Information Literacy Didactics for Higher Education and Research: Some Lessons from an International Workshop

Abstract

This contribution identifies challenges in information literacy didactics in contemporary higher education all over the world: • Heterogeneity among organizations for higher education hinders co-operation. • Information literacy is competing with media literacy. • Leadership and responsibility are needed in information literacy education. • Developing information literacy training materials requires an adequate budget. • Expertise in didactics is also needed for teaching in the area of information literacy. • Marketing should support information literacy didactics. • Information literacy should be integrated in the curriculum of all students. • Libraries should not neglect contemporary information systems. • Study materials should be adapted to the upcoming mobile information technology tools. • Regional training and workshops on information literacy didactics would be welcome. • Data management skills become important besides information literacy. These challenges should be faced constructively and therefore we formulate for each challenge also a recommendation towards stakeholders. This paper is based mainly on recent project activities of organizations of higher education in Flanders, Belgium, aimed at 1. getting a view on the growing expertise in didactics to upgrade the level of information literacy in their region, and paving the way towards more efficient cooperation on information literacy didactics with partner universities, mainly in developing countries, 2. sharing their experience with universities in developing countries, in Asia, Africa and America, in the form of a fruitful international workshop and follow-up activities.