Presented at LILAC 2009

1. My Students and Other Animals
Matthew Borg, Erica Stretton
m.borg@shu.ac.uk
e.stretton@shu.ac.uk

2. Students 'must first understand and appreciate
the importance of information literacy…before
they will incorporate information literacy skills
into their academic mindset'
Brown et al, 2000,
p387

3. "…they don’t actually index all
of those pages, so you can’t
find them on Google. Estimates
on the true size of the Google
index are a mere 40 billion
pages or so." Arrington, 2008
The
Web
Google

4. Past Experience
• Students full of
'techno-savvy
overconfidence'
• Information Literacy in
this programme had
traditionally been a
'one-shot' workshop

5. • 900 First Year
undergraduate
Business and
Management
students
• 45 seminar sessions
• 4 librarians
• 1 week
A new information
literacy initiative
needed
A new situation…

6. 'Student boredom is a pedagogical obstacle to true learning'
Smith, 2007, p276
Lectures are 'passive learning experiences’
Houlson, 2007, p90
Considerations…
'It is patently clear that people vary not just in their learning
skills but in their learning styles.'
Honey & Mumford, 1992, p1

7. How do YOU find
information?
• Discuss a recent
information search of
your own with your
neighbour
• Decide which type of
information seeker
most suits you, using
the handout

8. Which animal were you?
Or were you a mix of characteristics?

9. Business
Information
• How many types and
sources of business
information can you think of?
• What have you used in the
past?

10. 'Using active or co-operative learning
techniques does not mean you must leave out
lectures entirely. Short lectures…followed by
active or cooperative exercises...'
Keyser, 2000, p38

11. Building awareness…
• What types of information are there?
• Where can I get them, if not from Google?
• What's the difference between the
Learning Centre catalogue and LitSearch?
• What the heck is a peer-reviewed journal?
• Where do I find a thesis?

12. "Have customers been persuaded that e-
banking systems are secure?"
"Have customers been persuaded that e-
banking systems are secure?"
•use key words not sentences
•what are the key concepts?
•think of alternative words
•use truncation and wildcards
An assignment

13. Reinforcement
• Not a 'perfect' working
demonstration - shows
limitations of key terms/
implications of narrow searches
• Demonstration followed by
active exercise to reinforce
principles of searching
• Meets needs of differing
learning styles by using two
methods to push points

16. Critical Analysis: Mini-Lecture /
Demonstration/ Discussion
• Who was it written for?
• Who is the author?
• When was it
written/published?
• Are there any biases?
• What evidence do they
give?
?

17. The Web
Google
Assignment Question
Key Concepts
Search
Use
Evaluate
Reference
Today

18. Feedback
•98.1% of students who attended felt the session
would be useful for their studies
•98.6% now felt they knew where to look for
business information
•94.9% would recommend the session to other
students
'There are three kinds of lies: lies,
damned lies, and statistics.'
Disraeli, 1924

19. On the Horizon
• Two new exercises -
Keyword composition and
Critical Analysis
• To include computer-based
exercises or not, situation
permitting?