This page contains information about resources available for use in Information Literacy training. Please add your own resources, reviews and recommendations to share.
SMILE is an online Information Literacy training package which was created as part of the JISC RePRODUCE programme project managed by Katy Wrathall, in a collaborative project between University of Worcester, Loughborough University and Imperial College London. It has been expanded by Glasgow Caledonian University and now includes units covering Learning styles, Understanding the Question, Information Management, Gathering Information, Finding Information (including database searching), Evaluating Information, Managing Information, Plagiarism, Harvard and Numerical referencing, Communicating Information, and Your Digital footprint. SMILE can also be used as a stand-alone package or as part of a blended learning approach. It can be downloaded for reuse and repurposing HERE.
Cardiff University developed a Handbook for Information Literacy Teaching in 2005. It is regularly updated and is available for download from HERE.
Sarah Oxford (Academic Liaison Librarian for Education at University of Worcester) has created a set of resources including lesson plans, scenario work, directed study tasks and presentation which she has agreed can be repurposed and reused with the proviso that any sources are correctly credited (e.g. Sarah herself, Cardiff ILRB and University of Southampton). Sarah has provided an overview of the sessions as follows.
"USE and STRUCTURE
These materials are used with face-to-face teaching and are backed up by two Pebblepad sites, created by Sarah with thanks to various sources referenced on each
site, which are available at http://tinyurl.com/2cdgpus, and http://tinyurl.com/24a3qc4.
The structure of the teaching programme for these first-year (level 4) Primary Initial Teacher Education (PITE) students is:
Week 4 (Induction week): one hour session introducing students to the websites available to them: specifically http://ednetwork.mixxt.com and www.netvibes.com/ednetwork.
Also provide information on how to access a specific journal article which tutors need them to find and read, in order to participate in a seminar later that week. She also give them the directed study task (scenarios) for week 5, and asks them to complete a survey audit so that Sarah knows a bit more about their background and the areas where they need more support (referencing, plagiarism, searching for and using information). She uses Surveymonkey for this.
Week 5: two hour session on referencing and plagiarism. Includes the citing and referencing activity, and practical activity where they are given actual sources and a Harvard guide so that they can create the references from scratch. Discussion and feedback on week 4's directed study (scenarios). Further directed study tasks given at the end of the session (as attached).
Week 6: two hour session on defining a topic, keyword selection, identification of resources and evaluation. Examples of activities are in the powerpoint. Directed study is reading (attached).
Week 7: Two hour session based in PC lab. Not much talking from her - students get an activity sheet which takes them through recommendedresources (including e-books, journal databases). Focus is on them to find their own way; Sarah gives them a quick demo where needed. She usually find that peer learning takes place and is really valuable. She offers individual support where needed. No PowerPoint."
The materials are available for download from this folder . Sarah reused some materials from the Cardiff Information Literacy Resource Bank and University of Southampton.
Dr Emma Coonan has created a website called Research Central which she says is "the home of resources from Cambridge University Library’s research skills training programme. All resources are freely available for sharing and reuse."