Tom Roper's Weblog

Information behaviour of the researcher of the future

The report I referred to yesterday, and which was the subject of a Guardian article, Intellectual literacy hour,  is now out, though not on the British Library website, as I was told, but on JISC's:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/gg_final_keynote_11012008.pdf

PS It has now (4.55 pm) found its way onto the British Library website too: http://www.bl.uk/news/2008/pressrelease20080116.html

Intellectual literacy

Today's Guardian, in the Higher Education section, carries a tantalising article headed Intellectual literacy hour, which discusses a report, not yet published, on the 'Google generation's' information-seeking behaviour, but without bothering to give a citation.
A little detective work suggests that they mean the Google generation project. As well as that uninformative JISC page, there's a project page at http://www.publishing.ucl.ac.uk/behaviour.html. Expect more tomorrow, which according to the Guardian is the publication date for the project report.

There's also an account of a presentation Ian Rowlands gave last month  on the project at Online on Dawn Holland's blog.

Update: Ian kindly let me know that the report will be published tomorrow on the British Library's website. I'll post the precise URL when I know it. Ferreting around, I also found out that he's doing some work on citeulike.

Information literacy website launched

A series of partners, including Eduserv, CILIP AND SCONUL have launched an information literacy website. It will offer news, case studies, examples of best practice and freely available toolkits.

2006 Horizon Report

The 2006 Horizon Report, jointly produced by the Educause Learning Initiative  and the New Media Consortium, is out and available as a PDF.
It identifies four trends, five challenges and six technologies to watch

Four trends

1. Dynamic knowledge creation and social computing tools and processes are becoming more widespread and accepted
2. Mobile and personal technology is increasingly being viewed as a delivery platform for services of all kinds
3. Consumers are increasingly expecting individualized services, tools, and experiences, and open access to media, knowledge, information, and learning.
4. Collaboration is increasingly seen as critical across the range of educational activities, including intra- and inter-institutional activities of any size or scope

Five challenges:

1. Peer review and other academic processes, such as promotion and tenure reviews increasingly do not reflect the ways scholarship actually is conducted.
2. Information literacy should not be considered a given, even among “net-gen” students.
3. Intellectual property concerns and the management of digital rights and assets continue to loom as largely unaddressed issues.
4. The typical approach of experimentally deploying new technologies on campuses does not include processes to quickly scale them up to broad usage when they work, and often creates its own obstacles to full deployment.
5. The phenomenon of technological “churn” is bringing new kinds of support challenges.

 Six technologies to watch

1. Social Computing.
2. Personal Broadcasting.
3. The Phones in Their Pockets.
4. Educational Gaming.
5. Augmented Reality and Enhanced Visual­ization
6. Context-Aware Environments and Devices

International Information Literacy Resources Directory

IFLA have developed an International Information Literacy Resources Directory: anyone can contribute resources. I don't see many British resources there yet, but it will doubtless grow.

ECDL in medical schools

Interesting discussion on the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) and its applicability to undergraduate medical education on the LTSN-01 list