Developing Research Excellence and Methods

Invited to speak at the Scottish Government (SG) CRAIK event last week by the SG Library services. The key aim of the event was for SG staff to

start conversations, especially round the topic of knowledge and how [they] use, manage and maintain it in tough times.

They were interested in

seeing anybody ... who [had] something interesting to say. Leaders, thinkers, people who love helping to solve problems, people looking for answers

to come along to the event for at least part of the time.

CRAIK pronounce kreik is an acronym for: Creating: Reusing, Acquiring and Innovating in Knowledge.

Our sessions was about Improving information skills in the workplace  based upon an overview of our research work with an emphasis on our study of the Scottish Government workforce.  Although numbers attending our session was low the discussion regarding using people as information sources was interesting. We also highlighted how the SG Library had taken our findings on board with the aim of improving their own information literacy as an organisation contributing to their Business Strategy aims of improving their

skills, systems, team-working, communications and facilities to make tasks easier and quicker [and] ensuring that across the piece - the Scottish Government is an efficient, effective and networked organisation.

The library had two workshops on offer at the event. I attended the morning workshop Discovering information using Scottish Government library service.  This was a hands on workshop where participants were invited to bring along a specific research topic and undertake a systematic search after being shown the advantages of using an 'advance internet searching' tool. A tool that none of the workshop participants had used before. A finding reflected in our research and the reason the workshop had been created and run. The participants were suitably impressed by the results and with the services the library offered.

Other sessions were:

• Engaging citizens with social media
• What is knowledge and how do we manage it?
• How do we like social media?
• Collaboration and information security - striking the balance
• Creating the new: using design thinking to create a better Scotland
• Can you be a civil servant on FaceBook? Social media and the workplace (this was a parallel session to our own)
• Analytical Services: How evidence can help us achieve our desired outcomes?
• Creating knowledge with SG Library services - through exploration, current awareness & collaboration
• Effective Emails Process
• Social Media Game - SG LIbrary (Lesley Thomson and Jenny Foreman have adapted a social media game. It's a great activity, certainly opens players eyes to aspects of information literacy policy and activity decision making process and makes them think on a strategic / holistic basis. )

The event was obviously seen as important with the welcome to the event on the Monday given by Sir Peter Housden, Permanent Secretary. The keynote 'Business is a conversation' was by David Gurteen. On the Tuesday Edinburgh University Moray House School of Education launched their K-Net collaborative knowledge network.

Thanks must go to the organisers for organising this event, from what I have heard it seems to have been successful. There are a few tweets at #CRAIK

I'm only sorry I wasn't able to attend more of the event / sessions.
 

Last Thursday I went off to Aberdeen to the Grampian Information Annual Conference - a half day event titled 'Information: Skills for Learning, Work and Life'. 

Information Literacy is my research area of interest and expertise and it is important to network / attend events like this to meet other researchers and practitioners interested / working in the field. It's also a great way to hear about techniques which you may be able to replicate yourself.

The key note speaker was Cathie Jackson (Cardiff University) - Creating a structure without walls: the Welsh Information Literacy Framework. It was great to catch up with Cathie and to hear the progress Wales have made. Also to see how the work of the Scottish Information Literacy Framework (John Crawford, myself and our project partners) has shaped / influenced the Welsh framework. Like us they have gathered case studies and linked the framework to qualifications levels. It was great to hear of CQFW's ( Credit and Qualifications Framework for Wales) enthusiasm and the units they have created at entry level 1, entry level 2, entry level 3, level 1, level 2, level 3 and level 4. I hope SQA takes note and doesn't ditch the Information Handling Skills & Information Literacy National Qualification we have at level 5. Also of note is that they have 'An Information Literacy Statement for Wales'.

The next speaker from the University of Alberta, Anne Carr-Wiggin spoke about 'Learning Skills for Research: Information Literacy Skills of Incoming University Students'. Her findings showed no surprises as it correlated with my own findings Irving (2006). However of interests was one of the research techniques used to gain a better understanding of everyday student life that of photo journals.

"In the photo journal activity, students were given a digital camera and a list of photographs to take, including views of work spaces, communication and computing devices, books, and favorite work/study locations. These photographs were then used as prompts in an interview that addressed the processes and tools students used to complete their assignments." ERIAL Project: Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries

Jeanette Yuile from Shell UK, Aberdeen treated us to a visual display of marketing yourself and your service in her presentation - Information Management (IM): Adding Value to the Business in Europe and Beyond. Her service does provide training business to use the right tool and knowledge where and how to find data but we didn't have time to gain detailed information from her. However some of the key messages I took away from her presentation was 'find the right imagery', 'being engaged', 'making associations', 'marketing - keep short and sweet', 'importance of cultural awareness and how your information will be received.'  Food for thought.

The parallel session to Jeanette's was Sue Cromar, Aberdeenshire Libraries and Helen Adair, Aberdeen Library and Information Services 'Information Literacy - a practical toolkit for the future'. I have worked with Sue before on Information Literacy Projects but hadn't met Helen before. Following a brief conversation with Helen I wished I could have been in two places at once but will certainly be in touch to find out more about the information literacy work she has been involved in as not much is heard of the information literacy work carried out in public libraries and community libraries.

The event was a great success and provided useful information plus new contacts for the forthcoming book I am writing with Dr John Crawford based upon our research 'Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning: The workplace, health and public libraries'

Well, that was fun! We've now archived all the materials from the first DREaM workshop in Edinburgh and analysed the feedback. Read all about it on the LIS Research Coalition web site:

http://lisresearch.org/2011/11/09/dream-event-2-review-resources-and-thanks/

http://lisresearch.org/2011/11/02/dream-event-2-materials-now-all-online/

Allan Parsons has started a discussion in the forum space here in the online community. If you're interested in investigating the student experience in academic libraries (or user experiences in general) do take a look and contribute.

Meanwhile we'll get on with organising #lis_dream3!