to share information quickly and easily has propagated a supply/demand response with little consideration to critically engaging with information to assess value and quality. Being awash with information – this ‘information overload’ experience – exacerbates this lethargy - usefully Clay Shirky has quashed the notion of information overload by saying it is actually ‘filter failure’* *American writer, consultant, teacher – social and economic effects of internet technologies This brings the issue back to information literacy – a phrase that has shifted over time to embrace not just libraries, but interaction with information in all its forms (reflected in SCONUL’s most recent 7 pillars framework) – the term metaliteracy is useful in this context because it reflects the broader range of social media and collaborative communities in our information environment
- Arts graduates specifically This ‘breaking down of boundaries’ between aspects of personal, academic and professional life (ref. Tom Wilson) is inherently positive in many ways but we need to make reasoned decisions about navigating the information environment in these various guises… Do employers want unquestioning, uncritical minds who seem unconcerned about data privacy and security? The commonality, the theme that ties the personal, employability and education is information literacy – or we could use the term metaliteracy which reflects more clearly the complex environment and recognition of the need for different skills in different contexts Falmouth Award
- Higher fees environment – students expectations are greater – whilst at the same time academic skills, information literacy etc. poor – less input into educational experience Cuts to funding for HE and to libraries More emphasis on a digital agenda for libraries Changes to the employment market – paying for ed – thinking about the ‘end game’ more – employability higher on agenda – are HE in the business of producing employable graduates All this impacts on how we respond in supporting IL, DL, ML
- JISC doc – for 3rd point Students demand more – Spoon feeding Break this down – learning expectations, library, research
- Not a new literacy but a new way of looking at IL Reflects larger communications revolution – in social media environments “primary emphasis on critical thinking and lifelong learning” Recognises formal and informal learning
- Falmouth Award provides our 1st experience of it – not assignment limited but allows us to think beyond – moving away for our usual remit Thinking about research in broader terms – hence our choice of workshop title ‘information, research and the digital world’ - thinking beyond graduation – supporting this ‘breaking down of boundaries’ between the personal, academic and professional We started thinking about the stuff we don’t usually get to explore with students about how the web works and how to manage their digital identity – drawing in current issues from the news and highly emotive subjects about data privacy, use and security
- The contents of the workshop included these elements – just to give you a flavour The workshop was delivered as a 2 hour session one evening with the first half centered around how the web works and the 2nd on identity The workshop ran over and finally it was us who had to say we needed to leave – the conversation even continued as we walked out of the room
- Feedback was gleaned fairly crudely using post-it notes – and this proved very useful evidence to back up how we felt about the session and gave us the momentum to pursue the idea of the session in many different forms
- Challenges: Cuts to funds in education and therefore in libraries too – people leaving not being replaced, teams disappearing. Falmouth Award in a precarious position We will still be offering a workshop in the summer term However there are still opportunities for us: Transfer/ translate and incorporate into current sessions – already started Opportunities to create meaningful online content to focus on different areas – this could also be referenced in our sessions for individual exploration – bring extra curricula back into the curriculum – FA as ‘seed bed’
- From reflecting on our involvement with the FA – the FA has provided us with a lens through which to see some bigger concerns that I imagine will resonate with you all They are threads that connect the ideas associated with the workshop – connected with students and employability, IL and our role
- The information environment: Increasingly complex with information in a variety of media
- What are the threats? How do we respond? Can we counter them? Does this make us more resilient?