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After induction - what? Exploring Fluency
in Information and Technology (eFIT) in
IHCS Carol Bond and Jonathan Hutchins May 2006
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Contexts A. Strategic PAD (was PED) Personal
and Academic Development Unit Level C, 10
credits a common learning unit designed to
develop key information literacy skills. It is
delivered throughout each programme in
uni-professional groups Janet Scammell, Head of
Learning and Teaching, IHCS (Scammell, 2005) B.
Operational IT library teaching
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PAD Generic student learning outcomes Having
completed the unit, the student will be able
to 1. Identify and discuss their own learning
needs and plan learning strategies to meet these
needs 2. Access and retrieve relevant data from a
variety of sources to accomplish different
tasks 3. Demonstrate appreciation and use of
multiple sources of evidence that underpin
learning in the workplace 4. Apply effective
written and oral communication skills to a range
of tasks 5. Review and reflect on own learning in
academic and practice settings 6. Demonstrate
their readiness to undertake practice learning in
a service delivery setting Resources need to
plan Need access to a robust and integrated VLE
Need expertise in use Need staff to input
student groups Need the willingness of staff to
work across boundaries in the interest of
developing better school-wide resources
(Scammell, 2005)
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IT 1 x FT Senior Lecturer in Health
Informatics 3 x FT Demonstrators Library 1 x
FT Subject Librarian 1 x FT Subject Support
Librarian Study skills 1 x FT Study Support
Tutor Academic staff 29 x PAD Tutors
The Teams as at Sep 2005
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The Challenge as at Sep 2005
c.700 new undergraduates
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BeforeIssues

• IT/library skills group teaching for 1st years
• timetabled and strongly advised but not
  mandatory
• 2 x 2 hour sessions on a group basis
• no liaison between IT, library, study skills

1 Student/staff frustration with IT/library
sessions (..too fast/too slow too difficult/too
boring) i.e. teaching a group with mixed ability
levels 2 Students disengaging from IT/library
learning (managing without. relying on expert
friends) i.e. teaching a group with mixed
motivation levels 3 ?gaps/overlaps in content
between IT/library/study skills 4 Severe
workload on 2 FT library staff
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Issue 1

• Student/staff frustration with IT/library
  sessions
• (..too fast/too slow too difficult/too boring)
• i.e. the problem of mixed ability classes
• Not logistically possible to stream students
• Students cannot reliably self-assess IT abilities

• Students are first invited to assess their
  abilities in different areas of IT/library skills
  on one of 3 levels
• They are then required to follow through on this
  by working through an element of learning on
  either a
• taught,
• facilitated, or
• self-managed basis

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Comments on Issue 1

• Blackboard-based
• Initial compulsory IT session where students
  receive IT login letters, and email accounts and
  Blackboard access are checked and confirmed
• Booking system (NB students opting to do steps
  on self-managed basis also must book this)
• Self-managed very popular (but is this masking
  those who have opted for this but then done
  nothing about it?)
• Facilitated the least popular option
• Taught sessions have indeed attracted students of
  a similar, not mixed, ability

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Issue 2
Students disengaging from IT/library
learning (managing without. relying on expert
friends) i.e. teaching a group with mixed
motivation levels IT/library skills may be
perceived as only means to an educational end
i.e. the diploma/degree

• Acquisition of IT/library skills forms part of an
  assessed 10-credit unit
• (PAD Professional and Academic Development)
• Most of the 12 steps include activities and
  outputs towards a portfolio of evidence
• Designated PAD tutors monitor and encourage
• Rather than being
• Stand-alone No academic credit
• the fact that IT and library skills are
• Integrated into a course Assessed
• should encourage engagement with the process

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Issue 3

• ?gaps/overlaps in content between
  IT/library/study skills
• No real liaison between three different teams
• Hence ignorance as to whether certain skills were
  covered by all (duplication) or none (gaps) or
  what
• Different approaches to same topic thus
  confusing?
• Whose responsibility?

Meetings held and draft documents exchanged
between library and informatics teams to ensure
comprehensiveness, consistency, timetabling etc.
of steps of eFIT PAD Coordination Group meets
termly to consider content, contribution,
delivery, assessment etc. Chaired by Head of
Learning and Teaching, it includes staff from all
academic groups, Health Informatics, Library and
Study Skills teams
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Issue 4

• Severe workload on 2 FT library staff
• Week from Hell with teaching 8 hours per day
  every day
• No spare staff capacity in event of e.g. illness

Change from Conveyor belt of 100 taught
sessions by group (max 22) to Mix of
self-managed, facilitated and taught (max 20
facilitated, max 10 taught) drastic reduction
in teaching workload Efficiency and
effectiveness of taught sessions undoubtedly
improved Freeing staff time for resource
discovery, appointments
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Overview of library-related steps

• eFIT 2.1 Using the Library
• Library website subject resources pages
• Reading list references
• Search strategies
• Library catalogue
• E-books
• eFIT 2.3 Finding journal articles
• Using the Library
• Databases
• E-Journals
• Finding journals in the library
• Inter Library Loan requests

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Points to ponder 1 Content

• Library owns 2 steps of 12-step programme.
  Enough?
• 2.1 much on referencing, little on e-books
• Athens the gap between 2.1 and 2.3
• 2.3 too much to fit in taught session
• Bournemouth and other campuses
• Referencing? Plagiarism?
• Little exploration of linkages between Steps -
  yet

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Points to ponder 2 Blackboard/IHCS4U

• All undergraduates in IHCS (except Health
  Science, Nutrition, Exercise Science) required to
  use Blackboard for IPE (Inter-Professional
  Education)
• All 1st year undergraduates using it for PAD
  (except Health Science, Nutrition, Exercise
  Science)
• JH and DP registered at Instructor level for IPE
  and PAD on basic Blackboard valuable
  experience!
• JH and DP registered at Administrator level for
  online booking
• Mixture of intranet VLE more problematic for
  us than for students to whom its probably more
  transparent!
• Move to Blackboard Academic Suite - ???
  implications

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Points to ponder 3 Timetabling

• Informatics Team did the timetabling
• Major risk in judging ( guessing!) what
  proportion of 700 students would opt for taught
  vs facilitated vs self-managed, and hence how
  many sessions to timetable in the IT labs
• Tricky - had to use scheduling software to
  resolve some of the variables
• Belief that sizeable majority of students would
  self-manage was justified taught sessions
  mostly low attendance, facilitated even less
• Most first term (week 2 onwards), some mop-up
  taught sessions also timetabled for spring term

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Points to ponder 4 Acceptability/Evaluation

• Not all undergraduate courses in IHCS opted to
  take the PAD unit (e.g. Health Science,
  Nutrition, Exercise Science)
• For those that didnt, elements of PAD were
  available on a non-assessed basis
• Academic staff were made well aware that for
  logistical reasons, there could be no other
  source of IT and library skills training for
  their freshers than eFIT
• Evaluation - being undertaken in summer term
  prior to revision for 2006/07. Informal comments
  suggest it has worked well. Informatics and
  Library staff keen to continue and refine.
  Academic staff and students - ?

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Points to ponder 5 Partnerships

• Portsmouth branch campus
• BU staff responsible - Informatics and Library
  staff visited to conduct taught sessions
• University Centre Yeovil
• IT Informatics staff visited to conduct taught
  sessions
• Library UCY Librarian responsible -
  Negotiations on content and delivery to try and
  ensure parity

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Points to ponder 6 Working with colleagues

• Focus on improving 1st-year student experience of
  learning to use IT and Library effectively
• Commitment of all parties to make it work
• Such focus and commitment ensured that any
  possible obstacles or barriers to
  cooperation/collaboration were successfully
  overcome

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Next steps

• Formal evaluation
• Content revision (Excel Athens E-books)
• Closer liaison with PAD tutors
• Blackboard opportunities
• Tighter links to assignments?
• Information literacy broaden concept, heighten
  importance
• Interest from other Schools generalisable?

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References

• BOND, C.S., and HUTCHINS, J.V.P., 2005. eFIT
  Exploring Fluency in Information and Technology
  online. Poole Bournemouth University.
  Available from
• http//asweb.bournemouth.ac.uk/employability/docum
  ents/BondHutchins.pdf
• BOND, C.S., FEVYER, D., HUTCHINS, J.V.P., PITT,
  C., PRIDDEY, D., 2006. After induction, what?
  Exploring Fluency in Information and Technology
  the eFIT programme at Bournemouth University.
  Journal of Information Literacy, in press.
• SCAMMELL, J., 2005. Personal and Academic
  Development an information literacy unit
  online. Poole Bournemouth University.
  Available from
• http//asweb.bournemouth.ac.uk/employability/docum
  ents/Scammell.pdf