Open Education video winners

Creative Commons together with the U.S. Department of Education, and the Open Society Foundation had a competition to create short videos about open education, and these are worth a look (I liked the 3rd prize winner best). My only quibble would be that some of them seem to equate open education with Open Educational Resources (whereas I think there is more to education than providing resources!) http://whyopenedmatters.org/videos/
Photo by Sheila Webber:leaf on a chair, Turku, 2008

Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet: PhD thesis

A French-language thesis on schoolchildren's concept of internet searching has just been put online.
Cordier, A. (2011) Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet : Le cas d'élèves de 6ème et de professeurs documentalistes. UNIVERSITÉ CHARLES DE GAULLE – LILLE III. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00737637
I did not really spend enough time with it (considering my moderate French language skills) to give a good account of what it is about, but I think it is an investigation into 11-12 year old French schoolchildren's experiences of searching the internet, contrasting this experience with what the school librarians have as their goal for information literacy teaching. The latter are urged to pay more attention to the pupil's practice with information and technology.
This is the French abstract "L'objectif de ce travail est d'apporter une meilleure connaissance des imaginaires, représentations et pratiques non formelles développées par les élèves de 6ème sur la recherche d'information sur Internet, et d'effectuer un parallèle et une confrontation avec les pratiques de formation mises en oeuvre par les professeurs documentalistes. Pour ce faire, une étude qualitative, combinant entretiens semi-directifs et observation distanciée, a été menée au sein de trois établissements scolaires français. L'adoption d‟une éco-posture pour analyser la recherche d‟information sur Internet permet de considérer les pratiques de recherche et de formation de manière située, en tenant compte des contraintes opérées par les espaces d'action identifiés. Le sentiment d'expertise personnellement ressenti en matière de recherche sur Internet joue pour les deux types d'acteurs un rôle fondamental à la fois dans l'appropriation de l'outil et dans l'appréhension des séances de formation. L'étude révèle un écart important entre les pratiques de recherche ordinaires des élèves et les pratiques prescrites par les professionnels."
Photo by Sheila Webber: yet more anemones, October 2012

New articles in Reference Services Review

The latest issue of (priced publication) Reference Services Review is online: volume 40 issue 4 2012. As with all issue 4s of this journal, it includes the useful annual annotated bibliography of articles on information literacy (522 identified this year).
- Library Instruction and Information Literacy 2011 by Anna Marie Johnson, Claudene Sproles, Robert Detmering, and Jessica L English.
Other articles include
- Development of the Graduate Library User Education Series by Lori Critz, Mary Axford, William Matthew Baer, Chris Doty, Heidi Lowe, and Crystal Renfro
- Working Together: Library and Writing Center Collaboration by Elise Ferer
- Information Seeking Behaviors of Music Students by Kirstin Dougan
Journal home page at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0090-7324
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hawthorne branch, late sunshine, Hellingly September 2012

Presentations: Supporting Diverse Student populations

Presentations from the ALISS conference on Supporting Diverse Student populations (held in August 2012) are available. They include:
- Ethnicity and Study Skills: active intervention in the library setting (Suzanne White and Lisa Lawrence, Subject Librarians Coventry University.)
- Using Elluminate to deliver library training to distance/ part time learners (Helen Clough Learning and Teaching Librarian, The Open Univeristy.)
- Library support for International students (Helen Ireland , University of Warwick.)
- Online learning: Can a generic tutorial meet the disparate needs of researchers? (Jenny Coombs- University of Nottingham)
Go to http://www.alissnet.org.uk/Display.aspx?id=10737418259
Photo by Sheila Webber: seed head, Jonkoping, August 2012

Information Literacy and Open Educational Resources: new report, and presentation

The report Librarians, Information Literacy and Open Educational Resources: report of a survey has just been published http://delilaopen.wordpress.com/il-oer-survey/. This is part of a project led by Nancy Graham (University of Birmingham) and Dr Jane Secker (London School of Economics). There is also a mailing list for those interested in IL OERs: IL-OERS@jiscmail.ac.uk and they have set up a wiki at http://iloer.pbworks.com/. They have been seeking other people to contribute to this initiative. It is supported by UNESCO and they have given presentation at various meetings. The latest was on 14th August 2012

Building a Community of Practice for sharing information literacy resources openly from Jane Secker