Jane Secker and Maria Bell's presentation of the findings thus far of the LSE Student Ambassadors for Digital Literacy project at the HEA Changing the Learning Landscape - Digital Literacy event.

1. Putting students in the SADL:
enhancing digital literacy at LSE
Jane Secker
Maria Bell
@LSESADL

2. LSE context
 LSE : specialist social
science institution – world
class library
 Highly ranked for research
 Cosmopolitan students -
relatively small
undergraduate population
 Traditional teaching and
assessment

3. Digital and Information Literacy at LSE
…. ANCIL informing practice

4. The audit
Image cc from http://www.flickr.com/photos/notkaiho/5716096442/

5. Careers
Language Centre
Teaching & Learning Centre
Language Centre
LSE100
Departments
Library
Library
LibraryLibrary
Library
Centre for Learning
Technology
Departments
LSE100
Teaching & Learning
Centre
Departments
Language Centre
Library
Teaching & Learning Centre
Departments
Language Centre
Language Centre
Teaching & Learning Centre
Careers
Departments
LSE100
Secker & Coonan (2011)

6. Developing a framework

7. Literature review

8. Embedding in the curriculum

9. Changing Learning Landscapes

10. SADL Project Aims
 To explore the role of Student Ambassadors for
Digital Literacy (SADL)
 To explore how aspects of digital and
information literacy can be embedded into the
curriculum in two academic departments
 To develop a set of resources on finding,
managing and evaluating information
 To share best practice on embedding digital,
academic and information literacies into the
curriculum

11. The team
Worked with 2 academic departments
Social Policy
Statistics

12. Methodology
 Pre & post -project
questionnaire:
research practices
 4 meetings /
workshops: Student
Ambassadors to
attend
 Blog: team sharing &
wider dissemination
tool

13. The ambassadors: recruitment

14. The ambassadors: rewards

15. Research practices questionnaire
Research: where do you start?
How did you learn to use your
favourite research tool?
What do you think of the Library
search tools?
Assessing quality: library
resources and internet resources?
Identify strengths and weaknesses
of your research practices
Purdy, J. P. (2013) “Scholarliness as Other: How Students Explain Their Research-Writing Behaviors”. In McClure, R. & Purdy, J. P.
The New Digital Scholar - Exploring and Enriching the Research and Writing Practices of NextGen Students. Information Today,
New Jersey

16. Research practices questionnaire
“I think I am good at research to the extent that I
can find lots of resources and get the relevant
articles instead of going aimless and overwhelmed
by the information. My weakness is that I am still
lack of all kinds of tools and knowledge of
websites to do a good job on very scholarly
research.”
“I go on to Moodle to find if there are
any relevant links that Professors have
posted online. If there are
recommended articles that are in the
library, I will search for it. Otherwise, I
will google scholarly articles to see if
anything has been written about it.”
“Researching my first essays, I used google
scholar - it doesn't involve much learning,
the simplicity is what makes it a useful
first step.”
“I think it's comprehensive, but
sometimes it's hard to find to
narrow it down and to find the
most relevant information.”
“I scan the title and abstract to
assess which are the most
relevant.”
“Mostly use one from
amongst the top 5 of the
Google hits. But mostly on
the relevance of the url and
the first few lines that can
be read on google hits
page.”

17. Workshop 1: Searching for Information
What skills are useful to support studies?
What is digital literacy ? Understanding project context
Finding, using and evaluating information
Workshop 2: Academic practices: research and
reading for your discipline
To evaluate types of information will need to study &
why
What do you do when approaching assignments?
To devise strategies for reading and research - What to
read? How much to read?
Workshop overview

18. Workshop 3: Managing and sharing information
What is a student ambassador for digital literacy?
Managing information – tools that help you.
Understanding plagiarism and good academic practice in
writing
To come: Workshop 4: Digital Footprint
Developing and managing web presence
Workshop overview

19. Digital Literacy
JISC definition:
“By digital literacy we mean those capabilities
which fit an individual for living, learning and
working in a digital society: for example, the
skills to use digital tools to undertake academic
research, writing and critical thinking; as part of
personal development planning; and as a way of
showcasing achievements.”

20. How do you
approach an
assignment?
Workshop 2:
reading and writing
in your discipline?

21. Workshop 3:
Managing and
sharing information
How do you keep up
to date, manage,
store and cite your
information?

22. Emerging findings and
observations
• Challenges any assumptions and generalisations
about students as they are all different and have
developed different strategies for study
 Contrasts between disciplines
- Statistics students don’t tend to use Library resources
- Social Policy students read extensively
 Sharing – cautious about where and how
 Enthusiasm for engagement / involvement in a
support role is boundless – untapped resource

23. Lessons learnt
 Student Ambassador for Digital Literacy role –
clear expectations
 Developing relationships with students takes
time
 Workshops require:
 Defined aims and objectives
 A lot of preparation time
 Appropriate learning space

24. Lessons learnt cont’d
 Platform for students to share ideas?
 Expected greater engagement with the blog
 Exploring alternatives – Facebook Group, Moodle, Padlet
 Increase publicity outside project to academic
departments and other students to gain
momentum

25. The future…
 Project still ongoing
 Greater exploration of Student
Ambassador role required
 Finding a platform where students
happy to share
 Is it sustainable and scalable?
 Are there staff development needs?
 The future……

26. Further reading and
resources
Bell, Maria and Moon, Darren and Secker, Jane (2012) Undergraduate support
at LSE: the ANCIL report. The London School of Economics and Political
Science, London, UK. Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/48058/
Karnad, Arun (2013) Embedding digital and information literacy into
undergraduate teaching. Centre for Learning Technology (CLT), London, UK.
Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/51221/
LSE Digital and Information Literacy Framework (2013) Available at:
http://bit.ly/1gq63IO
LSE SADL Project website (2014) Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsesadl/

27. Thank you
Find out more at http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsesadl/
SADL Resources
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsesadl/resources/
@LSESADL
Jane Secker j.secker@lse.ac.uk @jsecker
Maria Bell m.bell@lse.ac.uk @bellmari