Despite the fact that nowadays most undergraduates in Hong Kong receive training as lifelong learners during their secondary school years, many of them are still challenged at adopting university-level information literacy (IL) into their learning practices. In particular, how to use new kinds of information in intellectual activities they have not carried out before.
In order to enhance IL among university students, libraries of the eight government-funded universities in Hong Kong collaborate in a three-years (2015-18) project to bring about a paradigm-shift at both teaching and learning levels.
At the centre of this project is the IL MOOC courseware, a self-paced asynchronous online resource designed to promote more proficient use of information to learn (Bruce, 2008) through general and discipline specific scenarios. The design of the five modules of IL MOOC addresses information practices and related dispositions (ACRL, 2015) in research tasks, including identify information needs of a topic, find suitable information efficiently, evaluate and select relevant information, create and communicate research outputs effectively, as well as contribute and benefit from participating professional communities. In order to illustrate discipline-related IL concepts and know-hows, subject librarians of each participating institution design scenarios, quizzes, and learning objects on arts & humanities, business, education, engineering, law, medicine, science, and social sciences. Students can choose to learn through different pathways to suit their learning goals. Findings from the quantitative and qualitative study conducted by this project provide insights and guidance on the content design of the IL MOOC.
This project also aims at strengthening faculty-librarian collaboration through setting up course enhancement funds for faculties to implement subject-related IL pedagogical innovations, as well as a capacity building program for librarians to enhance faculty-librarian collaborations.
