University of Limerick Information Literacy Initiatives

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University of LimerickInformation Literacy
Initiatives

• Aoife Geraghty
• Business Librarian
• aoife.geraghty_at_ul.ie

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Information Literacy for

• Undergraduates
• Taught postgraduates
• Research postgraduates
• Faculty
• Distance learners
• Mature students
• ..

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General

• Orientation for all new students
• With Student Services and with College
  Administrators
• Find it Fast in the Library (twice a year)
• For those who fall through the gaps, or who just
  want a little more

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Find it Fast in the Library

• Open to all
• Hands on, interactive
• Demonstrations and exercises
• Heavily advertised (email, student newspaper,
  posters flyers)
• Doors shut when class is full
• Venue Librarys large training room (24 pcs)
• A draw with follow-up publicity (presentation)
• Includes evaluation
• Librarian and library assistant for each session

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Find It Fast Attendance 17th-21st October
05 258

• Comments
• The session was invaluable to my studies
• Excellent training session, I even enjoyed it.

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Student Recommendations

• Course should be made compulsory for all new
  students
• The tutorial is very useful, I learned a
• lot from it. Hope we continue
• to get more valuable training like this.

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Learnings

• Evaluation forms
• Should be more quantitative to generate useful
  data
• Vary Room sizes
• Run classes concurrently in small and large
  training rooms
• Re-title Getting Started
• Any ideas???
• Referencing sessions
• a very successful response to user focus group
  feedback

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Undergraduates

• College librarians work with faculty to include
  information skills in the curriculum - e.g.s
• Nursing 1st years
• The Art and Science of Nursing
• Engineering 1st years
• Technical Writing
• Business 3rd years
• Research Methodologies

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The Art and Science of Nursing

• A new course 120 1st years
• 20 of module goes to Library Information
  Skills
• Information skills are taught and assessed by the
  college librarian
• Assessment Essay with reference list, including
  description of identification and location of
  sources

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Nursing NS4211

• In addition to the essay you submit, which is the
  main assessment, you must also submit an
  additional copy of your reference list together
  with a description of how you identified and
  located your sources. (20)
• The reference list can contain upwards of 10
  items but must include at least
• 3 books
• 5 journal articles
• 2 websites

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Technical Writing - Engineering

• Library skills have been added to what had been
  an Information Technology course
• Computer literate students with poor writing
  skills
• 200 students divided into 7
• 2 hour sessions
• Faculty member sets and assesses assignment an
  essay demonstrating library skills
• Attendance mandatory

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Engineering Assignment

• Assignment 3 (5)
• To be submitted on line using Turnitin.
• Using the skills you developed during the Library
  Information Skills Training write a one-page
  summary on the major contribution of one of the
  following
• Philip Crosby
• W. Edwards Deming
• Kaoru Ishikawa
• Joseph M. Juran
• Genichi Taguchi
• Your answer must be correctly referenced and must
  fit on one side of an A4 page. It should be
  typed in size 11 font, with single line spacing
  the text must be justified

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Research Methodologies - Business

• Library Treasure Hunt and Exam 300-500 students
• Faculty member and college librarian design
  classes and assessment together
• Final assessment by faculty member

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Business Treasure hunt

• You are to search for and demonstrate that you
  are able to find the items listed below. This
  hands-on exercise will develop key skills you
  will need to complete your FYP as well as many of
  your other assignments in your final two years at
  UL. Bring any answers and any questions you have
  to your tutorial.
• (Followed by a mid-term, multiple-choice exam)

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Ways in

• Nursing A new programme in at the beginning
• Engineering Library involvement in design of a
  new 1st year generic programme
• Business a strong champion
• Get to know administrators and new lecturers
• Get to know your Institution

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Postgraduates

• Subject Librarians work with individual faculty
  members to meet with all taught postgraduate
  classes for at least one session
• Sessions cover
• Library Skills You will Need
• Differentiating magazines from journals
• Differentiating books from journals
• Finding a book
• Finding a journal article
• Doing keyword searches
• Starting from one good article
• Managing references

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Researchers
Head of Information Services meets with all new
researchers and gives an introduction to the
library, including examples of what is available
(a self-test) and college librarian details
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Faculty

• College librarians work with individual faculty
  members
• Focus Groups with faculty in05
• Faculty would like to be able to advise their
  students on resources, but are aware that there
  is much that they need to learn themselves
• Finding time for updating their own skills is
  difficult
• Tend not to attend training offered
• Solution?
• A proactive approach from the library
• As much interactive, 24/7 help as possible

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The Dilemma

• Im always willing to
• learn, but I do not
• always like being
• taught
• Winston Churchill

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E-Learning

• Self-directed, self-paced learning
• Help when and where its wanted
• Distance, mature, part-time
• Makes IL more accessible to all
• Increasing student numbers/
• decreasing resources
• Supplement to classes and guides
• Reduce training costs

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Online Help and Publications

• Online Tutorials
• Quickstart The Library Step by Step
• Referencing UL Guidelines on the Harvard Style
• Books
• The Library A Guide for New Students
• Cite it Right A Guide to Referencing in UL

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Planning Information Literacy Initiatives

• Surveys

Interviews
Other tutorials guides
Literature Search
Discussion Group
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Planning the Tutorials

• Identify Learning Objectives (Terry Barrett)
• Look for multimedia or e-learning designers
• Begin with content/print
• Content and design
• Every screen must be meticulously planned
• designers wont take it away or run with
  it!
• Choose modules that wont need updating
• Test every step of the way

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Decisions to be MadeDonaldson, K. (2000).
Library research success designing an online
tutorial to teach information literacy skills to
first-year students. The Internet and Higher
Education 2(4) 237-251.

• Interactive vs Passive
• Screen grabs vs Live links to resources
• Stand alone block vs Integrated in library
  homepage
• Inhouse vs Outsource
• Optional vs Mandatory
• Mechanical vs Conceptual
• Graphics
• Quiz
• Flash / Opus / HTML / Toolbook / Hypercard
• Reality Check You get what you pay for limited
  by designers abilities

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Money, money, money

• HEA Targeted funding for Special Initiatives
• Access Initiatives 20,000 for Mature Students
• Quickstart 10500 VAT (1500 to change
  screengrabs for new catalogue )
• Referencing 8500VAT
• Print approx 1.20 per guide
• Time 5 months working with designers several
  months preparatory work!

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Quickstart Tutorial example
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Online Tutorials - feedback

• Quickstart approximately 500 hits per month
• Referencing Online Launched 3 weeks ago good
  use so far (Webalizer not working! so feedback
  from quizzes only)
• Cite it Right booklet excellent feedback, from
  students, from faculty and from University
  Management
• Good use of HEA Targeted Initiative funding

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The Future

• Quizzes alone a viable less costly alternative
• Ideas for further online tutorials Plagiarism?
• Use of soundfiles podcasts will allow more
  tutorials on live resources
• Integration help available as questions occur
• Developing in-house talent
• Work with other libraries

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Contact

• aoife.geraghty_at_ul.ie
• Tel [phone]
• www.ul.ie/library