Are you FIT for FILE

Abstract

The course Facilitating Information Literacy Education (FILE) was commissioned by the London Health Libraries (http://www.londonlinks.ac.uk/) as part of its Learning Support Programme and developed by the School of Information Management at London Metropolitan University as a continuing professional development (CPD) course which is also accredited as a postgraduate module. The main aim of the course is to equip information practitioners working in the health sector with the competence and confidence required to facilitate information literacy education. \nThe provision of FILE is based on a blended provision involving face-to-face intensive sessions and e-learning activities supported by a dedicated webpage (http://www.ilit.org/file/indexfile.htm) and a blog (http://facilitatingileducation.blogspot.com/). The website is designed to host the learning resources that the participants produce as part of a professional portfolio assessed during the course. This is complemented by the blog employed to foster reflective learning and peer-based evaluation. The long term goal of FILE is to create a web-based repository of information literacy resources (drawn from the existing resources which are customised by the participants as well as the materials they develop as part of the portfolio). The underlying aim is to encourage effective sharing of good practice amongst the authors and enable further dissemination of information literacy education to a wider health-information community of practice. \nThe main aim of the paper is to present an overall evaluation of the participants’ testimonials on their professional development as facilitators of Information Literacy Education following the delivery of the course in January to March 2007. As the title suggests we shall explore the impact of FILE on its participants in terms of developing fluency in Information Technology (FIT) to enhance their Information Literacy practice by identifying and addressing the needs of a diverse user population within the health care sector (including home care workers, NHS support staff, clinical researchers, and perioperative staff ranging from nurses to surgeons). Examples of IT competences presented here include the use of PowerPoint to maximise communication with the users, the use of online surveys to support effective evaluative strategies and of the blog to promote peer-based evaluation and reflective practice by the FILE participants.

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