Vision-impaired mode: on | off
Excellence Gateway
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) East Midlands on behalf of the Excellence Gateway.
Sector relevance: Further education colleges
Keywords: Improving teaching and learning, information skills, learning centres and library services, learner support, achievement rates, management of resources, curriculum good practice
Northampton College has offered structured Information Skills programme in selected courses of study that have seen the skill levels rise of those learners. For example, one review concluded that grades had risen by 5% on a module that relied solely on assessment by essay.
Learners on Access and HND programmes are more prepared for progressing on to higher education programmes, and learners on other programmes have also gained valuable skills. Staff in the curriculum teams have praised the new approach taken by the learning resource centre (LRC) team and are working closely together to improve the learner experience.
Northampton College has become one of the larger general further education colleges in the East Midlands region, with approximately 13,000 learners, a turnover of almost £28 million and over 600 full-time members of staff, and around 400 ‘visiting lecturers'. It offers a broad range of full-time and part-time Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funded courses. In addition, it provides higher education courses funded through the University of Northampton; and support for other organisations including the voluntary sector.
Whilst information skills are often an integral part of higher education courses, this is not the case in the majority of further education colleges.
Various pieces of research have highlighted that information skills are an important skill set that learners require and the national picture shows that they are currently in short supply.
One such report, commissioned by JISC and the British Library, counters the common assumption that the ‘Google generation' - young people born or brought up in the Internet age - is the most adept at using the Web.
Their research showed that, although young people demonstrated an ease and familiarity with computers, they relied on the most basic search tools and did not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they found on the Web.
In 2007 the situation at Northampton College was similar to the national picture. They had offered Information Skills sessions within the College, but take up was limited, the delivery was unstructured and students found it problematic to take part in the module as they weren't timetabled into their course.
Image 1: Building-up a search strategy for learners
The LRC team decided to take a more pro-active approach to this challenge. In the Spring of 2007 they developed a structured programme of six sessions covering information skills. This was then offered within the College but, in particular, targeted at courses that had progression on to higher education.
The content of the course features topics such as developing search plans; identifying which electronic resources to use; using the library catalogue; finding out about copyright issues; plagiarism; evaluating information; and essay and report writing.
The LRC team had all the contents of the programme prepared very carefully. They did not ask 'What would you like?' but, instead, presented all the documentation as a 'Ready For You' product. This included a clearly defined programme with lesson plans, objectives and detailed activities for each session. The detail of planning went down to preparing all the slides ready for use, having specific timings and stating who would deliver the sessions and how.
Image 2: The LRC team at Northampton College has helped develop information skills
An important element of the course was that, where possible, the sessions were delivered not just by a member of the LRC team, but in conjunction with a member of the relevant curriculum team. This is so that the former could present the topic and the latter could help contextualise it for the students by showing actual examples from the students' current work in their programme.
The LRC team developed support from a crucial set of colleagues including the Head of Cross College Programmes, some of the programme managers and a few enthusiastic lecturers. The Head of Cross College Programmes also made a suggestion that all Access students should be part of the pilot. HND lecturers were also enthusiastic and early on joined the Information Skills programme.
The LRC team has also worked closely with Sarah Thursby, Advance Practitioner and HND lecturer, who has specifically promoted and developed the LRC Information Skills through the College Quality Forum and the College Development Network, where advanced practitioners promote and develop teaching and learning skills support for academic staff. This has included information and training sessions at INSET day activities in 2007/08 and resources-based support on the internal shared drive (for staff) and the College's virtual learning platform ‘Moodle' (for specific courses/student access).
The sessions can be delivered either in a lesson format or in a tutorial format depending upon the requirements of the particular curriculum programme. For example, the Access programme often took the tutorial approach as the students would be on different strands and, therefore, not have the same assignments.
All the materials from the sessions are made available via Moodle so that learners can refer back to any resources covered in the class.
As well as the flexibility of the way in which the course is delivered, the curriculum teams have the choice of whether to take the full module comprising of six sessions or whether to pick any of the individual sessions.
From September 2007 the Information Skills course became part of the timetable for the following:
Getting the Information Skills module as part of the timetable was essential as it meant that attendance was not optional, as previously was the case, and as staff explicitly pointed out to their students that they should attend.
In total, for the 2007/08 academic year, the LRC team delivered 123 sessions across three different sites in the College.
Feedback from the students who did the course in 2007/08 was overwhelmingly positive, with a survey of learners showing that 97% of them found the course useful or very useful.
Jevael Hollgate, who has just started his first year in HND in Music Production, said:
“I'm new to this level of assignments and everything's happening so fast at the moment! The sessions have been really good so far and I've learnt lots that I will be able to use in my other modules.”
Andrew French, Tutor on the HND Theatre course, has been taking part in the course. According to Andrew:
"part of what we're trying to achieve is transferring the social information skills that the students have from applications, such as Facebook, into their educational informational skills."
"The approach is about enabling the students to learn rather than the traditional classroom approach. So, when they independently bring something they've found on the Web into the class - that's when I know that they're developing the right skills."
Sarah Thursby, Research Skills Lecturer and Advanced Practitioner, says:
“Developing links between our Research Skills sessions and the University NUPAD tutorial system now enables our HE students to be more independent and confident with the skills they need to progress further, both in HE and industry-related IT, where a more autonomous approach is expected. The futures of many learners will depend on their ability to utilise electronically-based resources and IT communication skills."
Lessons learned by the LRC team in the first year:
Ray Meadham, Programme Manager for Music in the College, carried out a study to see what effect the Information Skills course had on learners. Picking out one module that was entirely assessed via essay-writing assignments, showed that the average grade for learners rose by 5%, without any other major changes to the programme. According to Ray:
"this improvement reflects the value of the research skills sessions and prepares the students for the rigour of higher education."
Janet Light, Head of Cross College Programmes at Northampton College, also agrees:
"Our Access learners have been out of education for some time so the study skills course prepares them for university and gives them the edge against some of their younger counterparts who have progressed from more traditional routes."
“Having the Study Skills unit delivered through the Learner Resource Centre gave it more importance and learners recognised that this will be invaluable not only now but also when they move onto university. It also had the added bonus that it could be used to achieve an extra credit on the Access programme.”
Sarah Thursby, added that they have had "extremely supportive feedback from both the external examiners for the HND programmes, as well as the practice being commended at the School of Arts Board of Studies at the University. As a result of last year's success, the connections between the virtual learning platform and Study Support skills is being developed further in 2008-2009”.
Grazyna Kuczera, College Librarian, has the following tips for other colleges who want to implement a successful Information Skills programme:
The LRC team hope that in the future it will have the capacity to deliver the full module to other courses. However, it is anticipated that more programmes will take up individual sessions. In particular, there is likely to be demand in the College's expanding work-based learning portfolio of courses.
TIP: Have you rated how useful this case study is? Use the star-rating facility, which features in the grey bar that runs across the top of every page of this site. (To rate a case study, or any page in the Excellence Gateway, you need to log in to the site first.)
Disclaimer: The Regional Support Centres (RSC) and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) support the development of educational e-learning. We may refer to specific products, processes or services. Such references are examples and are not endorsements or recommendations and should not be used for product endorsement purposes.
You can find this page and download any referenced resources from the Excellence Gateway at http://excellence.org.uk/170609.
