Sharing Experiences of EBLIP Discussion

 

Today we’d like you to take part in our second discussion on the EBLIP-Gloss Forum! This optional course discussion is around sharing experiences of EBLIP. We would like you to post either about your own experiences or about any research or initiatives you are aware of.

 

Example of Experience of EBLIP:

 

This example of an EBLIP project the development of a Search and Write Tutorial through a collaboration of three libraries in Norway was posted on the blog on the Information Literacy Weblog (http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2008/08/evidence-based-practice.html) on Saturday 23rd August 2008.

 

The blog post is provided below and is also available at: http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2008/08/evidence-based-practice.html

 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2008

Evidence Based Practice

At the start of the week I blogged about the Norwegian tutorial Search and

Write (http://www.sokogskriv.no/english/index.html) (available in

English and Norwegian). At the Creating Knowledge  

(http://www.congress.utu.fi/creatingknowledge2008/) Conference in Turku,

Finland,* Therese Skagen*(University of Bergen Library, Norway) talked

about this project in the context of *Evidence Based Practice (EBP)* and

use of projects to develop EBP. She identified some challenges to EBP

including time allocation, dissemination (within and outside the

library), competences (in research and planning), and resources.

Management needs to be supportive, and you need to believe that research

can be of value to the organisation.

She suggested trying out EBP in a small area of the library service to

begin with. Therese saw gains from EBP in terms of, for example, your

own learning, strategic understanding or (organisationally) increased

quality of service and better morale.

She went on to talk about the project of making the/ Search and Write/

tutorial. It was EBP as they did research beforehand and took an

evidence based approach to developing and evaluating it (including

drawing out lessons for future project work). Three university libraries

collaborated on the project: University of Bergen, Bergen University

College, and Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.

To start with they researched information searching and academic

writing, plus they looked at experience from practice within 4

university libraries. They managed to get funding (I think from the

Norwegian Open University): someone I was talking to here noted that the

fact is that projects which get some proper funding (whether from inside

or outside the institution) do have more of a chance of being successful.

A work group for *Search and Teach *was formed to work on the tutorial;

group members came from the 3 different libraries, so they had to "form"

as a group. They also had an advisory group with faculty memebrs and

other librarians. As well as the actual tutorial, there is a handbook

for librarians (in Norwegian) /sok & skriv for kursholdere /(handbook

for librarians) and there will be an article on the pedagogical

considerations in the next issue of Communications in Information

Literacy (http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php/cil) (volume 2 issue 1 I

assume).

Challenges included the amount of time needed to develop the tutorial,

cooperation with partners outside project (someone in the audience, from

another university, said that the work group had done a good job of

communicating), marketing, and updating the pages (a challenge for the

future).

Positive aspects were: success (and experience) in applying for funds,

influence on decision making, larger understanding of how the

organisation works, developing their role as educators and other

professional development.

Someone in the audience asked why the group hadn't used a virtual

learning environment - the answer was that this was because the 3

universities developing it had three different systems! I must say I'm

grateful, as in its current open form on the web it can be used by everyone.

There is some further information about the project in English

at:http://www.ub.uib.no/prosj/DK/english.htm

 

What we'd like you to do...

 

Have a think about your own experience of EBLIP or any research or initiatives you are aware of within EBLIP and then post to the discussion. 

 

Post your thoughts by:

 

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•  Click on Add a comment at the bottom of the page.
•  Post your message (remember to click the Add comment button) and record in your portfolio