UK major report: Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes

There are some new reports from Ofcom (the UK "watchdog" for the communications sector). The main report, published today, is a substantial 200 page document, and the other 2 reports which I'll mention supplement that one.
Ofcom (2012) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report Research Document. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/main.pdf
The report is "designed to give an accessible overview of media literacy among [British] children and young people aged 5-15 and their parents/carers, as well as an indicative view of media use by children aged 3-4." Key research was 1,717 in-home interviews.
The report is packed with statistics about what kinds of device children access, and where they do so. 91% of children have internet access at home (for the first time, this is not an increase compared with the last report) - some children still do not access the internet anywhere. Unsurprisingly, mobile devices feature heavily, with gender differences in how the devices are used. Also, just picking up on a personal interest, in 8-11 year olds the only "creative or civic" activity that has gone up every year is creating an avatar in an online world (this year 48% had).
For some of the conclusions, I will be lazy and copy from the Executive summary.
" Children are using a wide range of media devices, and internet access is not confined to the desktop PC, laptop or netbook. Those aged 12-15 in particular are spending more time online, are more likely to go online using their mobile phone and are more likely to say that their mobile phone is the device they would miss the most.

"For the first time this report contains indicative data on the media habits of 3-4 year olds. This indicates that many in this age group are using a range of different media devices, including over a third who are going online using a desktop PC, laptop or netbook and 6% who are going online via a tablet computer.
"These trends have implications for how we consider children’s media literacy, as the requirement for media literacy skills begins at a young age, and the types of devices children need to be proficient on, and the opportunities for them to encounter media content, increase.
"Children, particularly 12-15s, are prolific social networkers with large numbers of friends – an average of 92 friends for 8-11s and 286 for 12-15s. This has implications for how children protect and share personal information, given that personal data available to “friends” on social networking sites is likely to be shared with large numbers of people."

2. Ofcom (2012) Websites visited by children: Nielsen analysis. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_3.pdf

The data is "derived from Nielsen's UK panel of households, comprising 45,239 individuals". This is short, but interesting in listing top 25/50 sites for 3 age groups. As with the other reports, data was gathered in 2012.
- 5-7 years old: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, BBC, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, YouTube, BBC CBeebies, Yahoo!, eBay, Ask Search Network
- 8-11 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, YouTube, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, Facebook, BBC, YouTube Homepage, Google Image search, Wikipedia, Windows Live Messenger
- 12-15 years: top ten (1 to 10): Google, Google Search, Facebook, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing ,YouTube,Google Image Search, YouTube Homepage, Yahoo!, Wikipedia

3. Jigsaw Research (2012) Parents’ views on parental controls: Findings of qualitative research. Ofcom. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/oct2012/Annex_1.pdf

The research used a purposive sample of parents (in the UK), with qualitative methods including focus groups and journaling (it gives details of the questions etc., useful for other researchers). Parents were more concerned about issues like cyberbullying and "grooming" and the impact of internet use on other parts of the child's life (e.g. exercise, writing), rather than issues to do with access to inappropriate content (partly because they didn't perceive it as a particular problem). Some quotes from the executive summary are:
"Overall, ensuring balanced and safe use of the internet was seen as an important parenting challenge, but one where parents were not always clear on how to get it right. This was because they could not necessarily draw on their own experiences growing up, and also because they felt that the issues and risks were constantly developing and shifting".
"Overall, technical controls were viewed as a supplement to, rather than replacement for, hands-on parenting. Supervision and other forms of parental mediation were felt still to be needed to prevent all of the day-to-day issues as well as risks emanating from children’s internet usage."
Photos by Sheila Webber: Autumn chrysanthemum blooms, October 2012

Digital and Information Literacies at Cardiff University

Earlier this month Cardiff University launched its Digital and Information Literacies Strategy: Embedding learning literacies at Cardiff University: INSRV's Digital and Information Literacies Strategy 2012-2014. This builds on their continued substantial developments in the area of information literacy, and also the JISC project they had on digital literacies.
The strategy is at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/news/infolitstrategy.html and digital literacy project at Cardiff University has a blog here http://digidol.cf.ac.uk/ and this is the page on the JISC site, which has project documents right at the bottom of the page http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/developingdigitalliteracies/DigiDol.aspx
Photo by Sheila Webber: Today is Apple Day in the UK. This is part of my small crop of apples this year (bad weather has affected the British apple crops generally)

Digital Literacy Report: consultation

Consultation is open on the American Library Association's Digital Literacy Report, produced by their OITP Digital Literacy Task Force. This is an important area where it is obviously essential to stress the valuable role of libraries and librarians. You you not have to be an ALA member to comment, but you need to register with the ALA Connect system (free). Once you do that, and log in, a comment option appears at the bottom of the page. I haven't had time to look at it thoroughly, but my informal comment from a quick glance is that the definition of "digital literacy" seems too narrowly focused ("the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills") and although I can see why this happened in a library context, the digital literacy researchers I know stress the social aspect of digital literacy. I think it could be a good idea to acknowledge this, even if you go on to identify a spcial place for libraries/ librarians within that.
The report can be downloaded from. http://connect.ala.org/node/187923
Comments are open until October 19th. Thanks to Lyn Parker for alerting me to this report.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn perspective, taken in Second Life, September 2012

IFLA #wlic2012 Information for civic literacy

There was a pre-IFLA-conference meeting in Riga, Latvia, on Information for civic literacy, 8-10 August 2012. This sounds a very interesting meeting with lively discussion, with people from different countries and contexts presenting very different points of view. There may be a follow-up conference. There are some papers online at http://www.lnb.lv/iflariga2012/papers-and-proceedings including:
-Saknicté Pisté Beltrán: Propuesta: La alfabetización en información como motor de la educación cívica en México (A proposal: information literacy as the driving force of civic education in Mexico) [in Spanish and English ]
- Natalia Gendina: Триада ‘Гражданская, информационная и медиаграмотность’ в контексте новой инициативы ЮНЕСКО - Учебной Программы ЮНЕСКО по медиа- и информационной грамотност (The triad of civil literacy, information literacy and media literacy in the context of a new initiative of UNESCO, the Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers) [in Russian and English ]
- Vincas Grigas: The preparedness of librarians to undertake educational activities in the context of civic literacy development [in English ]
- Reyna Josvah-Rabiaza: Accès à l’information et à la documentation: enjeu pour le développement de l’individu et de la société (Access to information and documentation: a challenge for the development of citizens) [in French ]
- Emmanuel Kabou: L’information pour une culture civique (Information for civic literacy) [in French ]
- Joyce Kinyanjui, Dennis N. Ocholla: The missing link: civic literacy when information literacy or financial literacy are lacking? [in English ]
- Ahmed Ksibi: Le programme OpenGov de l’alphabétisation civique pour le Printemps arabe (The OpenGov program of civic literacy for the Arab Spring) [in French ]
- Simon Jules Koudjam Yameni: La fonction didactique de l’information dans une bibliotheque universitaire comme outil de sensibilisation à la citoyennete de la jeunesse estudiantine : cas de la Bibliothèque Centrale de l’Université de Douala au Cameroun (The instructional role of information delivery in a university library as a tool for developing awareness of citizenship among student youth : the case of the Central Library of the University of Douala in Cameroon) [in French ]
- Mandiaye Ndiaye: La maîtrise de l’information pour un meilleur exercice de la citoyenneté (Information literacy for a better exercise of citizenship) [in French ]
- Yan Xiangdong, Guo Wanli: Library service and civil information literacy [in Chinese and English ]
Photo by Sheila Webber: coffee in Johan and Nystrom, Helsinki, August 2012

Developing Digital Literacies Briefing Paper

Last month JISC published a short Developing Digital Literacies Briefing Paper which provides soundbites from 12 projects it is funding in UK Higher and Further education. JISC defines digital literacy as "those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society" and there is a focus on digital literacy for employability and academic success (rather than a more socially constructed view of digital literacy). There are some emerging messages which seem common sense e.g. that students need to be supported by staff in developing their digital literacy. The report is at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/briefingpapers/2012/developing-digital-literacies.aspx and the Developing Digital Literacies programme page is at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/developingdigitalliteracies
Photo by Sheila Webber, June 2012

Journal of Information Literacy new issue

There's a new issue of the open access Journal of Information Literacy, volume 6, number 1 (2012) at http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/index. It includes the following, plus a conference report and book reviews:
- The experiences of Chinese PhD students in Australia: Encountering information literacy challenges: Jinghe Han
- Business information literacy teaching at different academic levels: An exploration of skills and implications for instructional design: Mariela Gunn, Cynthia E. Miree
- Active and reflective learning initiatives to improve web searching skills of business students: Alison E Lahlafi, Diane Rushton, Erica Stretton
- Learning Literacies through collaborative enquiry; collaborative enquiry through learning literacies: Jo Ashley, Freya Jarman, Tunde Varga-Atkins, Nedim Hassan
- Looking to the future: Developing an academic skills strategy to ensure information literacy survives in a changing higher education world: Helen Howard
- Creating an online tutorial to develop academic and research skills: Sara L Thornes
- The Welsh Information Literacy Project: Phase 2: Cathie Jackson
Photo by Sheila Webber: Alium heads, Sheffield Botanic Gardens, June 2012

Digital literacy in social sciences: articles

Just published, the lasted issue of the open access journal ELiSS - Enhancing Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences (Volume 4, Issue 2, May 2012) focuses on Digital Literacies. The home page for the issue is at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/journals/eliss/volume-4-2. The editorial Digital literacy: digital maturity or digital bravery? summarises the range of articles, authored by UK academics and educational researchers, which are entitled:

- Making digital literacy a success in taught marketing courses (Robin Johnson, David Edmundson-Bird and Brendan J Keegan)
- Institutional strategies for supporting learners in a digital age (Rhona Sharpe and Greg Benfield)
- Learning journeys: exploring approaches to learner digital literary acquisition (Lyn Greaves, Claire Bradley and Debbie Holley)
- The process and affective environment of students personal information management (Sara Robinson and Frances Johnson)
- Bravery, technological literacy and political philosophy: replacing oral presentations with student­-created video presentations(Pete Woodcock)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Jubilee in Tescos, June 2012

Health Information Obesity

Today there was an event from CILIP Career Development Group (Yorkshire and Humberside Division) here at Sheffield University. Vicky Grant, Faculty Librarian for Medicine, Dentistry and Health at Sheffield, was talking about Health information obesity: the new epidemic? It was a very interesting presentation, and I'll mention a couple of things she talked about.
One was a new strategy from the Department from Health The power of information. I'm going to put more about that in a separate posting. Secondly, whilst talking about the value of patient networks for health information she showed some of a TED video about e-Patient Dave: http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_debronkart_meet_e_patient_dave.html "When Dave deBronkart learned he had a rare and terminal cancer, he turned to a group of fellow patients online -- and found the medical treatment that saved his life." Dave is also an advocate for libraries. Finally, she showed this video which tells the story of one person becoming empowered to find, evaluate and use information (including stories from fellow patients) to apply to her own illness.

Plagiarism and attribution: an academic literacies approach?

Magyar, A.E. (2012) "Plagiarism and attribution: an academic literacies approach?" Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 4. "In many Higher Education courses in the UK the ability to write extended academic prose is central to assessment and therefore to student success. One aspect of academic writing which students struggle with is incorporating the work and ideas of others, using appropriate attribution conventions. This can lead them to fall foul of institutions’ plagiarism policies. Advice on plagiarism often consists of discussions around what is or is not plagiaristic behaviour while advice on attribution has tended to focus on referencing. This paper explores what an academic literacies approach to plagiarism might look like. It discusses and illustrates how an academic literacies approach was used in the design, analysis and application of a small-scale ethnographic research which set out to explore international postgraduate students' understandings of and questions about plagiarism across the disciplines in one UK university. The intention of the research was to use the findings in developing more culturally and context sensitive explanations of our attribution practices."
http://www.aldinhe.ac.uk/ojs/index.php?journal=jldhe&page=index
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossom, 2012