<p>The main purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine how Swedish upper secondary school librarians and related staff relate to the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. The research is placed in the all-embracing context of information literacy and source criticism on the Internet. The study was carried out in the form of qualitative interviews and based on two theoretical bases: firstly, the concept of cognitive authority stipulated by Patrick Wilson, and secondly the idea that Wikipedia has a draw towards late modern epistemological assumptions. The latter theory was also associated with the perceptions of knowledge among the library staff interviewed. According to the results, there seems to be a connection between a) the library staff’s perceptions of knowledge, b) the library staff’s actual knowing about Wikipedia, c) the library staff’s attitudes toward Wikipedia and d) the teaching performed by the library staff about Wikipedia. The results also suggest the cognitive authority of the traditional encyclopaedia to be strong, especially among those within the library staff not very familiar with Wikipedia. Those positive to Wikipedia possibly represent perceptions of knowledge with a draw towards the late modern. Finally, possible solutions regarding the improvement of information literacy and of Wikipedia usage among the upper secondary school pupils are discussed.</p>

<p>Skolverket har under våren 2010 tagit fram en ny rapport om IT användning och ITkompetens bland elever på grundskolan. Rapporten visade en positiv utveckling bland elever i skolåren 7‐9 men bland elever i grundskolans tidigare år var resultaten inte desamma. Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån en utbildningspraktik förstå konsekvenserna av hur pedagoger resonerar kring värdet av att vara informationskompetent. Ett begrepp som innefattar sökstrategier, en källkritisk medvetenhet och allämna kunskaper på och om Internet. Europeiska Unionen (EU) beslutade 2006 att varje enskild medborgare är i behov av åtta nyckelkompetenser för att på bästa sätt anpassa och utveckla sig inom vår snabbt växande samhällsutveckling. Den fjärde nyckelkompetensen är en digital kompetens vilket inkluderar begreppet informationskompetens. Denna kompetens är något skolverksamheten skall förmedla till sina elever, där skolans uppdrag redan framhåller att ”leverna skall kunna orientera sig i en komplex verklighet, med ett stort informationsflöde och en snabb förändringstakt”(Skolverket, 2000:5).</p><p>I studien intervjuas sex verksamma pedagoger från grundskolans tidigare år, med ett strategiskt urval från två olika grundskolor i södra Sverige. Utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv försöker studien fånga en bredd av aspekter på problemområdet genom att belysa både individuella, samhälleliga men även sociala utgångspunkter. Den teoretiska inramningen har jag därför valt att dela in och analysera utifrån tre tänkbara relevansområden <em>attityder, didaktisk problematik och<em> kognitiv kommunikation. </em></em>I studien fann jag att de intervjuade pedagogerna hade en förståelse för begreppet informationskompetens men förde resonemanget ofta på en teknisk och materiell nivå. I studiens resultat och analys kunde jag urskilja hinder som pedagogerna byggde upp och som till viss del styrde deras resonemang. Resultaten belyser pedagogernas egna tekniska kompetens och för vissa en teknisk rädsla som ett av hindren, men även ett upplevt generationsglapp mellan elev och pedagog. Ett annat hinder åskådliggör en didaktisk problematik där pedagogerna efterfrågar struktur, riktlinjer och guidning inom området. Att den kompetens pedagogerna tillägnat sig genom fortbildning inte stannar av vid materiella tillgångar eller programkunskap, utan att de tillägnar sig och förmedlar en informationskompetens som grund i den digitala undervisningen. Om pedagogerna skall komma förbi sina upplevda hinder till informations‐ och kommunikationstekniken behövs ett ansvarstagande både från rektorer och pedagoger. Samtliga inom skolverksamheten måste tillägna sig en förståelse för hur en informationskompetens är grunden till en digital undervisning med Internet som utgångspunkt. Begreppet måste ses som ämnesoberoende och integreras i undervisningspraktiken för att eleverna skall kunna tillägna sig det enorma digitala utbud vi idag ställs inför.</p>

Social media today constitute a big part of everyday life for adolescents, but we believe that there is an inadequate knowledge of how young people in everyday contexts go about evaluating and reflecting upon the information mediated through Facebook. This study aims to examine how adolescents in their everyday life judge the credibility of information mediated through Facebook. In order to attain the aim the study also seeks to answer how adolescents reflect upon information on Facebook, what is their own role in the production of content and also to identify their cognitive resources and the practical doings which they apply in order to judge the credibility of the information. The theoretical framework on which the study is based are Patrick Wilson's theory of Cognitive authority and the theory of Uses and Gratifications. The data was accumulated by conducting two focus group interviews with a total of eight respondents, each focus group comprising four respondents. The study found that the content the respondents are exposed to is dependent on their own actions and that it is also a result of a wider range of age groups being more active on Facebook. Many of the respondents do not put much trust in the information and most of them are also passive in the production of it. The study also identified the following methods the respondents use when they evaluate the credibility of the information: to examine the sources, determine if there is any underlying political interest, reputation, how it is expressed, their attitude towards the information, compare sources, common sense and experience.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate on what perspective or perspectives university teachers and librarians at a medium-sized university in Sweden base their view on information literacy. More specifically, how do the respondents view their own information literacy and what opinions they have of their students’ information literacy as professionals. Three perspectives are used to interpret the results, the sociocultural perspective, the phenomenographical perspective and the behavioristic perspective.The method used is semi structured interviews with three university teachers and three librarians.Both librarians and teachers emphasize the importance of information literacy, for themselves as well as for students. The information literacy of the librarians involves being well acquainted with the subjects of the students. The teachers mention their ability to guide students in their search for sources and literature.Librarians consider the information literacy of students pretty poor or very poor, and one respondent says that more experienced students often have greater knowledge. The teachers agree that there are differences between more and less experienced students, but both positive and negative exceptions occur. Both librarians and teachers consider information literacy among students as important, because it is important to find relevant information to essays and papers. The three perspectives are connected or not connected to answers that the three librarians and the three teachers reply in interviews. This is important for how they do re-search, talk about and teach information literacy. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Swedish highereducation librarians mediate discovery tools to its users. Thisstudy aims to investigate higher education librarians’ generalattitudes towards discovery tools, their perception ofstudents’ discovery tool usage, and how they mediatediscovery tools to students through reference interviews anduser training. The empirical ground of this study is a semistructuredsurvey that was answered by 115 instructinglibrarians. The study concludes that although librariansgenerally have a critical attitude towards discovery tools theyalso think that the discovery tools serve a useful purpose,especially as a starting point in the information searchprocess. The study also concludes that librarians generallyperceive students’ attitudes towards discovery tools aspositive, although students do not always use the tools totheir full potential. The librarians also raised the importanceof user training that is less focused on teaching searchtechniques and more focused on information literacy. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this thesis is to create an understanding of nurses&apos; information practices. To be able to search, find, use and critically evaluate information is important, not just during studies, but also in professional life. This study is intended to deepen our understanding of nurses &apos; information literacy in a workplace context.The main questions are: What information do nurses need on a daily basis and how do they experience information activities? What factors determine the sources they use? Do information practices vary in the workplace? Do nurses‟ professional experiences impact on their information practices? Nine nurses were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The interviews have been analysed through a hermeneutic approach. I use a model of the information seeking of professionals created by Leckie, Pettigrew and Sylvain as well as the concept of cognitive authority as developed by Wilson in the analysis. I reach the conclusion that information practices differ within the same context and occupational group. Differences in information needs and information seeking practices emerged between the different groups who were identified during the interviews. Professional experience proved to be important in information activities. It also became clear that oral sources had a dominant role as a source of information and that different sources are given different authority. An experienced colleague is seen as a cognitive authority as well as established textual sources. There was often an interaction between written and oral information. It was found that there were shortcomings in the system that makes information available. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how librarians working in academic libraries are experiencing the reference situation from a pedagogical point of view, by applying a theoretical framework consisting of learning strategies and their different characteristics, to qualitative interviews. Other goals are to elucidate the fact that learning takes place every day at libraries during the reference situation and that this work must be seen as “one of the most important activities that takes place at the library”, using the words from one of the interviewed librarians, but also to make place for more discussions regarding pedagogic and library work. This is done by posing questions about knowledge, learning, information literacy, communication, the reference encounter, the roles of the librarian, policy and also architectural aspects of the reference situation. The interviews were taped, transcribed and categorized according to the earlier mentioned areas of interest. Results and analyses are presented with quotes from the interviews that are related to the framework as well as to research by participants in this, and other relevant, subject fields. This essay points out that academic librarians are aware of the pedagogical aspects of the reference situation and consider it to be a learning situation of great importance for the user. Results also show that the main pedagogical theories that influence the academic librarians work during the contact with the user in the reference situation are individual and social constructivism. According to the authors of this essay, the reference situation must be seen as a complex situation with interrelated elements, mostly affected by the context the librarian and the user find themselves in. In so doing, the pedagogical foundation of the reference situation may differ. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The main purpose of this master thesis is to examine how high school students think when they independently are evaluating information for a school assignment. We examine what types of sources they use, and what their reasons are. Besides that we also examine what sorts of criteria they use when evaluating if a source is usable, and if there are any other factors that can have an influence for their choice of material. We have done a qualitative study with 23 students, where the students wrote down their answers in a questionnaire containing wide open questions. We have created our own tool for analysing the material by extracting the most general things in our chapter of earlier research, concerning the three questions which our study is based on. The result shows that the students trust literature and primary sources. Our students also make extensive use of the Internet, but they are sceptical of its trustworthiness. They trust sources of authority, and they make independent evaluations concerning the credibility by comparing sources with each other. The students use a great number of criteria when they are evaluating sources, which indicate that they examine their sources very thoroughly. We can also see a number of factors that can have an effect on the students when they are judging a source’s relevance. The result also shows that our students are really good at evaluating sources, and that training in critical thinking improves the students’ source critical consciousness. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this Master’s Thesis is to examine and describe how a wiki can be used in the information seeking education. We believe that the preconditions for education and learning are changing; technology and Internet has introduced new tools for the learning situation. To examine this we will describe how the wiki technology can be used in the information seeking education, describe how the goals of the information seeking education are reached when using a wiki and lastly investigate the school librarian’s pedagogical role in wiki-based education. In our research we have used qualitative interviews, observations and study of the artifact. We have interviewed the school librarian and her seventh grade students, observed the learning situation in the class room and studied their use of their wiki. We learned that the wiki was used as a platform in the education and that the school librarian found it easy to implement and use. The students found it easy and fun to use most of the time. We found that the school librarian’s role were twofold; tutor and intermediary. When using the wiki the learning situation is changed, there are new roles and the teaching moves away from the teacher’s desk. We also came to the conclusion that the wiki was not used to its full potential in terms of collaboration.

The aim of this Master&apos;s thesis is to investigate the library needs of distance students. This user study has a student perspective and concentrates on the main question of which way library needs might be expressed by distance students. Associated topics addressed by this study include; the problem of learning centres lacking their own library support, how distance students look upon library support as a concept and whether distance students prefer public libraries or university libraries, and why they make this choice. These questions may give the answer to how distance students deal with information literacy. Theories chosen by the study are in the fields of pedagogical and library science, the social cultural theory by Roger Säljö and in Tom Wilson&apos;s theories on user studies and information needs. The method chosen is a qualitative study where eight distance students have been individually interviewed. The results show a number of findings; that distance students prefer public libraries to university facilities, that knowledge levels on information literacy are low and that there is little education currently in information literacy and library support. The conclusion is to provide better and clearer library support at the start of a distance programme in order for students to practice these skills as soon as possible. / Uppsatsnivå: D