This study investigated the Information Literacy levels of High School students in Kenya and has examined the relationship between these and the frequency of access to ICT and the internet. The level of teacher training in ICT and its impact on Information Literacy was also explored. An Instrumental case study approach was used to assess the Information Literacy levels of students in 4 High schools in the North Rift of Kenya. Teachers from each school outlined their training and the extent of their ICT use with the students. It was found that the frequency of access that students had to ICT and to the internet had a positive impact on their ability to evaluate information and its sources critically. This correlation was found to be stronger if the access was outside of school. However, students with more frequent access were not better at retrieving information efficiently or at determining the nature and extent of information needed. The 4 schools involved in the study all had at least one teacher with advanced ICT training such as a computer science degree, however the majority of teachers at these school had only received training in the use of software packages or had not received any formal ICT training. The study found that there was a strong correlation between the level of teacher training and the extent to which they allowed students to use ICT in their lessons. The need for teacher training in pedagogic techniques for ICT was highlighted, as was the need for Information Literacy to be explicitly taught within the Kenyan High School Curriculum. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

This is an ALISE juried paper presented on Monday, January 11, 2005 in Session 1.4, LIS Curriculum: Global library Perspectives, of the 2005 ALISE Conference, Boston, MA. This is a study that offers a systematic analysis in the area of information literacy instruction. The results suggest a range of appropriate topics for courses in instruction, and highlight exemplary courses that could be used as a starting point to revise an existing course or develop a new one.

Poster paper / The latest developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have made the concept "Libraries without walls" into a practical reality. This has posed several challenges to the information work force and the information users. At the same time, we have noticed the issues related to the information overload and information quality. At this juncture, efforts are strengthening to develop means to persuade and equip the users and information specialists to achieve maximum efficiency in information services. It was observed that one of the important reasons for the under utilization of electronic information is the lack of requisite level of working knowledge and consumption skills among customers and information intermediaries (Sridhar, 1997). To improve the situation, the conventional user education programmes need be redefined and reengineered, to be it more technology oriented. It should be designed in such a way to provide confidence to the user in locating desired information (Francis, 2005).

This is the keynote presentation delivered at The Sixth Conference on Problem-Based Learning in Finland: Constructing Knowledge in information society, Tampere, 2006 June 6-7. Abstract: Finding information, especially accurate, timely, and relevant information, is increasingly important in nearly all human endeavors. Accordingly, numerous studies have examined the processes information seekers employ, as well as the strategies information providers use to meet their needs. Most models emphasize satisfaction or closure as the criterion for successful completion of an information search; thus the emphasis is on solving a specific problem. But often, information seeking is part of some larger process, which is invisible to the information provider and often unclear even to the seeker. Successful search may lead not so much to eliminating an existing, well-defined problem, as to delineating a new problem within a complex, ill-defined space. This paper examines information seeking from an inquiry, or problem-based perspective, and argues that the fields of information seeking and problem-based learning can benefit from closer dialogue.

European Association for Health Information & Libraries Workshop 2007, Kraków, Poland, 12-15 September 2007 / Since 2006, the Campus Library of Biomedical Sciences of K.U.Leuven University is reconsidering its role in education and research. Giving access to scientific information is still our libraryâ s most important mission. However, teaching our students and academic staff the skills for efficient retrieval and use of scientific information is increasingly becoming an important task too. In the past, instruction was limited to guided tours and short library instruction sessions, organized on an individual and unsystematic basis. This changed in 2006, when we were asked by the Faculty of Medicine to reconsider part of the medical curriculum in the light of integrating information literacy in it. The following considerations were made: 1. information literacy should be integrated in a systematic way in the curriculum 2. minimal skills of information literacy should be determined for each level 3. instruction in information literacy should be a continuous line starting in the first and ending in the last year (vertical line) 4. information literacy should be acquired in an active way in as many courses as possible (horizontal line) 5. instruction in information literacy is a shared responsibility of library and academic staff As a result, the biomedical library was given the responsibility of information literacy in the beginning of the curriculum of medical students, while academic staff took the responsibility of the rest. At the same time, the library was investing a lot in providing our academic staff with tools, formats and learning objects for integrating information literacy in their lessons. We also started planning systematic trainings for keeping our academic staff up to date with major changes in scientific information. The new curriculum of the Faculty of Medicine was put into practice in October 2006. It was soon followed by similar projects in all other biomedical faculties of our university.

"Copyright in all articles appearing in the Journal of the Medical Library Association is owned by their authors. Readers may copy articles without permission of the copyright owners, as long as the author and the Medical Library Association are acknowledged in the copy and the copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes." / Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess whether recent graduates of the Ohio State University's Occupational Therapy division are applying information-seeking skills they learned as undergraduates, and to seek their advice on ways to improve information-literacy instruction for current and future occupational therapy students. Method: A survey was sent to a sample of graduates from 1995â 2000. The results were entered into an SPSS database, and descriptive and inferential results were calculated to determine the information-seeking patterns of these recent graduates. Results: A majority of the occupational therapy graduates who responded to the survey prefer to use information resources that are readily available to them, such as advice from their colleagues or supervisors (79%) and the Internet (69%), rather than the evidence available in the journal literature. Twenty-six percent (26%) of the graduates have searched MEDLINE or CINAHL at least once since they graduated. Formal library instruction sessions were considered useful by 42% of the graduates, and 22% of the graduates found informal contacts with librarians to be useful. Conclusions: Librarians and occupational therapy faculty must intensify their efforts to convey the importance of applying research information to patient care and inform students of ways to access this information after they graduate. In addition to teaching searching skills for MEDLINE and CINAHL, they must provide instruction on how to assess the quality of information they find on the Internet. Other findings suggest that occupational therapy practitioners need access to information systems in the clinical setting that synthesize the research in a way that is readily applicable to patient-care issues.

University Libraries, with the dawn of Internet era, are compelled to provide relevant information essential to its end users within a short span of time either from its in-house holdings or from resources available in other libraries. This could be made possible only by way of Library Consortia (LC). This paper discusses the planning of LC among the major Campus Libraries of University of Madras. It identifies the need, prerequisites, problems and solutions involved in consortia formation.

This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006. This paper examines the participation, or nonparticipation, of the patient in the medical record process has been viewed through Foucaultâ s lens of power relations.

A discussion paper prepared by the UBC Library’s Working Group on the Role of the Library in Scholarly Research about three distinct yet intertwining roles – a consulting/supportive role; a collaborative role; and, a scholarly professional role.

This study investigated teachers’ competency in mediating information literacy in the classroom. At the heart of the problem was teachers’ own understanding of information literacy and their competency in information literacy education. The significance of the study is based on the following premises: information literacy is inferred in all the national curriculum statements; first year university students are expected to be able to learn independently from information resources, access and use information increasingly available online only, and write assignments based on research papers but their preparation at the school level appears inadequate and disparate; the education ministry has queried teachers’ lack of abilities in teaching research assignments and projects, often the vehicle for information literacy; and school librarians, the traditionally accepted purveyors of information literacy education, are scarce in South Africa making teachers the default information literacy educators. Further support for the study comes from the international literature: there is continued vocalization of the importance of information literacy through its association with inquiry-based learning. In teacher education certain assumptions have been questioned such as teachers’ innate abilities to mediate information literacy through their subject; and trainee teachers not needing information literacy education. Twenty nine participants in an information literacy education course at the University of the Western Cape formed the purposive sample. A mixed methods approach combined quantitative and qualitative modes of research and data. Data collection methods and tools included a pre- and post-course questionnaire, journals, interviews and assignment artefacts. The overriding mode of inquiry for the current study was qualitative. The principal theories guiding the study are constructivism, inquiry-based learning, and the process-based approach to information seeking behaviour. The important elements of an inquiry model, that incorporate information literacy, such as process learning, asking good questions, motivation, scaffolding, mediated learning and metacognition formed the kernel of the study. The study achieved its purpose in showing in a nuanced way that teachers, having undergone information literacy education, could teach their learners information literacy to a greater or lesser extent using a guided inquiry project. The course intervention saw participants progressing from a limited, unclear understanding of information literacy to having a satisfactory grasp of information literacy (education). Formerly, participants presented learners with a research project accompanied sometimes with a list of instructions, but only saw the completed project at the end. The course taught participants that information literacy needs to be made explicit in the classroom. One of the biggest challenges was using web-based information. The research shows that teachers need to be conversant and comfortable in the web environment and this conversion takes time and persistent breaking down of barriers. Using a change agency continuum, the study shows the participants’ varying degrees of change of beliefs from transmission teaching to using a guided inquiry approach. In comparing a (school) librarian’s approach to information literacy to the teachers’, the most glaring differences were teachers’ initial acceptance that information literacy occurs instinctively; that libraries were storehouses of “stuff” such as books; that textbooks are adequate for research projects; and that the ethical use of information was inconsequential. The study suggests that alternative sociological theories such as ICT for Development or Chatman’s Information Poverty could better explain the historical effect of teachers’ unequal access to information and the challenge of educating teachers in information literacy education in developing countries. The study recommends that all teachers receive information literacy education as part of their pre-service teacher training and that practicing teachers receive effective in-service training in mediating projects in the classroom. Teacher education policy documents need to make more explicit reference to information literacy education. The absence of the position of school librarian requires serious consideration as the lack of access to an organised, functioning school library continues to thwart literacy and information literacy. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.