Integrating information and digital literacy into the curriculum: from theory to practice

Wednesday 15th May (1.00 - 3.30)

Dr Jane Secker is Copyright and Digital Literacy Advisor at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where she runs a programme of digital literacy workshops for staff and PhD students. She also teaches on the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education at LSE. In 2011 she undertook research at the University of Cambridge to develop ANCIL (A New Curriculum for Information Literacy) with Dr Emma Coonan. This offers a framework for embedding information literacy into undergraduate teaching. Jane is the Editor of the Journal of Information Literacy and has written several books on information literacy including editing (with Emma Coonan) Rethinking Information Literacy: a practical framework for supporting learning published by Facet in 2012 and the Information Literacy Cookbook (with Debbi Boden and Gwyneth Price), published by Chandos in 2007.

Session Outline

A New Curriculum for Information Literacy (ANCIL) takes a broad definition of information literacy (IL) that sees it as skills, attitudes and behaviour that underpin lifelong learning. IL is more than just knowing how to find, manage and use information, it includes communicating and presenting information, how to use information ethically and how to create new knowledge. Information and digital literacy is key to learning, but also the workplace and our daily life. However it needs to be taught in context and by a range of staff in the institution, rather than simple seen as a 'library skill'.

The workshop will provide some background to the development of ANCIL including an overview of how it has been used at LSE to review provision for undergraduate students. There will then be an opportunity to explore how the ANCIL ten strands of digital and information literacy skills are currently developed in your own courses. Good practice from colleagues at the University of Derby and elsewhere will be shared during the workshop. Staff will then have time to review where there might be any opportunities to integrate IL into their own courses and spend time developing some suitable activities and assessments to meet the learning outcomes of the course.