Infolit story at UCT

1. What is happening at UCT?
(in terms of Information Literacy!)

2. • No Information Literacy policy, framework or
guidelines
• Every subject librarian teaches according to
own rules
• Own experiences
• Requirements from faculties and departments
• Until there is a change from Higher Levels we
have to do as best as we can, although it is not
ideal!

3. One exception: Health Sciences
• E.g. Nursing : embedded in course
• First year :Learn about the library
– Learn about journals (What’s in a jnl? How to find a jnl, cite a journal)
– Assessment by exercise (Scoring Rubric)
• Second year: Research question
– Mini literature review
– How to use databases
– Keywords, themes, Boolean, limits
– LibGuide – how to write a literature review
• Third year : How to find case reports
– Plagiarism (Oral scoring Rubric)
• Fourth year : evidence-based practice
– Systematic review

4. Information Literacy is ...
"the adoption of appropriate
information behaviour to
identify, through whatever
channel or medium, information
well fitted to information needs,
leading to wise and ethical use of
information in society." (Webber
and Johnston)
(Bent, M., & Stubbings, R. 2011. SCONUL Seven Pillars model)

5. • Information Literacy is ...
• “…the adoption of appropriate information
behaviour to identify, through whatever
channel or medium, information well fitted to
information needs, leading to wise and ethical
use of information in society." (Webber and
Johnston)

6. • in providing access to collections and services that
directly support the academic and research priorities of
the university;
• ensuring that the Libraries are adequately providing
core services to faculty and students;
• positioning the Libraries to provide new services
supporting the emerging teaching, learning and research
needs of the university community and its various
constituents;
• continuously assessing services to identify those no
longer valued by users or that have become redundant or
obsolete
PURPOSE
The purpose of the UCT Libraries is to support the university’s strategic goal of
becoming a distinguished institution by providing the means for discovery, pursuit
and creation of new knowledge:

7. With all this in mind we decided to arrange a workshop
– Librarian as Teacher
• We had one in 2010 with Jeff Jawitz – it was time to do another one
• 2016 Internal workshop
• Started with a session on Theory about Teaching and Learning
• Share your experiences about a lesson
• How do you plan a 45 – 90 minute lesson?
• How do you know you were effective?
• Ideas and suggestions for improving lectures/lessons, based on
experiences.

8. We divided comments
into 3 categories:
Share your experiences about a lesson
• What does not work at all?
• What works well?
• Lessons learnt?

9. What does not work?
(What is a nightmare?)
• Lack of IT/digital literacy training
• Engagement with library terminology
• Non-interest of students, either they feel they know everything, or they are
overloaded with work
• Bored, playing with mobile phones, coming late
• Talking while presentation is going on
• Not enough time /not understanding the subject matter
• Library instruction is not important
• Older returning students
• Not getting proper information from lecturer about group attending
• Poor academic literacy
• Different levels of experience
• Poor educational background
• Silence
• Engaging distance learners through technology

10. What works well?
• Asking students to introduce themselves and their interest
• One-on-one sessions – individual attention
• Self-confidence of presenter (even if you are acting!)
• Small groups, simple language, adapting to abilities of group, being
versatile
• Given the time slot by the academic, having his involvement and
engagement
• Mix of theory and hands-on
• Giving talks in between sessions
• Timing – if an assignment essay, thesis , literature review is due!
Alignment with course
• Team work
• Using examples from their own experiences,
• Providing material
• Summarising, as we go along

11. Lessons learnt
• Using graphs, quizzes, fun
• Attend class sessions BEFORE library training, introduce yourself,
acquaint yourself with the course content, get onto their VULA
sites, send out material, adapt blended learning or flipped
classroom approach
• Ask students to introduce themselves and tell you a little more
about themselves, interests, themes, topics (keep it academic)
• Small groups, one-on-one, practical
• Have a plan, but be flexible
• Give opportunities to learn at own pace and time
• Less is more!
• Let them leave with having found one article that is important to
them
• Use feedback strategy, to improve sessions

12. • How do you plan a 45 – 90 minute lesson?
– What are the objectives?
– It is a challenge! Technology available?
– How much time do we have ? : 45 minutes : no hands-on, 90 minutes : hands-on
– Identify level : UG, PG, senior students?
– Ensure whether we are expected to “facilitate” or to “teach”?
– Stay in contact with academic/academic department
– What are other expectations?
– Which tools do we have available? Do we have space and time to repeat for improved
results?
– Best to involve lecturer him/herself
– H/S uses teaching team
– Be flexible
– Use humor, images, animation
– Reinforce, use “well-done” often,
– Find out whether they know what they want
– Student engagement, use LibCal for engagement
– Use relevant examples with narratives (prepared)
– Follow up (Libguides)
– Exercise, quiz included
– Make slides available (Vula)
– Identify students who “don’t get it”
– Improvement possibilities
– HS experience : involved in their essay writing, in evaluation, Humanities : involvement in
their essays
– We (librarians) are often asked to train, do we actually offer as well?

13. Some of the comments after the workshop
• Very helpful, thank you for sharing your knowledge with your colleagues
• Should be a full day – the exercises were very helpful
• A very useful workshop indeed. Very relevant to what I am involved in. As
discussed in the workshop, a compulsory Info Literacy course 101 for all
students
• The workshop was very useful, I think next time more time should be
allocated
• It should be an ongoing workshop. I found that it actually gave me
• great support in the sense that you learn from other librarians’ challenges,
what is useful, etc. I have taken away a lot of basic teaching styles etc., I
would love to learn more about implementing them
• Sharing presentations with one another as librarians to see if we are on
the right track. Thank you – well thought through and much needed
• More training regarding teaching, how to better prepare, conduct a
session very well structured with theory and practical interspersed. The
personal experiences very enlightening, so impressed with my colleagues

14. • What we have done in the last 3 years without that elusive policy:
• Created Libguides
• Created 11 basic How-to-videos
• Created quizzes
• ….and plan to do many more in line with UCT’s Strategic Goals:
• Bibliometric Tools
• Open Access Policy and self-publishing
• Research Data Management
• Improving digital literacy
• Get involved in the Blended Learning Initiatives

15. Thank you!