In contemporary digital society, information literacy is increasingly important and viewed as a necessary life skill for all ages, social groups, and professional sectors, hence also affecting higher education. Universities need to develop strategies and approaches to integrate these skills into course syllabi, assignments and assessments based on close library-faculty collaboration. However, librarians and faculty members in higher education traditionally often have separate agendas and limited collaboration. This paper illustrates the background and process of constructing a successful librarian-faculty partnership, as a shared framework entitled the ‘Scientific Wave’ throughout a bachelor’s program in business administration to enhance students’ critical thinking, research skills and information literacy in particular. A case study approach was applied, and data collection was conducted during 2014–2019. The outcomes of a shared framework and library-faculty collaboration are discussed from the perspectives of students, library, and faculty. Findings show that a shared framework based on close collaboration between librarians and faculty, strategic anchoring and visualization in curricula, syllabi, course objectives and assessments developed in line with the mission of the university have an impact on students’ information literacy skills during their education and after graduation. The Scientific Wave is a co-designed continuous framework based on the separate but complementary skills of librarians and faculty to provide students with tools for critical and creative thinking, research skills and lifelong learning in today’s digital society.
Team Research Support and Publishing at University West’s Library consists of four librarians who guide researchers and doctoral students in issues regarding publishing strategies, bibliometrics, Information Literacy and how to make research publications available e.g. in the local repository DiVA. The service is frequently used in several ways by various researchers in accordance with their special needs. The case is originally based on three meetings between a librarian and a researcher entailing individual texts of reflections. This presentation accentuates the benefits of the discussions through the perspectives of collaborative learning and work-integrated learning. These benefits will thus be highlighted through the experiences from continuous face-to-face appointments with focus on information seeking activities and the effective use of databases. The meetings between the librarian and the researcher are affected by the fact that both work categories bring their specific professional competences into the discussions. In the dialogues they thus become each other’s teachers as well as students. The mixed situation of being the bearer of both roles simultaneously is dealt with by the interacting participants and the co-created meetings are carried through, and filled with contents, by the professionals themselves. Furthermore, this case emphasizes as well as problematizes this situation starting off from the individual professionals points of view. Finally, this study recommends the university management to encourage as well as create conditions for further interprofessional encounters at work in order to support Work-integrated learning in and for the organization.
This paper elucidates the process of creating and maintaining a successful librarian-faculty partnership which originally was intended as a quality improvement tool for a bachelor program in business administration at University West, Sweden. In 2012, after receiving criticism from the Swedish Council for Higher Education regarding the learning outcomes of students’ information literacy skills within the field of business administration, the process of regeneration started. A quality improvement process called “A Scientific Wave” was initiated to support the student's development regarding skills in critical and analytical approaches, presentation techniques and media and information literacy skills. The Scientific Wave includes different quality aspects and applies a holistic approach to improve education quality and accentuate progression of knowledge throughout all courses of the program. Furthermore, work-integrated learning, WIL, is applied as an educational and pedagogical model throughout the program to reinforce the link between work life and learning - theory and practice. Earlier research states that successful integration of media and information literacy in higher education should be based on close collaboration between librarians and discipline faculty, strategic anchoring and visualization in curriculums, syllabi, course objectives and examinations, and developed in line with the mission of the university. The Scientific Wave is here viewed as a co-creative continuous process based on the separate but still complementary skills of librarians and faculty to provide students with tools for critical and creative thinking in today’s digital society.
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