Who are you indexing for? The information literate of the twenty-first century

Nicoline Wessels

Plethora of literacies (functional, information, computer, digital, visual, e-literacy etc.) - Educational challenges

Add literacy to everything (mathematical, economic, emotional)

Term ‘literacy’ – quicksand of meanings and philosophical discussions ◦ Meta (behind, after, beyond, higher order)◦ Trans (across, beyond, transcending)

War of Semantics

Constantly changing

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Literacy

Certainties are:• Constant change • Data and information abundance• Globalisation (nationalisation)

Many academics and authoritative organisations worldwide indicated the changing twenty-first century skills expectations of people in learning, the work place as well as in their personal lives (Breivik 2005; Dede 2009; Horton 2008:i; IFLA; NRC; UNESCO).

Twenty-first century

Twenty-first century skills include: • deep cognitive learning• critical thinking• problem solving • knowledge creation and application • Information literacy/ICT fluency• creativity• innovation • working in networks and teams • problem-solving • risk-taking • coping with change

Twenty-first century skills

Twenty first century skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) -specifically formed to consider these expectations and provide a framework.

Existing organisations:◦ Metiri/NCREL◦ OECD◦ American Association of College and Universities (AACU) ◦ International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) ◦ CHE (in South Africa)

Information literacy appears consistently as an important twenty-first century competency.

Information literacy inclusion

“to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information” (ALA 1989).

Adaptations (social aspects, technology) Information literacy - umbrella term for

media literacy, computer literacy, digital literacy, Internet literacy, ICT literacy…. (à la David Bawden)

Information literacy

One of the driving forces behind all these changes in skills expectations is not technology per se, but specifically sophisticated ICTs.

Information literacy is one of the tools to make sense of information overload and to use ICTs effectively.

Being able to post on fb or tweet on twitter “does not an information literate make”.

Technology savvy versus….

There seems to be a general understanding internationally that the ability to use technologies is not enough, nor is the easy access to and availability of information.

In order to be prepared for the twenty-first century, one must be information literate and have the ability to think critically about information

… versus information literacy

Less instruction in how to locate information Self-reliant and confident about information

needs - to think critical about it. Decode the packaging of information in any

format from traditional text to electronic packaging where data is delivered as a screen image.

Problem is: need the basics to work from (library skills, bibliographic skills, finding skills e.g. using a dictionary or a book index)

Is this where we lack behind?

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South African reality

There is no context to link information literacy to

52 million people 1/3 under 4 years of age Unemployment rate 25,5% Low literacy levels (PIRLS 2006+2011 reports) 7% functional school libraries Less than 12% of population have some form of access

to Internet. Research shows that workforce does not read well

enough for technological society General believe that “using” a computer can leapfrog

all these problems (or worse, dumping tablets in schools without intervention and mediation will change the face of education)

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Some information and statistics

Teacher quality - 30 000 unqualified teachers Less than 25% use libraries Teachers are not taught information literacy skills during

pre-service training Principals and teachers: no or very low information literacy

levels There is no context to link information literacy to (no library

etc) Many teachers are not (even traditionally) information

literate Information literacy is not taught effectively in most South

African Schools Question is: what about university educators?

Teachers (and beyond)

My reality

Ethical use of information Reference techniques Verbatim copying Plagiarism Copyright

No reading culture Google generation Do not care about DDC or keywords; much less

about taxonomies and controlled vocabulary Table of Contents Index (economic index yes) Third year information students – lack basic

reference techniques The same never visited or use a library Question the relevance of cataloguing and

classification

Your reality

Matthew effects(accumulated advantage) Dunning-Kruger effect (mistakenly assessing

one’s ability to be much higher than is accurate)

Also the librarian’s (indexer’s) challenge!

Challenges to Information Literacy

In Conclusion