Scottish Information Literacy Community of Practice

1. Information skills for a 21st Century Scotland
The Scottish Information
Literacy Network and
Community of Practice
SLIC/JISC/Scotland’s CoP
FE Libraries
29th November 2012
Christine Irving
He’s back! Freelance Information Professional

2. Information skills for a 21st
Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
Launched 11th June 2012
@ CILIPS Annual Conference
in Dundee
New online information
literacy community of
practice: Information Skills for
a 21st century Scotland.
More than a website …
Hosted by Scottish Library and
Information Council (SLIC)

3. Information skills for a 21st Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
• Scottish Information Literacy Project and the funding concluded end March 2010
• Important not to loose all the valuable work the Scottish Information Literacy
Project and it’s partners did, achieved and to continue the work …
• Information literacy is important …
– It is the cornerstone of learning and absolutely essential in this digital age.
– It supports learning and decision making in all areas of human activity:
education from early years through school to higher education, the workplace,
adult and lifelong learning and skills development.
– It helps people make informed choices about health care and gives people the
information they need to cope with long term medical conditions.
– It helps people to develop new skills and make them more employable.
– Perhaps most important of all, in a period of political change, it gives citizens
the information they need to make informed decisions about the future of
their country.

4. Information skills for a 21st Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
What’s there?
• Scottish Information Literacy Framework - a national overarching
framework of information literacy skills and competencies which all
sectors of education can recognize and develop or which can be applied to
the world of work, equipping learners with skills needed for the 21st
century.
• Valuable archive of material built up over several years:
– information about the Scottish Information Literacy Project
– project blog.

5. Information skills for a 21st Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
What’s there?
• Community of Practice open to everyone who is interested in information
literacy (IL) and associated skills and competencies. The aim is to connect
up practitioners in a range of sectors who are all working towards the
common goal of creating an information literate Scotland.
• What is information literacy?: definitions, frameworks, information
literacy and lifelong learning, information literacy and education
– Literacies that are associated with or are required to be used in
conjunction with information literacy e.g. critical literacy, digital
literacy, media literacy – definitions given
• Blog roll:
– Library and Information Literacy Websites
– Education, Learning and Development

6. Information skills for a 21st
Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
Work is on going – some
changes will be:
• Banner improved to show
all age groups involved in
information literacy
• RSS feed to be added
• Events listing to be
included
• Promote the use of
creating resources under
Creative Commons Licence.
More to come / be added but
we need your help,
engagement and participation

7. Information skills for a 21st
Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
How you can get involved?
Scottish Information Literacy
Framework
We need your help, we are
looking for individuals and groups
across the LIS sectors/community
to:
• continue to develop the
current version
• updating it to incorporate new
research, adding case studies,
and so on …
• use and promote the
framework.

9. Information skills for a 21st
Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
How you can get involved:
Community of Practice
Share your expertise, ask
questions and get involved!
Join the Community of Practice:
• Become a member - sign up
• Share practice,
• Contribute to the
communities’ knowledge of IL
activities, case studies, news,
conferences and events, new
research etc.

10. Information skills for a 21st century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
Communities of practice have become a common term but:
– What is a 'community of practice' (CoP)
– How can we participate and engage in them
– How can we use them as an approach to knowing and learning?
Communities of Practice are
“groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn
how to do it better as they interact regularly”. Etienne Wenger, 2006

11. Information skills for a 21st Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
Wenger identifies that there are three characteristic which are crucial to a community
of practice:
• The domain. 'A community of practice is not merely a club of friends or a network
of connections between people. It has an identity defined by a shared domain of
interest. Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain
membership.‘
• The community. 'In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in
joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build
relationships that enable them to learn from each other. A website in itself is not a
community of practice.'
• The practice. 'A community of practice is not merely a community of interest.
Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared
repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring
problems - in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.'

12. Information skills for a 21st
Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
How you can get involved:
Use the discussion board to:
• solve problems, request
information, seek and share
experience
• reuse assets
• discuss developments
• map knowledge and identify
gaps
• document projects
• announce events or report
back from them
• coordination and synergy of
activities, strategies,
developments etc.

13. Information skills for a 21st
Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
Community of Practice: first meeting of
interested parties – cross sector
The main areas of interest:
• Developing core IL skills in FE;
• Assessing the impact of IL training;
• Advocacy for IL;
• Instructing teachers in IL,
• IL as an employability skill;
• IL toolkits for young people;
• Teaching IL skills in public libraries;
• Links between schools and public
libraries,
• Use of electronic IL resources in
public libraries;
• Online training packages in HE (short
demo of SMILE);
• Workplace IL skills social media;
training materials for teachers.
• NLS the Toolkit being developed -
looking for partners to work with in
the different sectors on the toolkit.
• Identify training and CPD needs

14. Information skills for a 21st Century Scotland
www.therightinformation.org/
Come and join us and contribute to what will be a vibrant
community working towards the common goal of creating an
information literate Scotland.
Thank you
"To prosper in the Digital Age, people must become masters of information."
Dr. Carolyn M. Stern for the NFIL/NCLIS/UNESCO 2003 Prague meeting of information
literacy experts - Information Literacy "Unplugged": Teaching Information Literacy
Without Technology.(p.3)