1. LILAC 2012
Info skills @ UEL
Ella Mitchell
Catherine Johnson
Kelly Travers
12th April 2012
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

2. Workshop plan:
• Background to Info skills project
• Demonstration of Info skills
• Group discussion exercise
• Feedback and Q&A
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

3. Info skills….
Info skills is an award winning online
resource which guides undergraduates
through researching their first
assignment, with emphasis on
identifying, finding and evaluating
information and referencing

4. The origins:
• At UEL a resource developed by Employability
Unit: ‘Get that Job’
• Established a precedent
• Brand
• Open

5. Why the Library felt a need for the
resource:
• What we had was good but difficult to find
• Wanted highlight key information for students
tackling their first assignment in an easy to
navigate structure
• A resource to suit different learning needs of
our students and students that are not always
on campus
• We wanted a refresher for students
• Available 24/7 to match many of our services
and to meet students’ expectations
• A resource that was not too dictatorial: to suit
our ‘strategic learners’

6. Why this approach?
• Focus on level one learners due to cost and time
restrictions
• Information skills and academic integrity the
priority
• Making information skills relevant to the student /
assignment-focussed
• Students sometimes respond better to their fellow
students
• Professional-looking resource
• Student choice about where, when and how they
access help and support: “dark recesses of their
bedroom”
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

7. What we had already
• UEL Library webpages
• Information on the VLE
• A lot of great information….. But not a
very clear layout and needed navigation
guidance
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

8. What we liked out there
• Staffordshire Assignment Survival Kit
• Cardiff Information Literacy Resource Bank
• Leeds Skills@Library
• OU Safari
There are many other examples of good practice in this
area.
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

9. What we produced
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

10. How we did it
• Getting funding
• Setting up project team
• Consultations
• High level design
• Content map
• Prototype
• Detailed design
• Content collection from SMEs
• Intensive development
– web design – video production – guides – demonstrations – quizzes -
writing pages
• Uploading content
• Summative evaluations
• Final version and launch
• Copyright
• Marketing
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

11. High level design approach
• Dedicated learning resource
• Open
• Clear structure
• Transparent navigation
• Bite-size – text-lite, granular resources
• Variety of types of resources
• Content can be used in different ways
• Assignment context – the ‘why’
• Student videos – peer advice and experience
• Professional web design

13. Creative commons
• This is an Open Access Educational
Resource.
• Videos on Youtube: can link to, embed
etc.
• PDFs downloadable
• It is openly available on the internet.
=Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ [accessed 30th March]

14. Benefits of collaboration:
• The Library team worked very closely with the
UEL connect team: proved a productive
partnership
• Technical abilities/project management skills
• Library team content
• Project team; small, met regularly and enabled
decision making
• Outside perspective- helped the library team to
focus on key aspects of information skills
• Collaborations with academic staff and students
allowed for different voices and perspectives

15. What do users think?
• “Found Info skills very useful – great idea to put it all together” D. Patel
UEL student
• “It makes me feel like you care about my education” UEL Student
• “I have had another look at your Info skills pages and they are very
impressive” K. Virdee, Academic Liaison Librarian
• “p.s. I only discovered the eBook thanks to the InfoSkills website -
very useful!” An e-mail from a student support officer, at one of our collaborative partnership
institutions.
• ‘UEL’s new information literacy site looks good. Does what it says on
the tin.’ Tweet
• “Some of the questions on plagiarism [quiz] for example really got the
students talking and debating - particularly self-plagiarism” Module
leader for VT1013 Study Skills
• Library staff have been using the site and there has been some good
feedback from students in information skills sessions. Lecturers have
also been using the site and noting the resource in course materials.
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

16. What do users think:

17. Source: Usage statistics from Google analytics collated by UEL LLS

18. Impact:
• The usage figures seem to be consistently
high with peak around assignment time.
• Info skills has been integrated by many of
the skills module leaders at UEL.
• Business, Health and Bioscience,
Psychology, Arts and Digital Industries
and Architecture, Computing and
Engineering all use Info skills in the level
one skills module.

19. Looking to the future:
• The site has been running since Sept 2011
• The usage statistics are strong, however need
continued marketing to promote use.
• Develop more multimedia content- currently the
subject team are working to produce quizzes
• Continuing collaboration with UEL Connect
• Conduct further evaluation- possibly looking into
the wider use of Info skills- more focused on
academics use
• Study skills branding at UEL: next project Write it
right….
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

20. Demo:
• Catherine Johnson is now going to
demonstrate our Info skills site to you:
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

21. Questions
Please post your feedback here:
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/uelinfoskills
1. Audit the online information literacy provision you
already have/use at your institution.
2. Looking at Info Skills (http://www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills ),
what aspects, if any, would you consider using or
adapting?
3. What other aspects of information literacy could
benefit from online provision?
4. Can this type of online information literacy tool ever be
replacement for the traditional face-to-face subject
librarian support/teaching?
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills

22. Info skills @ UEL
Thank you!
Ella Mitchell: e.mitchell@uel.ac.uk
Catherine Johnson: c.johnson@uel.ac.uk
Kelly Travers: k.s.travers@uel.ac.uk
www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills