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

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

Spreading the benefits of digital participation

Last year the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) launched an enquiry entitled ‘Spreading the benefits of digital participation’. About ten evidence submissions were sent in from the Library and information sector in Scotland, including the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland (CILIPS) and the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC). I submitted evidence as chair of the community of practice, Information Skills for a 21^st Century Scotland, and there were some seven other evidence submissions from individuals including members of the community of practice.

All these evidence submissions were ignored in the report and libraries are only briefly mentioned on p.49. There was a high level of consistency in the submissions with much of the evidence focusing on information literacy although it is nowhere mentioned in the report.

An analysis of the references cited in the interim report show that none of them are drawn from the LIS literature. This, despite the fact that two evidence submissions (John Crawford and Bill Johnston) contained citations which are more than adequate bibliographical cues for the report authors. Ian McCracken also raised concerns with the RSE regarding the very limited nature of the questions it was posing.

The draft report is primarily concerned with access and infrastructure issues and motivation. Issues of training and skills development are insufficiently considered.

The contention is that had evidence from the LIS sector been considered the interim report would have been much stronger, especially in respect of training and skills development. This applies particularly to the SLIC evidence. The report authors themselves say, p. 4:

‘...our final report will evolve considerably, particularly in elaborating recommendations that address the key challenges.’

The recommendations in the interim report are too general and do not challenge the Scottish government to achieve specific skills development targets for clearly identified stakeholders groups nor are there recommendations on the content and costing of programmes beyond a rather vague suggestion for refresher courses for teachers.

On the 24^th of January, John Crawford, Ian McCracken, Bill Johnston and Abigail Mawhirt met Gillian Daly at the SLIC offices where it was agreed that both SLIC and the Community of Practice would submit responses to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, expressing disappointment that their evidence had been ignored and making practical suggestions as to how the final report could be improved.

This has been done and SLIC staff has also had a positive meeting with representatives of the Committee overseeing the production of the report and RSE staff. The RSE’s initial reaction to the Community of Practice’s response has been conciliatory and assurances have been given that the final report will give due weight to the role of libraries in spreading the benefits of digital participation. CILIPS has also submitted a response. We await the appearance of the final report which is to be published ‘early in 2014’.

The report and contact details may be found at

http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/advice-papers/inquiry/RSE_DI_Inquiry_Interim.pdf

John Crawford

Cross Party Group on Digital Participation meeting 10.12.13 and a Happy New Year

I attended the Cross Party Group on Digital Participation meeting at Holyrood with Jenny Foreman on Tuesday 10^th December.  Sorry about the delay in posting but I was overcome by festive season sloth and I am only just recovering. The meeting was on the theme of Digital Participation in the workplace with two speakers and there was also a presentation on Digital Inclusion and Disabled consumers.

Digital Participation in the Workplace: the first speaker was Gordon Scobbie, the former Assistant Chief Constable of Tayside who spoke about the use of social media by police officers to support community policing and improve relations with the public. He emphasised that Twitter supports two way communication and that most of the activity and contributions to social media are of a positive nature. Interestingly the most trusted tweeters are celebrities not public servants.

Ian Watson from IRISS (Institute for Research and Innovation in the Social Sciences) spoke about the role of social media in workplace learning and how organisations should encourage the development of digital literacy across the entire workforce but that lack of basic skills is a barrier to progress. Another barrier identified is the suspicion among organisations that staff will misuse electronic media leading to the blocking of websites.

The ensuing discussion certainly got me thinking about the importance of information literacy methods in evaluating the quality of social media communication given the unstructured and positively anarchic nature of some of it. Social media communications should be evaluated just like any other information source using the critical strategies available.

A briefing paper was supplied by Ofcom on disabled consumers’ ownership of communication services. This has been found to be generally lower among people with a disability than among those without, especially for Internet access. Home PC ownership is lower among disabled than non-disabled people. Disabled people are also less likely to access the Internet outside the home or via mobile devices. People with multiple impairments are the most disadvantaged.

The meeting concluded with a discussion about developments in the US which could affect the accessibility of Kindles and other e-readers. Amazon and Sony have asked the US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, whether they can opt out of new legislation requiring various communication devices to be made accessible. The Group hope to address this issue.

After the meeting Jenny and I had a chat with Ian Watson who has agreed to attend our next meeting on 14^th May.

John Crawford

SLIC AGM 22.11.13

I attended the SLIC (Scottish Library and Information Council) AGM last Friday (22.11.13) along with Ian McCracken. We were invited by Moira Methven, the interim CEO of SLIC to speak about information literacy issues. The AGM was held in the Lighthouse in Glasgow. The morning was taken up with overview issues while the afternoon session consisted of reports on work undertaken by SLIC members.

Ian and I led off the morning session. Ian spoke about problems schoolchildren have in finding and using information and I spoke about information literacy policy issues with reference to Scotland. My presentation was essentially an abbreviated version of the one I delivered in Istanbul last month at the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL). ( Hopefully it and all the other conference presentations will be appearing on the ECIL website soon   http://www.ecil2013.org/index.php/home ). Our joint presentation generated some discussion and I was pleased that Fiona McLeod, MSP, the chair of SLIC picked up on some of the issues I had raised.

We were followed by Jane Robinson, the co-ordinator for ALMA-UK. ALMA is a body which co-ordinates library, museums and archive activity across the three devolved nations and interestingly enough includes information literacy in its remit.

The next speaker was Alyson Tyler, from CyMAL, the body which co-ordinates library, museum and archive activity in Wales http://wales.gov.uk/topics/cultureandsport/museumsarchiveslibraries/cymal/?lang=en . She spoke about (library) collaboration in Wales. CyMAL’s members include all 22 Welsh local authorities serving a population of three million. She spoke about the Libraries Inspire Project which runs from 2012 to 2016 and includes all library sectors. The work includes the physical refurbishment of public library buildings, simpler registration of membership of the National Library of Wales and one ebook service for all 22 local authorities. From November 27^th emagazines will also be available. The Welsh Information Literacy Project has now been ongoing for four years and future work is being planned http://librarywales.org/en/information-literacy/ . Recent work includes the appointment of information literacy champions in all Welsh public library services and continuing work in health literacy. Wales pioneered the Prescribe a book scheme in 2005.

The afternoon was taken up with reports of good practice, mainly in public libraries although there was a report from SCURL on the SHEDL Project (Scottish Higher Education Digital Library) http://scurl.ac.uk/. There were presentations from public libraries on: IT training for staff (Inverclyde) and the MindFULLNess Project (North Ayrshire Libraries) which introduces preschool children and the elderly to IT applications.

The last presentation from Christina Kelly and Angela Hughes from Golley Slater reviewed public perceptions of the public library and how it can be better promoted and marketed. It is intended to put all the PPTs on the SLIC website.

During the course of the day I had a talk with Alyson Tyler, Jane Robinson, and Fiona McLeod and suggested the idea of an information literacy exchange of experience among the home nations and I hope to hear further from them on that idea. Ideally I would like to see the Republic of Ireland included too as it too has information literacy plans I believe.

John Crawford