“What do you teach?” asked the Glaswegian taxi driver. “Information science – managing information, internet searching, that sort of thing.” I said. He perked up “Can you give me some advice about search engines then, I'm using Lycos, but…” I remember this conversation from a few years back, as it demonstrated for me that the internet really had arrived. Suddenly I was teaching something of practical use to taxi drivers! I was reminded of this encounter en route from Glasgow city centre to the venue for the 1st International IT and Information Literacy (IT&IL) Conference in March.

Another taxi driver interested in search engines: but things had moved on. This one quickly launched into a critique of Google, described his browsing strategy (“I find a good site then look at the links”) and pontificated on the problems of telling good websites from bad. He agreed that it was really important that you questioned the quality of what you found. Evidence that people value information literacy, even if that's not what they call it.

This was a well organised conference. Speakers kept to time (except for a couple of the overseas keynote speakers!). Mostly there was a 20 minute talk, 10 minutes for lively discussion, and five for moving between different sessions if you wanted: this seemed a good system. I think Glasgow is a magnificent city, but the conference venue left a little to desire in terms of accessibility and creature comforts (or perhaps it was just me that felt the thrill of Escape From Stalag 13 as I whizzed away). However, hey, we were there to work, and the conference rooms were fine enough.

The conference dinner was in the Piping Centre, and provided the Sight of The Conference: a kilted Derek Law extracting a timepiece from his sporran. The timepiece in question was a neat traveller's clock presented to each delegate .(There is a picture of Derek in a kilt on the page giving the American Libraries' report on the IFLA 2002 conference)

Inevitably, this is a personal account of IT&IL. Apart from anything else, there were often five parallel sessions. I have organised my thoughts into themes, under the two headings Tensions and Solutions. Because I am more interested in information literacy than IT, I will focus on the former subject. To balance things out a little, I asked the organisers to forward an email to other delegates, asking for nominations for best session, and I have incorporated the responses: my thanks to Angie Donoghue (Sheffield Hallam University), Jane Falconer (Royal Free Hospital), David Gregory (Iowa State University), William Hisen (e-Institute), Gwyneth Price (Institute of Education, University of London), and Dan Stowell (University College London) for sending me their comments (they are identified below as "Delegate …").

My Themes I: Tensions

Roles.

Can the librarian, the academic and the IT professional be friends? Or are they destined to scorn and underestimate each other? The difficulty of getting academics interested in information literacy, and willing to devote precious curriculum time to it was mentioned by several speakers. Clare McGuinness' research (University College Dublin) revealed that her sample of Irish academics saw librarians as functionaries rather than equals. Caroline Stern (Ferris State University) put forward the teacher's view: she had encountered librarians who were discouraged academics who wanted to include information literacy in the curriculum. In both sessions, questions revealed strong feelings: this is evidently a delicate area. In the conference's closing session a group of IT professionals talked purposefully about how they hoped to go home and change information strategy for the better. One step was going to be talking to their university's library staff: "We had no idea that librarians wanted to do this" they said. As ever, increased communication and willingness to try and understand others' perspective and priorities seemed to be part of the solution.

Terminology.

Names often cause a lot of dissension: think of the debate about CILIP. Some people asserted that it was important to talk about Information Literacy rather than Information Skills. The word "skills" did not cover more complex subjects like critical thinking. Others felt that that the two phrases meant the same thing. There were those who thought that it did not matter what you called it, as long as it got done.

The issue was touched on in the panel session at the end of the conference. Bill Nisen (Director of the Strathclyde/Glasgow University e-institute) proposed using the phrase "Information Mastery". Thankfully this last suggestion dropped out of the debate like a stone. It reminded me of the December Online conference when a speaker addressed the audience as "Web Gods and Goddesses" (apparently one step up from Web Gurus) and we all looked decidedly embarrassed.

Expectations vs. reality.

A recurrent theme was students' misconceptions about their own information literacy. Caroline Stern's large-scale survey of incoming students found that 39% thought they were Advanced or Expert internet users, but only a small percentage really questioned the reliability of web resources. Spencer Jordan's survey at the University of the West of England found that females were more aware than males that they needed development in IT. Yes, young people have some techie skills, but they are not necessarily information literate. Speakers and delegates alike complained of teachers expecting that students would magically acquire information literacy via osmosis or though the injection of a one-hour hour lecture from the librarian.

Cultural

Theory vs. practice.

Conference Chair Allan Martin (University of Glasgow) identified a possible tension between theory and practice. There has tended to be a lack of theory and models in IT and information literacy, compared to the number of talks and papers which give practical case studies. He used the phrase “TV dinners” to describe off-the-shelf solutions to IT and information literacy problems. TV dinners can be very useful, but if that's all you eat, you may grow pale and flabby and never learn to cook for yourself .

Trying to find solutions for a variety of Educational settings also caused problems: for example, material useful for both higher and further education, solutions for distance learning and campus-based learners.

My Themes II: Solutions

Immediate: "cooking with gas".

A number of the conference presentations provided ideas that people might want to go home and try for themselves. Ruth Stubbings and Alison McNab's paper described a successful campaign to attract more people to training sessions at Loughborough University Library by having a “Database of the Month”. Delegate Jane Falconer found this talk useful in providing some clear ideas which could be transferred, including asking information providers to do training sessions. She also praised Peter Goodwin's talk (South Bank University) “Information Literacy: but at what level?” which described how the SCONUL Seven Pillars model can be used to map different skill levels against the needs of students at different stages of their university education. This skill-mapping approach has also been adopted at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia (see below for web addresses giving more information at South Bank and QUT).

Some projects funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee have surveyed practice and provided case studies. The CITSCAPES project, based at Glasgow University, has identified innovative practice in IT literacy provision. The Big Blue project, undertaken by Manchester Metropolitan and Leeds University (URL), has resulted in an information skills “toolkit” which includes case studies from higher and further education.

Collaboration between librarians, academics, teachers, senior managers, IT professionals.

This was urged by Allan Martin in his opening address and by keynote speakers on the closing panel. A number of presenters in between had given examples of how collaboration was important, and could work. Examples include collaboration between the University of Calgary Library and IT Department to form an “Information Commons”, and collaboration between librarians and academics to deliver information literacy as part of the curriculum at Cardiff University and at Edge Hill. Keynote speaker Bill Nisen thought there was a stark message: “collaborate or get outsourced.”

Curriculum development.

Robert Newton looked at academics' attitudes to IT and information skills in relation to online learning. He used this as a basis to talk about approaches to teaching and assessing, stressing the importance of bedding education for IT and information skills into the overall curriculum design. Robert also talked about some good examples of online learning: e.g. students developing their own subject gateway sites to demonstrate their evaluative skills (at one institution students get extra marks if their gateways are used by other students), or sharing their summaries of literature via a discussion list. The paper which I co-presented with Bill Johnston was also focused on curriculum design, in particular looking at designing appropriate assessment for information literacy. There was a lot of interest in the Open University's approach to designing an information literacy module, MOSAIC (see web address below).

Within the area of curriculum development, a sub theme was Moving away from “one size fits all”. Susanne Hodges outlined how the well-established IT and Information Literacy programme (ILIAD) at York University is under review. They have identified that their strategy needs to be amended to meet the diverse needs of the students and different subject curricula. Peter Reffel (University of Leeds) argued in his presentation “IT skills are not enough” that a more thoughtful integrated approach was need to enable students to transfer their IT skills from one setting to another. He was critical of the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL). Delegate Dan Stowell observed that “It was a good topic because it was strongly reflective: the government and industry have colluded in creating an atmosphere of hurrying to make everyone IT literate, and so a pause for consideration of how and why is refreshing … Various people in the audience also said they were glad they weren't the only ones who were dissatisfied with the ECDL!”

Reflecting and researching.

As an academic, I have a vested interest in promoting research, but practitioners also found numerous research-based papers interesting. Delegate Angie Donoghue liked Mark Hepworth's analysis of students' searching (Loughborough University). This identified key areas in which students have problems and suggested ways in which these findings could be used to improve user support and education. Nancy Becker (St John's University, USA) also reported on a user study in "Information Literacy and Usability Research: Giving Users a Voice in Planning Program Content". Students had been asked to describe their best and worst higher education web experiences.

There were fewer speakers on the school sector than there were on higher education, but there were still a number of interesting papers. Kay Wilson looked at “Information literacy in the classroom: coping strategies employed by teachers” and Sarah McNicol described research looking at how children learn about IT and information literacy both in formal settings (e.g. school) and informal settings (e.g. at home). Delegate Gwyneth Price commented that these papers were “particularly useful to me as I am working on a project exploring the Information Literacy of Beginning Teachers.” The paper by Dorothy Williams and Caroline Wavell (Robert Gordon University) reported on research which, amongst other things, identified possible indicators for the impact of information skills education on learning at school.

Strategic planning and vision.

Many people seemed to find Stephen Griffiths and Cathie Jackson's presentation on Cardiff University's Information Literacy policy interesting. They provided useful tips on getting the strategy accepted (general ones, such as targeting key institutional strategy documents, and specific ones such as using scenarios to paint pen-pictures for academics of information literate students.).

Jenny McCarthy described the strategy at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). They have aligned what they are doing with overall university policy, and embedded it in institutional teaching and learning plans. QUT has a published framework for information literacy, and Jenny described some specific initiatives, such as orientation sessions (“Survival 4QUT”). In the closing session Australian Phil Candy talked about “the long haul”: it is 10 years since the first Australian information literacy conference and there is still a way to go, even if Australia is ahead of the UK. Maintaining a strategy and vision is important.

Standards and models.

The SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model appeared in presentations throughout the conference, and there were updates from Hilary Johnson and Stephen Town on the work of the SCONUL Information Skills taskforce. They reported on progress, in particular, on identifying critical success factors and evaluation strategy.

Creating impact.

The importance of marketing was stressed at numerous points. Jenny McCarthy emphasised that “Image is all” whilst waving the glossy booklet that outlines her institution's information literacy framework. The extra cost was worth it, if it meant that academics and senior managers realised that information literacy was important and high-impact. Ruth Stubbings talked about the many channels (web, email, posters, leaflets, and people – academic and Staff Development Unit “champions”) used to advertise Loughborough's training sessions. A delegate described how she was introducing online chat about information literacy into academic induction programmes: getting her message across right at the start.

Speakers urged people to make a strategic impact: lobbying and persuading. Phil Candy recommended latching on to issues that decision-makers thought important: “whatever turns their handle.” Some of these issues, such as Quality Assurance of teaching, had already been mentioned by speakers as being useful hooks to get people to take information literacy or IT more seriously. Stephen Town (Cranfield University) told delegates to have courage and go forth to challenge their institutions.

Finale

It was interesting to see what was not talked about. I found it encouraging that there was not too much debate about "what is information literacy". For the most part people flashed up a couple of slides indicating where they stood or whose model they were using, and then went on to the main topic of their talk.

Allan Martin topped and tailed the conference nicely, starting it with an amusing and stimulating introduction to key IT&IL themes. At the end, he said he felt IT&IL had failed in one of its aims. He'd hoped to have a balance of IT people and Information Literacy people and papers, and a good interchange of ideas. However, information literacy had dominated (e.g. both in terms of papers submitted and delegates). Nevertheless, delegates I spoke to were enthusiastic. There was evidently a lot going on in libraries, and via agencies such as SCONUL, and there was a buzz of excitement. Delegate Gwyneth Price summed it up in her comment “All in all, a wonderful event.”

Want more information?

The 2002 IT& Information Literacy website is at http://www.iteu.gla.ac.uk/elit/itilit2002/ Click on Papers and you can download some of the presentations. A book with selected conference papers is being published.

Allan Martin and Hannelore Rader (Eds). Information and literacy: enabling learning in the 21st century Facet Publishing. ISBN 1-85604-463-7. £39.95.The publication date: 2002.

Additional addresses

• Big Blue Project
• CITSCAPES project
• Peter Godwin. (2002) Information Skills Benchmarks. South Bank University.
• Open University MOSAIC (information skills) module:
• Queensland University of Technology in Australia:

Favourites

David Gregory thought Phil Candy's keynote paper ("You have to kiss a lot of frogs: information literacy in the digital environment") was “exceptional. He managed, in 30 minutes, to paint a very compelling picture of what horrifies us most about the web as a learning/research environment (fluidity of URLs, evanescence of information, diversity of descriptors, etc.) and, conversely, what attracts, intrigues, and inspires us.” Candy is seconded to the Australian department of Education, Science and Training. The “Candy Report” (Developing lifelong learners through undergraduate education), published in 1994, has been instrumental in getting information literacy on the university agenda in Australia.

Angie Donoghue praised the three papers by Hepworth, Griffiths, and Stern “The link between these being: however good what we develop is (in line with users' actual behaviour) it won't work unless it has the support of the institution and the will of the student to develop those skills.”

Jane Falconer felt that Peter Godwin's paper (South Bank University) Information Literacy: but at what level? was “Probably the most interesting session for me. We are only just starting to include Information Skills Training in our undergraduate medical course and it is proving difficult to get sufficient space in the curriculum to fit everything in. Having a list of skills like Peter outlined will be useful ammunition to take to curriculum meetings, as well as helping us tailor our training more effectively.”

Many people seemed to find Caroline Stern's paper “Mapping the Frontiers of information literacy: Measuring Student's Information Literacy” useful. The statistics from her survey (of first year students) provided data on the likely gap between student self-perception and actual competence. The survey itself was useful for those who are interested in competency questionnaires.