Presentation given at the Information and Media Literacy Conference in Passau, 2018. It describes the importance of digital literacy skills for the job searching process of refugees. It also presents the component of a curriculum for digital skills for this target group.

1. The Role of Information Literacy for
the Integration of Refugees
Dr. Violeta Trkulja & Dr. Juliane Stiller
Berlin School of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
November 23rd, 2018 - Information and Media Literacy Conference, Passau

2. Agenda
○ Motivation
○ Information literacy for the integration process
○ Studying Information Literacy Skills
○ On the Way to a Curriculum
2

3. 3Welcome refugees balloons by Takver (CC BY-SA 2.0) Flickr.com

4. 4AMPELMANN GmbH - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48197975

5. Job-seeking increasingly moves
online
5
60% of unemployed adults use the
Internet to search and apply for a job
vacancies offered online
Weitzel, 2015

6. Untapped potential of refugees
qualifications
o they work more often than other migrants in
low-paid sectors,
o usually well below their actual qualification
level
6

7. Digital skills help to …
o obtain information and make decisions
o participate in social and democratic
processes
7

8. Integration activities in Germany
○ are not designed for job orientation
○ fail to impart people with Digital Information
Literacy Skills
○ lack of targeted information about the
German job market and the application
processes
8

9. Ich zögere eigentlich meine Bewerbung zu
schicken, weil […] ich nicht alle Voraussetzungen
erfülle oder […] ich denke wegen der Nationalität,
Staatsangehörigkeit, wegen der Sprachkenntnisse
und manchmal […] weiß ich nicht ob es zwingend
erforderlich ist oder nicht
(Ingenieur, 33, aus Syrien)
9
„
„

10. Manchmal […] war ich eingeladen […] zu einem
Termin bei der Agentur für Arbeit und […] ich
dort war, habe ich bemerkt das ja
Reinigungskräfte, Altenpflege oder Metallbau
oder so was […] und habe ich ja am Ende
gefragt, warum haben sie mich eigentlich
eingeladen [...]
(Ingenieur, 33, aus Syrien)
10
„
„

11. 11
Studying information
literacy skills of
refugees

12. 12
Survey 9 Tasks
Studies 2017
7Participants
Stiller & Trkulja, 2018

13. 13
Survey 9 Tasks
Studies 2018
15Participants
Think aloud Interviews
8Participants

14. Goals
Understand deficits in finding, processing
and analyzing information
Design targeted courses that contribute to
the development of digital skills
14
1
2

15. What shapes the design
of the courses? 15
The Potter by Cris (CC-BY-NC 2.0)

16. #1
16
Level of Internet Affinity
Dependant on device

17. #2
17
Cultural Background
Personal networks

18. #3
18
Language Proficiency
Searching in second language is harder

19. #4
19
Information Literacy in
Context
Applicable to real-world situations

20. On the Way to a
Curriculum

21. Digital Skills during Job Search
Basics
Job orientation
Application
Work

22. Cross-Cutting Themes
Digital Communication
Research & Source
Competence
Privacy and Security
Digital Content Creation

23. Basics Job orientation Application Work
Digital Communication
Research & Source
Competence
Privacy and Security
Digital Content Creation

24. Future Work
Evaluate & analysis
of remaining data
24
Teaching
first trial teaching
refugees
Digital learning
Digitize modules

25. References
van Deursen, A. J. A. M., & van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2009). Improving digital skills for the use of online public
information and services. Government Information Quarterly, 26(2), 333–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.
2008.11.002
Iordache, C., Mariën, I., & Baelden, D. (2017). Developing Digital Skills and Competences: A Quick-Scan Analysis
of 13 Digital Literacy Models. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 9 (1), 6-30, doi:10.14658/pupj-
ijse-2017-1-2
OECD (2016), "Skills for a Digital World: 2016 Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy Background Report",
OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 250, OECD Publishing, Paris.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jlwz83z3wnw-en
van Deursen, A. J. A. M., & van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2014). Digital Skills - Unlocking the Information Society. Palgrave
Macmillan US. Abgerufen von http://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9781137437020
van Deursen, A. J. A. M., Helsper, E. J., & Eynon, R. (2015). Development and validation of the Internet Skills Scale
(ISS). Information, Communication & Society, 19(6), 804–823. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1078834
Deursen, A. J. A. M. van. (2010). Internet skills : vital assets in an information society. https://doi.org/
10.3990/1.9789036530866
Weitzel, T., Eckhardt, A., Laumer, S., Maier, C., von Stetten, A., Weinert, C., & Wirth, J. (2015). Recruiting Trends
2015 - Eine empirische Untersuchung mit den Top-1.000-Unternehmen aus Deutschland sowie den Top-300-
Unternehmen aus den Branchen Finanzdienstleistung, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg. Retrieved from
https://www.uni-bamberg.de/isdl/transfer/e-recruiting/recruiting-trends/recruiting-trends-2015/
Stiller, J., Trkulja, V., Chowdhury, G., McLeod, J., Gillet, V., & Willet, P. (2018). Assessing Digital Skills of Refugge
Migrants During Job Orientation in Germany. In Transforming Digital Works, iConference 2018, Lecture Notes
in Computer Science (Vol. 10766, p. S. 527-536). Cham: Springer.
25

26. Dr. Juliane Stiller
juliane.stiller (at) ibi.hu-berlin.de
Dr. Violeta Trkulja
violeta.trkulja (at) ibi.hu-berlin.de
@stillinsky @viokeka
This slide deck is licensed under
CC Attribution International 4.0 License
The Research was supported by the
OCLC/ALISE Library and Information
Science Research Grant 2018