A partnership approach to developing Information Literacy - academics and librarians working together
Integrating information literacy into the curricula requires the collaborative efforts of academic staff and librarians. The discipline expertise of the academic needs to be married with the librarian's knowledge and skills to navigate and make sense of the information universe.
The Library contributes to the development of information literate students by
- offering a range of tour, lecture, demonstration, workshop, step by step instruction by phone or email and online tutorial options to enable academic staff to embed information literacy in external and on campus courses, see Information skills
- working with academic staff to develop learning activities that facilitate incremental information literacy development throughout a program.
- assisting academic staff integrate information literacy into undergraduate curricula by developing online learning resources which can be incorporated into teaching and learning activities. For example InfoGate can be easily incorporated into online courses and learning packages, study guides and face-to-face presentations.
- providing postgraduate students and academic staff with diverse opportunities and training programs, such as Strategies for Successful Research, to keep abreast of electronic information products in their areas of specialisation
Information literacy development is a spiralling or recursive process in which skills and concepts are revisited at ever-increasing levels of sophistication as a student progresses throughout an academic program. Skills and concepts associated with information literacy should be woven into the curriculum's content, structure, and sequence and not extraneous to the curriculum. The Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework (PDF 406kb, opens in new window) is a scaffold for incremental integration of information literacy into the curriculum. Liaison Librarians can work with Program Coordinators and Learning and Teaching Unit to identify appropriate information literacy learning outcomes and align them with the curriculum and design assignments and/or learning activities, based on best practice criteria which promote information literacy.
If you find any links have changed or you have some additions or feedback please contact Irene Doskatsch
