Catapulted by Covid-19 : hitting new information literacy targets at the University of Edinburgh

Abstract

The University of Edinburgh is a large and complex organisation where the teaching of academic, digital and information literacy skills is undertaken by several stakeholders including academic units, the Institute for Academic Development, the Student Induction Team, Digital Skills Team and the Library. COVID-19 created a key change in strategic priorities and a new opportunity to develop co-ordinated support for student transition into a hybrid learning environment. As part of a new suite of short online transition courses, we developed a new online information literacy course, LibSmart, at speed between May and September 2020. This aims to ensure that every student is digitally capable in using online library resources for their study and research and was written for SCQF level 8. Our choice of learning technologies, including a reflective journal and discussion boards, supported our approach to student engagement, using the principles outlined by Howson (2014). Our choice of content was based on the development of an Information Literacy Framework, which aligned to the Digital Skills Framework used by the University, and was refined by using a ‘Library’ lens which focused on our key library systems. The course is designed to be used by any student, regardless of discipline, in order to ensure equity of access, but to overcome the lack of appeal that generic skills courses can have for students we designed in options for exploring a student’s own subject pathway. Course evaluation is exploring how far the reach of LibSmart extended and what the impact on the student experience was. COVID-19 created a new imperative for our students to engage with online library resources and for our academic staff to support skills development for that engagement. We’ve been able to building on this to propose a second higher level information literacy course, which has been welcomed in the context of wider curriculum reform within the University. This modular and interdisciplinary course will allow students to select from a portfolio of courses including health, legal, data and Special Collections literacies, and to complete an assessed reflective blog which will integrate their learning. This presentation will cover how we planned and built the online course, lessons learned along the way, and evaluation of usage over semester one. We’ll also share what the impact has been on our synchronous information literacy teaching. The paper will also be of interest to those reflecting on the pivot to online learning post COVID in a large HE institution, and on strategies for levering academic engagement with academic skills courses.