This report covers the period July - December 2000.
In the period July-October 2000 five pilot projects were run to provide the ILP Project team with information on which to base the development of a substantive program of activities for the University. Briefly, the outcome of the five pilot projects is listed below:
A request for proposals was prepared and issued to three suppliers, Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), Australian Information Management Association (AIMA) and CEDAM. CEDAM declined to provide a proposal due to lack of staff. CIT promised a proposal but did not provide one. The AIMA proposal was satisfactory. Discussions have subsequently been held under the leadership of Margaret Henty and the first Train-the-Trainer program will be run in January and February next. The program is aimed at staff in the Library and IT Services who will be asked to deliver information literacy training to staff and students. The program will be tailored to the needs of the ANU.
The Project employed a contract trainer for 20 days to provide one-to-one training in the workplace. Four areas were selected for the pilot: the Faculties of Economics and Commerce and Asian Studies, the Research School of Social Sciences and the Humanities Research Centre/Centre for Cross Cultural Research.
Feedback was obtained from managers in the pilot areas (with the exception of HRC), from participants and from the trainer. This indicated that this type of service is very useful, particularly for more advanced training and assistance with particular problems. It is less useful for basic training, which is better done in a laboratory.
The Centre for Continuing Education was contracted to provide 12 days of training at $1250 per day. This was a discount for the pilot project. Courses were run over a full day and in two half-days. Topics covered were: Basic and Intermediate Word, Basic and Intermediate Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Eudora and web publishing with HTML. The most popular courses were: HTML, Intermediate Excel and Powerpoint. Each participant provided an evaluation and the CCE course manager also provided his feedback, which was positive. There was disappointment from many who could not enrol in the program due to the strong interest.
This became a substantive program, which is now well under way under the leadership of Margaret Henty. Queensland University of Technology gave permission for ANU to use its PILOT tutorial as the basis for an ANU version. A small group including CEDAM, Study Skills and Library staff has revised the content. Graphic design was contracted to a commercial firm. The work-in-progress can be seen at: http://inflite.anu.edu.au/
A project, under the leadership of Chris Textor, was established to test the useability in the ANU environment of four commercial products. A group of 30 staff and students agreed to participate in the evaluation. Training modules tested were mainly in the Microsoft Office suite.
Some of the products were quite difficult to deploy. There are very few products available that cater to Macintosh users. A full report is available.
In November the University advertised for staff to provide the core information literacy services. The positions advertised were:
Trainer-Manager - mainly to deliver IT training strategies and services.
Graduate School Information Literacy Coordinator - to design and deliver information access services to graduates through the Graduate School.
Administrator (half time) - to maintain records, organise bookings, maintain the ILP web site.
Trainer/Web Support Officer (half time) - to assist with delivery of services to graduates through the Graduate School.
The Library also recently advertised for an Information Literacy officer in the Social Sciences and Humanities area.
Applications have closed for all of the above positions. Interviews have either been held or will be held shortly. The quality of applicants was exceptionally high for the Trainer-Manager and Administrator position and we are very confident that the appointees will contribute significantly to enhancing the level of Information and IT literacy at ANU. The Trainer-Manager and Administrator will work to the Project Manager (Yvonne Heslop). The graduate program staff will report to Margaret Henty.
As indicated in the Train-the-Trainer paragraph above, staff of the Library and IT Services will augment the work of the above staff in delivering information literacy programs and are being given training to ensure that they have the necessary skills, and adopt a professional approach.
The following is a summary of activities planned for the next three months:
§ Publicise and launch InFlite - online research module
§ Run the first train-the-trainer program
§ Establish strategies to identify and involve those staff and students who need assistance from the Information Literacy Program
§ Develop a detailed Graduate Information Literacy Program for 2001.
§ Prepare a program of training for staff and students to commence as soon as possible but no later than March 2001
§ Coordinate with other related programs eg. ESP, HR, Library
§ Establish the statistics and records we will need and put procedures in place to maintain such records.
§ Develop IT competencies to complement the Australian Information Literacy Standards.
Yvonne Heslop
Project Manager,
December 2000