1. Good Practice at West Cheshire College
and in the
North West
Anthony Beal
Deeside College
28 November 2007

2. Summary
• Information Literacy @ West Cheshire College
• Information Literacy staff development
@ West Cheshire College
• NWIS – sharing experience

3. Why bother?
• There is a demand (level 3 courses,
Foundation Degrees etc.)
• Improves research standards
• Effective learning
• Improves confidence and student performance
• Supports independent learning
• Quicker access to a wider range of resources
24 July 2006 Information skills 3

4. Information Literacy @
West Cheshire College
• Learner – thorough induction introduce catalogue
InfoTrac etc
• Two full weeks during induction for all full time
students
• Learning Resources Workshop includes
introduction to the VLE and i‐skills
• Quiz at end of LRW with prize of an MP3 player
• Follow up i‐skills sessions publicised by
Springboard

5. Induction Quiz on VLE

6. Opportunity to plant the seed

7. High Profile Curriculum Links
• Gatekeepers and regarded as such of:
– i‐skills
– Research skills
– Referencing
– E‐learning
– Intranet
– Web 2.0
– Digital Media

8. West Cheshire College model
Declining use of print resources
Total Heritage issues
39737
40067 41515 24125
42844 38464 34660 31471
45000
40000
96/97
35000
97/98
30000
98/99
25236
25000
99/00
20000 2000/01
2001/02
15000
2002/03
10000
2003/04
5000 2004/05
0

9. Intranet Home Page

10. Direct promotion of e‐books

11. Learning Resources Home Page

12. Curriculum Area Page

13. Fronter direct web link to Learning
Resources page
06/12/2007 Converged Services 13

14. Expert Village via fronter
06/12/2007 Converged Services 14

15. fronter RSS feed
06/12/2007 Converged Services 15

16. RSS feeds
24 July 2006 Information skills 16

17. RSS feeds
24 July 2006 Information skills 17

18. Facebook

19. Del.icio.us

20. LibraryThing

21. Skype

22. Getting out and about

23. West Cheshire College model
Proof of expanding e‐resource use
Full text
retrieval

24. Actively promote information and
research skills training
• Bespoke
• Springboard
– Planning essays
– Research skills (i‐skills)
– Harvard
– Reflective Learning
– Presentation skills
• i‐skills embedded into assignments

25. Staff Development
• All Learning Resources staff
• Be proactive (listen at tables)
• Embedding Learning Resources into into e‐
learning development e.g. Hairdressing
training, e‐books
• Tutors all attend full time inductions
• Good relationships with other departments
(Network, Staff Development)

26. Lollipop Information Literacy
• Prior to the course all staff took part in
InformationLiteracy discussions
• All Learning Resources staff taking part
• Blended learning
• No charge for the materials that can be
modified as required for hosting institution
• All web based
• At WCC now built into our VLE, Fronter

27. ITQ
• Converged service
• Skills audit of IT skills
• Skills then mapped against requirements of
the Helpdesk
• Four members of Learning Resources staff in
the first cohort
• Improved ability to undertake IT aspects of
information literacy

28. NWIS
North West Information Skills Group

29. Submitted resources

30. NWIS Facebook group

31. Statisticss
62 people on the Moodle Course
•
Resources from 15 Colleges
•
Five meetings
•
13 attendees at last meeting
•
Lollipop training session
•
WISEKIDS presentation on Web 2.0
•

32. Benefits of NWIS
Closer links between colleges and the RSC NW
•
Shared resources
•
Fresh ideas
•
Opportunities to discuss common interests
•
Cross institutional deadlines
•
Workshops and presentations
•

33. Anthony Beal
01244 670578
•
a.beal@west‐cheshire.ac.uk
•
skype: anthony.beal
•
Facebook: anthony@abeal.plus.com
•
Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/redsontour
•
Librarything:
•
http://www.librarything.com/profile/redsontour