A working group consists of people who bring expertise to a project, providing a way for everyone to speak up and have their voice heard within the workplace. I found myself participating in a number of working groups with our library merger. Our library merger working groups were made up of both staff with experience in the area as well as those who were interested in the area. All staff members were encouraged to participate in at least one working group with many members participating in multiple groups. The purpose of a working group is to identify, collaborate on and achieve specific tasks, sharing the decision-making process, endeavouring to include everyone's opinions and ideas. The makings of a good working group include open communication with meaningful conversation, respect, shared goals, and conflict resolution skills (we can’t all agree all the time!). Working groups are great for sharing responsibilities and strengthening communication skills leading to increased productivity.
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One of the best ways to design and deliver engaging and relevant training sessions is to use relevant and genuine content and examples. Using content and examples that are aligned with the learning outcomes, the audience, and the preferences of the group. Whether that is direction from the academic who may have scheduled the session or the student group who tell you want they want to get out the session. You should always use content and examples that are current, accurate, and credible, as well as being diverse and inclusive. By using relevant and practical content and examples, you can make your training content or sessions more meaningful, relevant, and appropriate for your audience. You should provide opportunities for your audience to participate, interact, and reflect on their learning from the session, to enhance engagement and retention. You should evaluate your training sessions by collecting and analysing data on the quality, relevance, and impact of your training, as well as on the satisfaction and performance of your training. Of course, we all know that there is a difference between knowing what to do and doing it. Some of the doing is out of our control, especially when it comes to gathering feedback for evaluation purposes.
Wikimedia is an online movement that runs various sites and projects that aims to bring free educational content through projects including Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is free and it’s easy to track down the basics on any topic, thus it can be an important source for background information, topic development and locating further information. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort to create freely accessible encyclopaedia content, written by anonymous internet users, called Wikipedians, who write and make changes to Wikipedia entries following the rules of the site. Because of this collaborative nature, Wikipedia articles develop at different rates and so are not created equal. Examine the references and sources cited to verify the information. In short, while Wikimedia/Wikipedia can be a valuable tool for research they should be used with caution, always assess the reliability of any source you are using. They are not acceptable sources for academic papers but can lead to credible sources that are appropriate for academic research. There are lots of useful sites that you might want to check out including Wikibooks, for textbooks, WikiEducator for open educational resources Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository and many more wikis. With all the buzz around ChatGPT, I wonder will it help or hinder learning. I think it might very well weaken people's ability to do research unless we as information professionals work with AI and teach students how to use it responsibly.
The literature shows the use of AI in research as presenting opportunities and challenges. AI is here to stay so we need to offer guidance and develop services to support their use. Remember when the likes of Google and Wikipedia burst on the scene how we, as a society, reacted. If we don't want AI to replace us, we need to embrace it! ChatGPT is not human, it does not know the answer to everything, it uses AI to scan the Internet’s huge amounts of data and calculates the 'best' response. Checkout my guest post on Libfocus on attending the 87th IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Dublin in the summer of 2022, with thanks to a bursary from the Acquisitions Group of Ireland (AGI).
Libfocus is a communal blog with a broad and open-minded take on the subject of library and information studies. Conference website: https://2022.ifla.org/. Our library aims to be a safe, warm, welcoming, democratic, and inclusive space at the centre of the university. We seek to create an environment that promotes equality, diversity, and inclusion. We want our students, academics, library team and the wider community to be part of an inclusive environment as we strive to bring down barriers by nurturing and promoting diversity. Yes, we are an academic library with a vast collection of books and other library material that are discoverable and accessible for study and research, but we are so much more. We have growing diversifying collections to celebrate, promote and inspire. We review our content development policies to give more priority to material considering traditionally marginalised groups. We welcome suggestions for titles that will help us develop our collections to be more inclusive. We have collaborated with our EDI office, the student’s union, and the healthy campus team to develop displays, reading lists and social media campaigns for Black History Month, minding your mental health and wellbeing, and LGBTQ+ to aim to improve visibility, recognition, and acceptance. We offer group study spaces if you don’t like working alone, we have comfy sofas if you just want some time out to focus or unwind. We have an independent learning unit with a range of assistive technologies for users with learning differences. We offer monthly book clubs; lunchtime talks and drop-in training sessions as well as one to one sessions to give more personalized, in-depth support. We build accessibility into our information literacy instruction to create an inclusive learning experience. The University is committed to extending flexible staff training to all staff, not just the library team, to build awareness of diversity, equality & inclusion, including but not limited to LGBTQ+ awareness, anti-racism, managing unconscious bias and universal design for learning. There is, of course, capacity for greater diversity, equality, and inclusion, we will continue to learn, embed, and share good equality, diversity and inclusion practices demonstrating that our library has something to offer everyone, reflecting the diverse communities we support and work with. Library Ireland Week is an annual initiative of the Library Association of Ireland, checkout the Library Ireland Week website for more information. I have entered this post into the Library Ireland Week 2022 Public Competition. Full disclosure, I am a librarian in the ATU Galway Library. #LIW22 @LAI Online I am delighted to have received a bursary to attend the 87th IFLA World Library and Information Congress. It is being held in Dublin this and it's the first time it has been held in Ireland. The bursary will cover one day of the three-day event, so although I am thrilled to attend for the day I would have loved to be there for the whole event. I had applied to be a volunteer at the event but unfortunately my application was not received so I missed out on not only getting to participate in the full event but also getting to mingle with all the volunteers from Ireland and beyond.
IFLAwww.ifla.org/ is the international voice of libraries, representing the interests of the profession and working to enhance services worldwide. WLIC is the foremost international conference aimed at delivering on our profession’s commitment to high quality library and information services and access to information. I will look forward to reflecting on this event. Everyone's Different! Accessibility cannot be an afterthought as designing for accessibility benefits all. By applying the UDL principles in our everyday teaching and learning practices we can remove barriers to learning and provide engaging learning experiences for all. In higher education librarians try to improve student information literacy and research skills through library instruction, which should be inclusive for all. Applying UDL to online library instruction means creating instruction and learning materials that take account of everyone's differences, preferences, and abilities. The aim of library instruction (whether online or face-to-face) is to teach information literacy and research skills. UDL provides us with a variety of strategies and resources to help meet diverse learning needs, improve accessibility to learning opportunities, and increase student success. Checkout my slides from CONUL Annual Conference, where I share my experience of applying UDL principles to online library instruction thanks to my participation with the National Forum Digital Badge in Universal Design for Teaching & Learning. Rebranding our Libraries when GMIT, LYIT and IT Sligo become Ireland’s newest technological university - Atlantic Technological University (ATU) - formally established on 1st April 2022 is more than a name change. As GMIT we had 4 campus libraries and one library website, and we now have 8 campus libraries and 3 websites. These 3 websites will become 1 in the near future.
The project starts with rebranding, replacing all instances of GMIT with ATU, changing our logo and updating our promotional materials, which if I am honest will be a work in progress for some time as it is no mean task. What's to come is so much more, new online identity, new budgets, new resources, lots of working groups and meeting. Changes to policies and procedures and the list goes on. Communication is key to any rebrand. I am lucky that I have close working relationship with my counterparts based in Donegal and Sligo and we aim to meet regularly and connect via Teams and email. As 3 become we have a serious amount of work to do, this work will benefit all our students, staff and stakeholders as well as the whole region... watch this space for updates on the project (if I have time to update this space!) I have successfully completed all 3 phases of the DigitalEd.ie Professional Services Pathway and have received my Professional Services Digital Champion badge. The journey involved completing a number of Microsoft Badge Courses, some All Aboard courses along with a 2-hour training course of my choice with evidence of skills sharing. I applied for the badges in order of Explorer, Adventurer then Navigator to receive the champion badge! The range of resources presented in the pathway, covered the knowledge and skills to enable me to enhance my skills and confidence in a variety of different digital technologies.
Checkout the DigitalEd.ie Professional Services Pathway for more information. Interestingly I had started the journey sometime ago, unintentionally of course. I have been engaged with the All Aboard digital journey for some time, with a number of badges collected over the years. And the Microsoft Education Centre has been on my radar for a year or so now, completing short course on integrating technology into my work. Definitely a case for recognition of prior learning! |
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December 2023
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