NHS Scotland Information Literacy Competency Framework - latest news

More news on information literacy in the NHS, this time from Scotland and Eilean Craig - eilean.craig@nes.scot.nhs.uk who has informed me that their Framework has been revised and reformatted as a booklet series rather than a single (huge!) document. The revised booklets are available for downloading at www.infoliteracy.scot.nhs.uk/information-literacy-framework.aspx. Eilean says as always, any comment and suggestion will be much appreciated.

I for one will be checking them out and taking note for revising the draft National Information Literacy Framwork Scotland.

For anyone not familiar with this work they've produced an Information Literacy Framework intended for use across NHS Scotland, with NHS Scotland partners, patients, carers and members of the public. The framework is currently being piloted. I particulalry like the scenarios within the framework and think something similar could be used for other workplaces and information literacy. It's certainly something we will be exploring along with case studies. They've also developed an NHS information literacy model which Eilean says is gradually becoming recognised and gaining acceptance.

In addition to the Framework, they've also produced online information literacy courses available at www.infoskills.scot.nhs.uk. The courses are available to everyone who has an Athens password and ID (and there is the opportunity to register for these if you don't already have them). A third tool they've developed is the information literacy portal at www.infoliteracy.scot.nhs.uk/

Some great work going on and one to keep an eye on.

North East England NHS Information Literacy Project

Had an email about an Information Literacy Project in the NHS in the North East of England which I thought I would share with you all.

Hi John and Christine....

Congrats on your blog! I just thought you may be interested in some of the work currently going on in the North East NHS...

The Information Literacy Project is a Northeast SHA library network project funded by the SHA to promote a co-ordinated cross organisational approach to information literacy training. The main objectives of the project are to develop and produce an information literacy (IL) toolkit which will be hosted on a website or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and to coordinate and implement the information literacy training programme across the SHA region.

We are looking at the sconul pillars and are intending to link onto it using the name 'PILLARS' for the project (Professional Information Literacy, Library And Research Skills) - in the hope that it may already be familiar to some of our end users and line managers. Several of the Librarians and Information Professionals from our area are also currently participating in Information Litreracy courses and this has provided valuable feedback informing the structure and background to the proposed VLE (Moodle site).

Each of the training modules will have specific objectives, lesson plans and shared outcomes - training will be designed using (hopefully) the most appropriate methods, from a simple download of a training guide or helpsheet, to interactive demos and quizzes (produced on Captivate or Lectora). These will initially be stand alone elearning packages, but in the long term we hope to introduce more blended learning with things like live online demos and training (e.g. webexes). The Moodle will be populated with downloadable material until the interactive material is ready to 'Go Live', so there will not be any empty links or dead ends.

In addition to the material produced we also hope to use meta-tags to link all modules and material to KSF dimensions (just to give the training a bit more 'punch' and value when promoting to staff).

Everything that is eventually produced for the Moodle will be available to all staff across the NESHA and we have the potential to share the competed Moodle/VLE with other organisations.

We are quite happy to share any and all material to prevent duplication of effort. The project is just a 2 months old at the moment and we hope to have the shell and basic population with downloadable material up and running as soon as possible... (the 'under construction' site is at www.pillarsvle.net).

Gail Guthrie
Information Skills Trainer &
Information Literacy Project
gguthrie@nhs.net