Scottish Government Library Information Literacy newsfeeds

Job opportunity: Learning Development Librarian, University of Surrey - fixed term

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:08:13 +0100

*Apologies for cross-posting*

Dear colleagues,

The University of Surrey is looking for a Learning Development Librarian to join the Academic Skills and Development team within Library and Learning Support Services.

This is an exciting opportunity with a learning and teaching focus primarily supporting Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences (FHMS) students' success, progression and attainment through the design and delivery of learning development opportunities for students as well as contributing to central Academic Skills and Development activities including appointments, workshops and 'learning café'-style events . [...]

Inside the Scottish Twitter exhibition: 'Zip it, ya muppet!'

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:44:25 +0100

An exhibition in Edinburgh pays tribute to the vibrancy of Scotland's social media scene.

Vacancies at UHCW

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:37:24 +0100

Full message available at: Vacancies at UHCW

Nicola Sturgeon urges online trolls to 'take a long hard look at themselves'

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:52:16 +0100

Nicola Sturgeon has said people who post offensive comments on social media should “take a long hard look at themselves” as she welcomed the suspension of a Tory officer bearer who made a jibe about the First Minister's miscarriage.

Kallidus announces definitive guide to making blended learning a success

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 11:15:42 +0100

Kallidus, award-winning providers of learning and talent management solutions, have launched their definitive guide to blended learning to help organisations make the most of technology and ongoing learning & development.

Smartphone-size screens make it harder to pay attention to and understand news stories

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 11:00:58 +0100

Smartphones have become a key medium through which information of all kinds is accessed. Even a small, but significant, amount of traffic to academic journals derives from smartphones. Their increasing popularity and power, have led some to argue they have an important role to play in maintaining an informed public. However, Johanna Dunaway and Stuart Soroka argue that the smaller […]

What I’m Thinking About: Domains of Knowledge

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 09:39:30 +0100

I write the blog four days a week, Monday to Thursday, but on Friday i write a longer form newsletter for my subscribers. This forms a deeper reflection, a commentary on certain news items, and a broader perspective on the Social Age. Over four weeks, i’m also sharing it here on the blog too (my readership here is about ten times the size of the newsletter subscription). I hope you enjoy it.

Newsletter 82: Plateaus

There’s a bar in London powered by AI: in certain zones, facial recognition technology will identify who got to the bar first, and line them up in a virtual queue, circling faces on a screen so that bar staff can work out who to serve next. The service is offered as a reasonably cheap subscription for the bar, with some data (generated by the company that makes the system) about how it can increase profit and volumes of alcohol sold.

I’m interested in it from a different perspective: the evolution of dominant narratives, in this case, the specific social context of queueing. Growing up, entering the social scene, was often a journey of learning how to queue and get served at the bar, with a whole range of concomitant social behaviours, rituals, and cultural connotations.

For my American friends, who have not visited the UK, it may be worth mentioning that the experience of a bar is very different on both sides of the pond: in the UK, bar staff are paid (usually minimum wage), and your position in the serving queue may be a function of aesthetic appeal as much as order of entry. In the US, where bar staff are tipped, you can more readily buy your way to good service. Certainly I have found that the bar area in the US is a far more social scene than here in the UK, partly because bar staff have a vested interest in making you feel welcome, but also because remaining sitting at the bar is more accepted and normalised.

Here in the UK, I have to resort to prominently holding a ten pound note, catching people’s eyes, and engaging in the time honoured ritual of pointing to my neighbour and saying ‘he was here first’. I once waited forty minutes to be served on New Years Eve.

Facial recognition and crowd filtering sorts all this out (although imagine if it introduced an overlay of who tipped best, and hence imposed a taxonomy within a queue). Time at the bar could be reinvested: you could read a book, check your emails, or even talk to a stranger, with no need to keep pushing to the front, or figuring out who smiled at you last. In such a world, what do we lose, and what do we gain?

This is the social context of technology: it facilitates and enables, it reinforces and promotes difference and inequality, it provides fairness and democratisation, as long as you can afford it. But certainly it is challenging and fracturing dominant narratives of the past, and providing space for new ones to emerge. In my own writing, I am finding the language of Dominant Narratives, to describe existing social scripts and behaviours, particularly useful to understand and describe this.

My Writing

Landing Apollo

Last week I shared the final piece of writing about Apollo, a piece that was harder to write, describing the accident on Apollo 1, and the death of the three astronauts: I used this to consider complexity, risk, and humility, or arrogance, of both systems, and leadership.

A Rough Path Leads To The Stars

Exploring Learning Science

From then, I’ve been focussed on the new work around Learning Science, which is the first module I’m building out fully for the new Modern Learning Capability Programme.

This first piece aims to set the context: that ‘Learning Science’ is a broad discipline, based upon multiple established sciences, and that our role is not to ‘master’ it, but rather curate a space of interest.

Learning Science

This second piece encourages individuals to consider the Organisational philosophy of learning, and recognise and reflect upon reductionist, constructivist, and emergent approaches. I suspect that this second piece is a clearer indication of where this work is evolving.

Learning Science – WorkingOutLoud on Philosophical Approaches and Science

I am an Island

This was a short piece, written at the end of a busy day, but often brevity equates to clarity, and I rather like it: it considers how we are each, ultimately, an island, holding our own personal understanding of ‘meaning’, and making occasional voyages to share this with others.

I an an Island

This final piece starts to build out the Learning Science work: it begins to explore existing disciplines, and to make explicit links back to what it means in practice. This area will be my focus next week.

https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2019/08/08/what-different-disciplines-can-contribute-to-our-learning-science-a-workingoutloud-post/

What I’m Reading

I’m half way through Serhii Plokhy’s book on ‘Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy’, the first definitive account of the nuclear accident, from 1987 right through to 2018. It’s a fascinating read, and three of the first perspectives I’m taking away are these:

The level of ignorance and misunderstanding around the risks and radiation are staggering: the reactors were built, and run, on a highly vernacular model. The complexity was managed by committee, and process, not distributed capability and comprehensive understanding.
The paralysis of the system in responding to the disaster is a good illustration of where one frame persists well beyond the point at which it is broken: in this case, nobody admitted the reactor had exploded, despite the clear evidence in front of their eyes. The older frame, that this was just a fire, persisted for many hours. This speaks to the risk of speaking out against a dominant narrative.
Complexity is additive, a phrase I started to explore in the Apollo writing: a system is not necessarily ‘simple’, or ‘complex’, but rather the layers of complexity create meta effects. That may either be insight, or blindingly obvious, but perhaps something I will think on further.

In the News

AI in the NHS

This piece, which includes an overview of a few applications, provides a timely reminder that AI is most certainly moving mainstream. Aside from the medical diagnostic applications, I thought the point about how AI may help identify those patients more likely to miss appointments is a good illustration of how technology is increasingly disruptive of social norms (or Dominant Narratives), that I mentioned in the introduction.

AI in the NHS

The AI Bar

And here is the press release about Datasparq’s AI powered bar.

Press release: Launching the world’s first AI bar

Educational Disruption

This piece, behind the hyperbole and fear, speaks clearly to how technology will disrupt education. I share it not specifically in terms of the pedagogy, but rather as commentary on how prepared both the education, and technology, sectors are to exploit this. I suspect the next decade will see the widespread intrusion of disruptive, and global, players, possibly with established entities retreating to remain simply as brand names, owned by tech.

A Grand Experiment in Education

#WorkingOutLoud on the Certifications

As you can see from my writing above, I have started the work on Learning Science with energy: I have felt a bit daunted about building out the Modern Learning Programme, because although I have all the material and structure in outline, which I use with small groups, this is a programmatic piece, and will be offered at greater scale.

I am particularly excited that I will be publishing the full curriculum and materials as I go: this will take the form of a series of Social Age Guidebooks, the first of which will be ‘The Learning Scientist Guidebook’. As with the other Guidebooks, these will each be sub 10k words, and have a practical focus.

So far, I feel I am holding my head above the complexity, but yesterday I did find that I lost my way a bit.

The core idea is this: we will explore the landscape of Learning Science, with a view to understanding what each discipline looks at, and where it is heading, and then curate your own personal discipline as a Learning Scientist: this is the key for me, in helping us use the totem of the word ‘learning science’ as a thing, and moving to practical ideas for what we explore, what it will inform, how it is limited, and where it may fail us.

What I’m Thinking About

I’m mainly considering my own learning, in two contexts: often we work within an existing domain of knowledge, creating new meaning, or applying what we know to a matter in hand. But with the Apollo writing, and now the Learning Science, I am consciously trying to fracture or expand my own domain. This takes me to a place that is both more exciting, and more frightening, because certainty comes with familiarity, and in this strange land it is harder to be certain.

I felt this in my writing on neuroscience yesterday: I know my way around this area, I am comfortable with the language, and I have an underlying conceptual model of how it all fits together, but there is, of course, a gulf between the type of knowledge we have, to have to understand something, and the language we need to explain it.

In practice, what this means is the writing sometimes ties itself in knots, as a very visible representation of my thinking taking shape. And sometimes it falls down a rabbit hole altogether.

The main risks are either of staying too high for too long, describing the challenge as infinitum, without ever getting to detail, or conversely, falling into radical detail, and losing momentum for the overall journey.

Part of the reason why I am focussed on writing a new Social Age Guidebook out of this work is that it will force me to work to a 10k word overview, so if I use half of that up with a structural description of the brain, or an interesting aside on imaging technology, I will fail.

The other challenge is that, whilst I consider my understanding to be incomplete in ways that I know, it is, naturally, incomplete in ways that I do not yet understand. Comprehension is always a series of false summits, on a mountain that is infinitely tall.

Or as Terry Pratchett used to say, learning helps you to become ignorant on a whole new level.

Still: I am enjoying the stretch, and better still, enjoying my new plateau of ignorance.

Free condoms are available at libraries in Banff and Inverurie

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 08:41:25 +0100

A new pilot service has been launched in a bid to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) in Aberdeenshire.

Aberdeenshire Libraries are working in partnership with NHS Grampian to increase access to free condoms and sexual health information in the community.

The service will run from next month at Banff and Inverurie libraries, with a trial to assess customer feedback and identify any issues.

Condoms will be available in both libraries’ customer toilets, packaged in discrete bags, along with sexual health leaflets and relevant NHS contact details.

They will sit alongside other sanitary products in each toilet’s sanitation basket.

Aberdeenshire Council hopes the new scheme will increase the number of access points for free condoms in the region, with similar initiatives commonly seen in cities, but less so in rural areas.

For further information on the pilot service, email Alastair Henderson, network librarian at alastair.henderson@aberdeenshire.gov.uk or George Rutten, public health coordinator at g.rutten@nhs.net

Private school in Moray with links to Hollywood is saved from closure

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 08:23:31 +0100

A private school in Moray, with star-studded links to Hollywood, has avoided having to shut its doors after a late rescue bid.

Drumduan School in Forres was threatened with closure amid concerns about crippling debts, which left it struggling to pay staff and bills.

But families launched an online fundraising campaign in order to raise the £36,000 which was required to keep the Steiner-inspired classrooms open.

Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton became involved with the school in 2013, but resigned as a director in April this year – just months after appealing directly to the Scottish Government’s education secretary John Swinney for support.

Emergency talks were held by the school’s Friends, Teachers and Parents Association (FTPA) this week, where a funding package from Findhorn-based Ekopia Social Investments was discussed.

A social media post from the group explained that the 95 people who attended had all decided to accept the offer from the organisation.

It stated: “There was a massive turnout and a unanimous vote for the plan for Ekopia to purchase a 60% share of the lower school building and grounds – which will allow the school to clear all its current debts.

“There are 80 students expected to begin the term, which means the school may even make a modest surplus this year.

“The teachers felt full of positive energy and have been joined by great new colleagues.”

Ekopia aims to promote rural regeneration and sustainable economies by providing financial or technical assistance, in addition to business advice or support. It also has the power to offer loans or guarantees.

Drumduan’s FTPA was formed in May after parents and teachers discovered that the school was facing serious financial difficulties.

The fundraising campaign, spearheaded by families of pupils, raised nearly £9,400. It is understood that the money was used to help affected teachers pay rent and other bills.

Efforts from the group to raise cash included establishing an investment fund and holding a party in woodland near Elgin.

Steiner schools follow the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, who was born in Croatia in 1861, which involves developing pupils’ artistic and practical skills through creativity without any formal exams.

The most recent accounts filed by Drumduan at Companies House in May revealed that the charity had liabilities of £121,000 at the end of July last year.

That was after receiving £366,000 worth of donations during the previous 12 months, which accounted for about half its income.

New attractions and a cruise ship help to swell visitor numbers to Oban Games

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 08:14:55 +0100

The Oban Games and Argyllshire Gathering proved more popular than ever yesterday with cruise ship passengers helping to swell the visitor numbers.

Amidst the new attractions, the Calcutta Cup – dating back to the 1870s – was displayed in the games field, as a way of celebrating the inaugural Argyll rugby cup being competed for by first-year pupils.

The Oban Games traditionally bring some of the finest pipers from all over the world to the north town and the winner of the coveted Highland Society of London’s Gold Medal – Andrew Hayes of Ontario in Canada – had the honour of leading the march from the town centre to the games field.

Paul Nicoll, games steward, said afterwards: “This year, we had the inaugural Argyll rugby cup for first year pupils.

“We are trying to bring the games back to Oban, to the young people of Oban, which is why we have been including the school as much as possible.

“We have been doing a lot of work with the school and 22 pupils have been helping us out this year, not just with setting up, but with the organisation and social media.”

Helen Whittow, senior steward, was thrilled by the quality of the music.

She said: “We have two fantastic pieces of news in the piping sector. Inveraray and District Pipe Band are champions of champions this year and Oban High School Pipe Band are also champions of champions in their age group.

“This is particularly pleasing in the 40th year of the piping trust. The gathering committee provide substantial sums towards the tuition of piping in schools and we are very happy to see them being so successful.”

She added that the Corinthian cruise ship had docked at Oban’s North Pier to allow its passengers to attend the event.

Visitors enjoyed all of the usual stalls and attractions, including spectating at the piping, athletic and heavy competitions. Organisers noted an increase in the number of young men competing in the Highland dancing competitions.

There was even a grounds record broken in the athletics section when Alessandro Schenini from Glasgow triumphed in the long jump with a jump of 22ft 7ins. The previous record of 22ft 4.5ins was set by Alan Hamilton of Edinburgh in 2016.

Alasdair Cameron, head of the field set-up committee, said: “I watched the first march come into the field and it was packed. Members of the public were still coming in following the procession well after the piping had stopped.

“It was one of the busiest opening marches I have seen. A lot of the tickets were sold beforehand thanks to the cruise ship visiting.

“Having the Calcutta Cup on display was a popular attraction, a lot of people were having their pictures taken with it.”

CloserStill Media and Elliott Masie return for another edition of ‘Learning 2019’ in October

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 20:20:13 +0100

CloserStill Media and Elliott Masie return for another edition of ‘Learning 2019’ in October. CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta is confirmed as a featured keynote speaker.

Announcing the GIG Award Winners 2019

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:04:04 +0100

Government Information Group (GIG)

The Awards keep coming in for Fiona Laing who is the winner of the GIG Life-time Achievement Award for 2019. Fiona was also recently named the Scottish Library & Information Professional of the Year for 2019. Many congratulations Fiona on both of your very well-deserved awards.

Fiona’s nomination for the GIG Life-time Achievement Award outlined her many achievements during a long career working with government information in the form of Official Publications, and specifically highlighted her outreach and training work. Fiona has worked tirelessly to promote Official Publications and ensure that they are as widely available and accessible as possible. In addition, she was commended for her work with SWOP (Scottish Working Forum on Official Publications) and CILIP, demonstrating the significant and highly-valued contribution Fiona has made to the wider profession in a number of different areas.

Also, another Information Literacy CoP member has received a GIG award. Margaret Gair (MOD Library) has been an integral part of this group achievement!

This year the Annual Award has been awarded to the GKIM Knowledge Management Task & Finish Group for their collaborative work on developing a Maturity Model to support implementation of the HMG Knowledge Principles.

The GIG Judging Panel were struck by how well a team, comprising 19 volunteers from a range of government depts and Agencies, had come together to work creatively and collaboratively to develop a robust and usable tool which will raise the profile and understanding of knowledge management in government departments and beyond. It was noted that all of the T&F Group had selflessly taken on this role in addition to their busy day jobs.

Congratulations team on a great contribution to the GKIM profession and on winning the GIG 2019 Annual Award!

Website: https://www.cilip.org.uk/about/special-interest-groups/government-information-group

Email: info.gig@cilip.org.uk

Twitter: @gig_cilip

Level of polish?

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 16:09:22 +0100

A debate broke out amongst some colleagues the other day about the desirable level of polish in our elearning. One colleague was adamant that we were undermining our position by using low quality production. There was a lot of agreement. I had a slightly different view. Even after finding out he was talking more about external-facing content than internal, I still have some differences. After weighing in, I thought it required a longer response, and of course it has to go here.

So, the main complaint was that so much elearning looks dated and incomplete. And I agree! And others chimed in that this doesn’t have to be, while all agreed that it doesn’t need to approach game quality in effect. Then, in my mind, the question switches to “what is good enough?” And I think we do need an answer to that. And, it turns out, to also answer “and what does it take?”

What is good enough?

So, my first concern is the quality of the design. My mantra on design states that it has to be right first. Then you can implement it. If it isn’t right from the get-go, it doesn’t matter how you implement it. And the conversation took some time to sort this out. But let’s assume that the design’s right. Then, how much production values do you need?

The original complaint was that we’re looking slack by comparison. When you look at what’s being done in other, related, fields, our production values look last decade, if not last century! And I couldn’t agree more. But does that matter? And that’s where we start getting into nuances. My bottom line question is: “what’s the business case?”

So, I suggest that the investment in production values is based upon how important the ‘experience’ is. If it’s internal, and it’s a critical skill, the production values should be only enough to ensure that learners can identify the situation and perform appropriately (or get feedback). It needs a minimum level of professionalism, and that’s it. If you’re selling it to high-end customers and want to charge a premium price, you’ll need much more, of course.

The issue was that we’re losing credibility if we don’t approach a minimal level of competency. There were many arguments about the locus: fear of going out of bounds, managers oppression, low level tools, lack of skills, and more. And these all have validity. We should stipulate a minimal level. Perhaps the serious eLearning Design Manifesto? :) We can do better.

What does it take?

This was the other issue. It was pointed out that design teams in other disciplines work in layers: from concept to realization. Jesse James Garrett has a lovely diagram that represents this for information architecture. And others pointed out that there are multiple skills involved, from dialog writing, through media production and interface design (they’re conceptually separate), and the quality of the programming and more. The more you need polish, the more you need to invest in the appropriate skill sets. This again is a matter of marshaling the appropriate resources against the business case.

I think one of the issues is that we overuse courses when other solutions are more effective and efficient. Thus, we don’t have and properly allocate the resources to do the job right when it does positively absolutely has to be in the head. Thus, we do have a lot of boring, information dump courses. And we could be doing more with engaging practice, and less content presentation. That’s a design issue to begin, and then a presentation one.

Ultimately, I agree that bad elearning undermines our credibility. I do think, however, that we don’t need unnecessary polish. Gilded bad design is still bad design. But then we should align our investment with the professional reception we need. And if we have trouble doing that, we need to rethink our approaches. The right level of investment for the context is the right response; we need the right live of polish. But the assessment the context is complex. We shouldn’t treat is simplistically, but instead systemically. If we get that right, we have a chance to impress folks with our astute sense of doing the right thing with the right resources. Less than that is a path to irrelevancy, and doing more is a path to redundancy. Where do you want to go?

The post Level of polish? appeared first on Learnlets.

Applying Counter-Narratives to Academic Librarianship

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 15:55:34 +0100

Beginning notes from Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s keynote at IDEAL 2019.

Late July and early August were a whirlwind of travel for me. First up: ACRL Immersion, where I had the privilege of observing the program as a new facilitator. This was followed up by a quick trip to Columbus, Ohio for IDEAL 2019, the Advancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Libraries & Archives Conference. I’ve been pouring over my notes, doing some personal reading, and reflecting on some of the bigger ideas that connected these two very intense learning experiences. One of those ideas was the concept of counter-narrative.

Counter-narrative comes from Critical Race Theory, and is rooted in the idea that power creates a dominant story that is accepted as Truth. Through counter-narrative, groups of people who have been marginalized have the power to resist dominant ideology and tell the story of Truth from their (our) own perspective and experience. An excellent example of counter-narrative in action is the 1619 Project spearheaded by Nikole Hannah-Jones at The New York Times. This project “is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.” I had the honor of hearing Nikole Hannah-Jones and Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw speak at IDEAL 2019 and both stressed the importance of the stories we tell and the way that narrative shapes our reality.

There are so many opportunities for us to develop and apply a counter-narrative to our work in libraries, which is influenced by the same ideologies and -isms that plague the world in which we live. We see this in the work of Eamon Tewell, Jacob Berg, and Scarlet Galvan, who turn the resilience narrative so many libraries adopt on its head, highlighting the ways in which it reinforces structural inequalities and shift responsibility to individuals who suffer. It is present in the instruction team at the University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries who seek to dismantle deficit thinking in information literacy education and acknowledge the strengths that transfer students bring to the classroom. The work of Annie Pho and Rose L. Chou in Pushing the Margins, along with that of the many talented librarian researchers who contributed to that excellent volume are all prime examples of counter-narratives by women of color within our profession.

What narratives and ideologies have we bought into in our own work in academic libraries? What have we simply accepted as Truth without bothering to question, poke holes in, and dismantle? There’s this unfortunate narrative that critical inquiry is about posing problems without offering any form of solution. To respond to that, I’ll borrow from Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw and say that “There is power in naming.” There is power in storytelling, in pointing out problems, and in developing a discourse of dissent. What can you question? What kind of counter-narrative can you give to our profession?

Jane’s Top 10 Tools for Learning 2019

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 14:04:27 +0100

The Top Tools for Learning 2019 survey will close on Friday 13 September. Have you voted for your favourites yet? If not, you can do so here. You will need to list your top 10 tools and say how you use them – (a) for personal or professional learning, (b) at work or (c) in […]

Learning Science: Neuroscience

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 12:20:57 +0100

Today i am sharing part of the work for the Modern Learning Capability Programme: this piece is an overview of Neuroscience, with a view to understanding how it may inform your personal discipline of Learning Science. Note that this is early stage work, and presented out of context, but shared as part of #WorkingOutLoud. Note also that this version does not include the footnotes that include referencing in the final book.

Neuroscience is the broad study of the nervous system, which provides us with the biological foundation of learning, consciousness, behaviour, memory, sensation, and perception. It is, again, an integrative discipline, which draws upon other fields.

In modern learning Organisations, neuroscience can be toted as a key that will unlock learning and engagement. It can be viewed as a torch shining light over ignorance. But it equally falls victim to totemicism, aspiration, and the projection of bias, with a belief that we can use it to reinforce existing dogma. Certainly our understanding of the brain is improving, but we have not yet ironed the magic out of the system, and it is not a deterministic science.

To best understand neuroscience, and what it can, and cannot, give us, consider again the philosophical debate about reductionism and emergentism: neuroscience can give us a view of the map, and can show some interrelationships and dependencies, it can give us a clean and effective overview of the space, but it does not give us familiarity with a landscape in the same way that hiking through it does. At best, neuroscience will provide us with a foundation for our broader understanding, and the development of our personal discipline of Learning Science, as well as more rigorous, evidence based, and hence effective, learning methodologies.

Considering Plasticity

An important notion is neuroscience is plasticity: the brain is not like your car, or indeed any physically engineered and hardwired system. It is dynamically able to restructure itself, indeed, through cycles of learning, and sleep, it reinforces, prunes, and culls, different connections at will. Put simply, if the brain cannot achieve something today, it may be able to rewire itself to achieve it tomorrow: learning to juggle, reading French, and changing your mind, all evidence of this awesome trait.

The brain is highly plastic, with changes that we can physically measure: in part, our capability may be based upon innate structural differences, and in part, behaviour and experience change that physical structure itself. Some things may surprise you: you can learn a language, for sure, but you can also learn to balance better. Neither is innate, although there may be structural differences that give us a propensity to be better able to learn to do either.

But plasticity can cause us to misunderstand: for example, to see limitation where it does not exist, or to fall into the traps of phrenology. It is worth remembering that the brain is an extraordinarily fluid structure, and that, on top of that, are the correlates of learning, belief, and the creation of meaning, all of which are largely beyond science, at least for now.

Lateralisation of the Brain

Some brain processes or functions may tend to locate to one hemisphere of the brain or other, and there is an active research discipline that explores this, but latterly there has been a great move in pop culture (and related management theory) to draw conclusions that simply are not true, or at the very least are beyond our current knowledge.

You will see studies of gender based differences, even the notion that there is a ‘male’ and ‘female’ typical brain, almost all of which is soundly without basis. As mentioned elsewhere, we also see great plasticity, so functions in one person that are predominantly based on one side of the brain may, following injury or disease, migrate to the other.

It’s possibly safe to say that there are lateral relationships with function, but that they are plastic, and that, in all practical terms, of little or no use in our understanding of the practically applied business of learning and development, leadership, or change.

On a related note, we can see that almost the entire conversation about emotional intelligence is build upon quicksand: there is no demonstrated consensus of what evidence would form an ‘emotional’ intelligence, and no experimental mechanism to measure it, as opposed to other ‘types’ in any event.

It’s not to say that work on Emotional Intelligence cannot teach us anything, so long as we consider it as a theoretical framework, a way of thinking about intelligence. But it is neither deterministic, not evidence based, and hence, simply one idea among many.
Observation and Imaging

Much of our understanding of how the brain works comes from observing dysfunction: we have a large sample size of ‘normal’ brains to observe (not that there is anything like a ‘normal’ brain), but when something goes wrong, we are able to see what is lost from (or indeed enhanced in) normal function.

For example, through illness, a lesion forms in the brain of a particular patient, and that patient loses the ability to speak, although they can still sing. From that, we may deduce that the lesion is in part of the brain that governs speech, and that song is held in a different space. Or maybe the lesion simply blocks the initiation of speech by putting pressure on a different area.

That’s important, because understanding ‘initiation’ or actuation, is important in understanding the brain, both from an electrochemical, and behavioural, perspective.

Take right now: i’m sat in a cafe, typing with the sun shining onto me. I am therefore warm, and sat in the most comfortable seat, but also the screen is increasingly hard to see. I am annoyed, but not yet so annoyed to bother doing anything about it. You can consider the initiation of behaviour, or indeed much motivation, at both the cellular, and macro, levels in similar vein. One nerve firing may not initiate action, but builds a shallow foundation that others build upon. When a certain critical mass is reached, action may be initiated.

The real revolution in neuroscience has come through the advance in imaging, and measuring, technologies, which allow us to look inside in ever greater detail. These broadly divide into ‘structural’ imaging, which as the name implies, looks at the macro physical layout, and it broadly concerned with injury and structure, and ‘functional’ imaging, which seeks to understand function on a micro level, through measuring e.g. blood flow, or electrical signalling, as well as proving insight into e.g. Alzheimer’s, where changes are much more fine grained.

Examples of what neuroscience looks at

Structures of the brain, and how structure relates to behaviour or capability: for example, are there structural differences that correlate to creativity, agility, bias etc
Mechanisms of encoding: do we learn more if we read something twice? The roles of reinforcement, repetition, manipulation, reflection and personal articulation, the role of time (spaced repetition) etc. This is essentially the foundation of how we learn.
Differences between people, either within a broad population, or related to e.g. age, or structural differences in the brain (which is often contentious e.g can you spot the physical indicators of genius, or homosexuality? The temptation to do this is clear: you can spot an Olympic athlete by their muscle tone, so why not Beethoven by his brain?)
The relative effectiveness of different things e.g. different therapies to treat depression, or the impact of violent images on compassion etc
Engagement: why, at a neuro-cognitive level, we seek to belong, or engage with things.
The neurological basis, imperative, and limits, of behaviour, and behavioural change. This is about the evidence basis for pretty much any learning or development activity, and especially behavioural change, and hence culture change.
Unconscious aspects of behaviour, often around bias (relating to race, gender, sexual preference, identity etc), but also around attraction to new ideas (marketing and advertising), as well as belonging (politics).

Myths of Neuroscience

Neuroscience can give us cause to believe things that are not, or may not be, true, as well as drawing conclusions too early.
Notions of ‘left brain’ and ‘right brain’ activity may not take account of plasticity, and may provide a simplistic, yet incomplete, picture.
A myth outside neuroscience, but presented as part of it, Emotional Intelligence makes claims that are not validated at even the conceptual level. Most likely, conversation about emotional intelligence is just reflecting on aspects of general intelligence.

Journal Indexing: Core standards and why they matter

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 11:03:27 +0100

The ways in which journals are indexed online is essential to how they can be searched for and found. Inclusion in certain indexes is also closely linked to quality assessment, with research funders often requiring their grantees to publish in outlets listed in certain indexes. In this post Danielle Padula explains the importance of good journal indexing and how journals […]

PeopleFluent Capabilities Recognized in Bersin, Deloitte Consulting Performance Management Solutions Report

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 10:29:04 +0100

PeopleFluent has been recognized as a balanced performance management solutions provider, offering all 14 of the advanced capabilities needed to improve the workforce experience and process efficiency

Rauru Whakarare evaluation framework

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 09:30:03 +0100

The Rauru Whakarare Evaluation Framework "provides a kaupapa Māori-informed approach to evaluation that enables us to critique and engage deeply with the information that surrounds us. It is available for teachers, students and librarians in all educational contexts to start a conversation about information quality and its contribution to our learning." This New Zealand framework for schools or university use is available through a creative commons licence. It "embodies the connectedness of Whakapapa (background), Orokohanga (origins), Mana (authority), Māramatanga (content) and Aronga (lens) of information we are using. The Rauru Whakarare pattern was chosen as it represents interconnectedness. We see this pattern as a visual depiction of how information evaluation is not a linear process; to establish which information can be trusted, multiple strategies must be woven together." I think the Māramatanga (which also denotes enlightenment) brings a particularly interesting anlge. The page is https://informationliteracyspaces.wordpress.com/rauru-whakarere-evaluation-framework/ and the reference for the pdf -
Feekery, A., Jeffrey, C., McKeagg, S. & Kara, H. (2018). Rauru Whakarare evaluation framework. https://informationliteracyspaces.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/rauru-whakarare-framework-and-descriptors-2.pdf
This is part of the Information Literacy Spaces website.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Glenelg, Australia, July 2019

Guest Post: Library TeachMeet: Employability and information and digital literacies

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 09:10:20 +0100

Dr Lynsey Blandford is the Learning and Research Librarian for the School of Creative Arts and Industries at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU). She has worked in a variety of libraries including at the University for the Creative Arts, Lambeth Palace Library, London School of Economics and the University of Kent before joining CCCU. She completed her MA in Information […]

Review of Disciplinary Applications of Information Literacy Threshold Concepts

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:10:56 +0100

Review of Learner-Centered Pedagogy: Principles and Practice

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:10:36 +0100

Review of Transforming Information Literacy Instruction: Threshold Concepts in Theory and Practice

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:10:13 +0100

Analyzing the Laws of MIL: a Five-step Scientific Conversation on Critical Information Literacy

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:09:48 +0100

This essay mixes epistemological considerations on truth and science, a critical information literacy exercise on the 5 Laws of MIL (Media and Information Literacy), LIS theory and international experience reports. It is constructed in five parts, in line with the 5 Laws of Media and Information Literacy (Grizzle & Singh, 2016) and Ranganathan’s laws (1931). First, a critique of the Laws of MIL is presented; then a specific social context puts the first part into perspective; the feedback from the international community on the first two is followed by new research on library/MIL laws; and finally, matters of space, readers, staff and mutation are addressed in order to open the theme to other interlocutors and experiences that enrich the conversation. It concludes that the scientific method is neither perfectly objective nor completely useless: it has to be understood as a social construction. Furthermore, to put information neutrality utopia definitely behind us, we should expose our biases, rather than pretend to erase them, as a way to build a new trust in science.

Libraries and Fake News: What’s the Problem? What’s the Plan?

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:09:28 +0100

This article surveys the library and information science (LIS) response to the problems of fake news and misinformation from the 2016 U.S. presidential election to the end of 2018, focusing on how librarians and other information professionals in the United States have articulated the problems and the paths forward for combating them. Additionally, the article attempts to locate the LIS response in a larger interdisciplinary misinformation research program, provide commentary on the response in view of that research program, and lay out both a possible research agenda for the field and practical next steps for educators ahead of the 2020 election.

Research Clinics: An Alternative Model for Large-Scale Information Literacy Instruction

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:09:05 +0100

This article describes the pilot year of a new model for information literacy instruction in first-year composition classes at the University of New Mexico. The flipped classroom model, the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education, and challenges to library staffing sparked the implementation of research clinics, which are a blend of a flipped classroom and a research/reference consultation. These clinics are designed to meet students at their point of need for research projects and allow students to choose what sort of library help will be the most beneficial at that moment. At the end of the pilot year, students and librarians reported high levels of satisfaction with the new model. Both students and librarians enjoyed the one-on-one interaction, and librarians felt sessions were more consistently successful. The research clinic model is a flexible approach with implications beyond the first-year composition classroom.

The Context of Authority and Sociological Knowledge: An Experiential Learning Project

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:08:44 +0100

In this innovative project, a social sciences librarian partnered with a sociology professor to embed the “Authority is Constructed and Contextual” frame into an upper-division sociology of poverty course. Students in this course participated in an experiential learning project, collaborating with local children on a participatory photo mapping project to document the children’s neighborhood. By working directly with community members in this field experience, the students gained an understanding of the differences between scholarly authority and community authority and what can be learned about poverty from each type of source. Engagement with a local community provides students with a direct understanding of the contextual nature of cognitive authority and can be replicated in a variety of settings.

Through the Looking Glass: Viewing First-Year Composition Through the Lens of Information Literacy

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:08:28 +0100

This paper presents a case study of how librarians can situate themselves as pedagogical partners by bringing their unique information literacy perspective and expertise to the programmatic assessment process. This report resulted from the Thun Library and the Penn State Berks Composition Program's collaboration to assess the institution’s first-year composition (FYC) course. From previous programmatic assessments of their students’ work, the faculty had a sense that students struggled with source use in their rhetoric but found it difficult to pinpoint students’ exact source issues. By adapting a rubric theoretically-grounded in the ACRL Framework to deconstruct the concept of source use into four categories, librarians developed a rubric that illuminated source engagement problems on a more granular level than the programmatic assessments conducted without librarian involvement, leading to specific suggestions for addressing issues with student source engagement.

Investigating the Effectiveness of a Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Course in Reducing Library Anxiety for Adult Learners

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:08:10 +0100

This study examines levels of library anxiety in 30 adult learners before and after completing a two-credit information literacy course. A modified version of the Multidimensional Library Anxiety Scale was administered at the beginning and end of the course to compare levels of library anxiety. An analysis of the data revealed that the course was moderately effective in reducing library anxiety in adult learners. Awareness of library resources, comfort with the search process, and comfort level with library technology significantly increased after course completion. No significant decreases in library anxiety were reported in the areas of comfort level with staff or the library space.

Illuminating Social Justice in the Framework: Transformative Methodology, Concept Mapping and Learning Outcomes Development for Critical Information Literacy

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 02:07:53 +0100

The intentional omission of learning outcomes from the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education has caused concern and criticism from some librarians; however, the call to action within the Framework to locally develop learning outcomes is an opportunity to illuminate the social justice, critical thinking, and higher order thinking elements of information literacy. This study applies the transformative research paradigm using the methodology of concept mapping to test the development of learning outcomes for one of the frames. Concept mapping is a mixed-methods approach and includes focus groups, hierarchical cluster analysis, and multidimensional scaling. The methodology has been used extensively in the social sciences but has limited representation in the LIS literature. Though the study provides learning outcomes developed by a small participant group following the concept mapping method, the results demonstrate the viability of this methodology for librarians seeking a new approach to locally develop learning outcomes.