Slides from European Conference of Information Literacy, 2018 Information literacy is not a term used in the everyday life of the average academic or student in the UK. Despite having had currency in the library world for many years, with underpinning frameworks that articulate our contribution to our universities, talking the language of information literacy often does not result in the library’s contribution being recognised or valued. At the University of Worcester, we were keen to increase the visibility and impact of our teaching, and decided on a practical, new tool – a “menu” of teaching – that would help academic colleagues understand how we could support their curricula. It quickly became apparent that such a tool needed to be underpinned by academic understanding of students’ skills and development, in a much broader sense than just information literacy. Thus the learner journey project was born, in which Academic Liaison Librarians conducted informal interviews with staff asking such questions as: - What assumptions do course teams make about the skills students have at the start of their course? - What expectations do they have about how these skills should develop throughout the degree programme? - How are these expectations articulated to students? Consciously avoiding the term ‘information literacy’, librarians questioned academic staff about the broad skill base that students bring with them and develop at university, mapping their view of the student learner journey from pre-entry through to graduation. Although starting out as a small-scale project, it soon piqued the interest of senior management at the university, and grew into a much larger piece of work. Through focusing on broader skills’ development, we have developed a body of evidence and data that has wide interest and application for both academic Institutes and other professional services (e.g. Disability & Dyslexia). Alongside highlighting themes, the data has demonstrated inconsistencies across the university and even within departments, with disparate staff attitudes towards such topics as progression, student confidence, and learner independence. These results have been shared widely across the university, raising Library Services’ pedagogic profile.

1. From information literacy to the learner
journey:
using what academics really think to develop the teaching
offer at the University of Worcester
Dr Sarah Pittaway  Library Services @ The Hive
s.pittaway@worc.ac.uk  @dr_sarah_p

2. We knew we had some fantastic pockets of
integrated IL but it wasn’t across the board
@Dr_Sarah_P

3. 1st year - using Library Search
2nd year – advanced search
techniques
Final yr – systematic reviews
and referencing tools
@Dr_Sarah_P

4. 1st year - using Library Search
2nd year – advanced search
techniques
Final yr – systematic reviews
and referencing tools
The challenge – this
menu is focused on
library skills
How can we address
curriculum/student
needs?
@Dr_Sarah_P

5. The learner journey:
The study, research and information skills that students bring to university with
them and develop throughout the course of their degree programme
What expectations do staff have? How are these articulated amongst course
teams and to students?
@Dr_Sarah_P

6. Our manageable little
project grew somewhat…
@Dr_Sarah_P

7. Drilling down into the data: what did staff tell us?
They agreed that
students should be
independent learners –
but didn’t agree on
much else!
@Dr_Sarah_P

8. For example, this relates to
final year undergraduates:
@Dr_Sarah_P
“I would expect a publishable
standard of writing from the most
able students”

9. But so does this!
@Dr_Sarah_P
“Some students still appear to not understand
what the differences are between peer
reviewed journals and magazines. Some still
struggle to understand that what they think of
as their original has to be referenced as
someone has had that idea before them”

10. Themes from research
• Learner independence & staff frustration
• Assumptions & expectations
• Confidence
• Transition, progression & developing skills
in the curriculum
• Demographics
• Practitioner vs researcher tension
• Employability
• Technology
@Dr_Sarah_P

11. What have we done
with this data?
@Dr_Sarah_P

12. 1st year – developing student
confidence
2nd year – making the transition
to independence
Revisiting the menu
@Dr_Sarah_P

13. It includes a quick navigation menu
organised by level & student need
@Dr_Sarah_P

14. Each level of study is linked to
evidence from our research
@Dr_Sarah_P

15. Student need Suggested
interventions
Delivery
recommendations
How the menu is organised
@Dr_Sarah_P

16. Student need Suggested
interventions
Delivery
recommendations
How the menu is organised
E.g. subject relevant
tasks, using basic search
tools & evaluation of
types of source
Including:
- timing (when & how long)
- delivery examples
- beyond the classroom
@Dr_Sarah_P

17. Student need Suggested
interventions
Delivery
recommendations
How the menu is organised
E.g. subject relevant
tasks, using basic search
tools & evaluation of
types of source
Including:
- timing (when & how long)
- delivery examples
- beyond the classroom
@Dr_Sarah_P

18. “Serving” the menu
@Dr_Sarah_P

19. Auditing what we do
@Dr_Sarah_P

20. Developing
a learner
journey self-
audit tool
for course
teams
@Dr_Sarah_P

21. Thanks for listening!
Any questions?
s.pittaway@worc.ac.uk  @dr_sarah_p

22. Credits
From https://www.flickr.com/, under Creative Commons licence:
Slide 2, Jon Hibbins, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Slide 6, Alan Levine, CC BY 2.0
Slide 15, Julie Jablonski, CC BY-NC 2.0
Slide 17, EnKayTee, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
All other images copyright cleared from https://pixabay.com