Invitation to the launch of the final report of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Inquiry, Spreading the Benefits of Digital Participation.

Spreading the Benefits of Digital Participation: Launch of Report

Wednesday 30 April 2014, 9.30am to 11.00am

At the Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB

You are cordially invited to the launch of the final report of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Inquiry, Spreading the Benefits of Digital Participation. The launch will take place on Wednesday 30 April at the Informatics Forum of the University of Edinburgh.

The Inquiry has gathered evidence throughout Scotland and across the public, private and third sectors on Scotland’s transformation to a digital society. What are the potential societal benefits of digital? What are the barriers to realising these benefits? And how do we ensure that the benefits are spread to all parts of society? Our interim report, published in December, set out our emerging conclusions and recommendations on overcoming the challenges of affordable access, lack of motivation and lack of skills to get online. Consultation on that report has allowed us to refine recommendations in those areas. To this we add: what are the responsibilities of a digital society for creating an environment in which the benefits of being online are not outweighed by the risks?

Our final report presents a picture of digital exclusion in Scotland today and touches on developments in the use of digital in different aspects of Scottish life, from communities, learning and culture to the public sector, the economy and civil society.

The key findings and recommendations of the Inquiry will be presented by Professor Michael Fourman, Chair of the Inquiry, and Professor Alan Alexander, Co-Chair and RSE General Secretary, followed by Q&A. The presentations will commence at 10.00am, with refreshments available from 9.30am. We hope that you are able to join us. I would be grateful if you would confirm your attendance by email to slennox@royalsoced.org.uk , no later than Monday 28 April.

Kind regards

Susan Lennox

Royal Society of Edinburgh

22-26 George Street,

Edinburgh

EH2 2PQ

Cross Party Group on Digital Participation 02.04.14

The Cross Party Group on Digital Participation met at Holyrood on the 2^nd of April. Professor Michael Fourman was the first of the evening’s three speakers. He spoke about the forthcoming Royal Society of Edinburgh’s (RSE) final report on digital participation, having co-chaired the Group which prepared it. The interim report has been quite controversial in LIS circles as it only devoted only six lines to libraries but despite that, there were three errors/misleading statements. He spoke for a while on the extensive research that the RSE had done on access to the Internet. This was illustrated with many graphs and charts. He noted that a new area had been added to the report on the subject of people’s motivation. Then he went onto the subject of Information Literacy skills. “Information Literacy for all” was prominent-indeed first on the list-a very welcome change from previous occasions when he seemed oblivious to them.

Ian McCracken congratulated him on the very useful research that had been done on access but noted that while Information Literacy had not received the same kind of detailed analysis, all the indications, for example, from the research done in a West Lothian school which he had previously drawn to the attention of the Group, and all the other indications showed how important it was to focus equally on information literacy as well as access.

Chris Yiu from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisation was the next speaker. His emphasis throughout his presentation was skills focussed; noting that data showed that 30% of people in Scotland lacked basic online skills i.e  1.3 million. He cited a figure of £100 million to remedy this (a figure which later occasioned much argument and not a little scorn-though surely an investment rather than an expenditure)

Chris looked at six areas in which SCVO was operating. These included several in which skills featured prominently

1)      digital interns-volunteers helping voluntary organisations to enhance their use of the Internet

2)      Basic online skills assistance

3)      Resources for “champions”

In responding, Ian highlighted the importance of developing an overarching skills framework that would encompass these areas, wider learning and also the Curriculum for Excellence. Both John Crawford and Bill Johnston made helpful contributions to the debate

The final speaker from the Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) raised serious concerns about the expectations and demands that had been placed on benefit seekers having to use the Internet for universal credit and online job applications; including the shocking research figure that 76% would struggle to apply for a benefit online. That excellent work was being done by libraries was acknowledged by several speakers and endorsed by Fiona McLeod MSP and the new CEO of SLIC Amina Shah, Sean McNamara-CILIPS Policy and Digital Officer also highlighted the demands this put on staff, as each person had to have individual help – it was impossible to run an internet skills class since each claimant was different and information was confidential. The  speaker seemed to share RSE’s previously stated view that computer suites in schools should be opened up to the public which although an admirable idea in principle raises severe practical difficulties. 

The narrative of the meeting showed a welcome shift from access and infrastructure issues to skill development although Professor Fourman’s presentation was still heavily focused on access and infrastructure issues.

Thanks to Ian McCracken in compiling this report.

John Crawford

Using assignment data to analyse a blended information literacy intervention: A quantitative approach

Good news story from Geoff Wallton.

His article - Using assignment data to analyse a blended information literacy intervention: A quantitative approach Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 45 (1) pp53-63, written with Mark Hepworth has been selected by the American Library Association's Library Instruction Round Table's (LIRT's) Top Twenty Committee as a 2013 Top Twenty article.

The committee noted that:

[t]he study represents a powerful advocacy piece for using a blended approach with an online discussion component in delivering information literacy to foster higher order learning in students 

Geoff says that

Quite a few people have asked me for a copy of this article in the past, so to make it more accessible and for anyone to use in their evidence base to convince our non-info pro colleagues of the value of IL I have put freely available pre-publication version of the article in our institutional repository.

Please visit this website to access it: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/13184/

If anyone would like to discuss the article please get in touch.

Best wishes,

Geoff

Dr Geoff Walton,

Lecturer Information Sciences,

Faculty of Engineering and Environment,

Northumbria University,

Room 038,

Pandon Building,

Camden St.,

Newcastle upon Tyne,

NE1 8ST

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 191 243 7144

Email: geoff.walton@northumbria.ac.uk

Skype: geoff.walton2012

CILIPS School Library Advocacy Group seeks short quotes that highlight the importance of a school librarian

Item of interest from CILIP in Scotland's April Newsletter. Great idea this - so please contibute and spread the news. 

"CILIPS school library advocacy group is planning to create content for online/print that advocates for school librarians and gathers all the amazing and vital things you all do.

What they want is that highlight the importance of a school librarian to them. If you were able to send a quote or two from any of the above that would be incredibly helpful, ideally the quote would be attributed but the group welcome anonymous ones too.

The easiest way may be to keep a notepad handy and ask people for a quick quote about why they love the school library or about how you have helped them.

The group would also like some images of school libraries in action across Scotland, anything at all that you can give your permission to use.

If you can provide something, no matter how small, please e mail it to admin@cilips.org.uk. CILIPS would very much appreciate your help on this. Please share this with anyone else if you wish."

Promoting employability through specific literacies’: conference at the University of Greenwich

Cutty Sark, Greenwich VillageOn Tuesday last week (11.03.14) Christine and I gave a presentation at a conference of educationalists held at the University of Greenwich. The conference occupied the whole of the week (10^th-16^th March) but our presence was only required on the Tuesday morning.

The conference was organised by Dr. Gordon O. Ade-Ojo, Principal Lecturer and LLUK Sector Network Coordinator and Co-Director of the Literacy Research and Development Centre at the Faculty of Education and Health at the University of Greenwich.University of Greenwich (Old Royal Navel College)

The conference theme was ‘Promoting employability through specific literacies’ and Christine and I were invited to speak about information literacy. There were some 20+ delegates drawn from all over Europe but as we were only there for a short time we did not have much opportunity to meet the delegates although we did talk to some over coffee including some jolly Spaniards and some Dutch people who seemed reasonably well informed about higher education library activities. I spoke about information literacy in fairly general terms and talked about the various library sectors and how they support employability and outlined the problems and possibilities. I did not dwell too much on the workplace as Mark Hepworth from Loughborough was speaking about that the following day.  After a coffee break Christine shared concrete examples of good practice, based on our experience of the Scottish Information Literacy Project and the Community of Practice. As far as we could see it went OK.

Gordon hopes to establish collaborative partnerships across Europe as a result of the conference.

The University of University of Greenwich (Old Royal Naval College)Greenwich is housed in the old Royal Naval College and we had a prowl about afterwards and visited the chapel where a choir was performing and also the impressive 18^th century Painted Hall.

At Gordon’s request I have written a chapter for a book he is co- editing for the publishers Routledge which will hopefully be out in August.  There may also be a special issue of an educational journal based on the conference.

John Crawford