Case Study – Information Literacy within an FE context

The following Case Study was supplied by Sarah Jan Robertson at Riverside Library, City of Glasgow College.

Navigate Ahead was launched in March this year in association with World Book Day.  The initial Group of participants consisted around 20 students to take part in the pilot.

These students were all undertaking a course related to Marine Engineering.  Initially the course was set up in Workbook format and since then this teaching tool has been embedded in My City (The student’s intranet system).

The primary objective of the programme is to increase information literacy within the College.  As well as this secondary objectives were to enhance student engagement, build departmental relationships, aid the student’s learning experience, increase the student’s employability, as well as  assisting  with staff development in implementing the programme.

This pinned course directs students to the main Workbook Programme, introductory videos, and quizzes and in order to gather evidence and success of the programme user questionnaires on library usage and using library resources.  (In other words students had the choice of using paper material supplemented by interactive tools via the College intranet for students)

Some initial results have been gathered with students reporting back their increased confidence in using the library and evidencing that they find the face to face guided style of the initiative helpful.

Many of the students in this young group had commented initially that they had no experience in using the public library or any school Library experience. A few said that they did not know how to use a Library catalogue to find materials and certainly no concept in gathering together information sources to produce a bibliography.

This first cohort of students to run with the pilot is half-way through the programme at this stage.

A second set of mature students – approximately 14 students are about to undertake a fast-track version of the Navigate Ahead programme in June of this year.  Some of this group bring with them the experience of Higher Education, whilst a third are overseas students with a limited understanding of sourcing and citing library materials. The aim is for this group of students to have the necessary tools to produce a robust Bibliography and series of citations for their Final Report in October.

“The Navigate Ahead programme was driven by Jan, our Information Assistant (moving towards her Charter)  who has committed time and energy to driving these vital teaching materials with our Marine Students.  In particular our aim is that our students will produce world-class work, reflecting the high standard and abilities of our Marine students and Jan’s approach to getting alongside our students and offering one-to-one and group support has increased their confidence.”  (Sandy Boiling, Senior Marine Lecturer & Library Liaison Link.)