Information literacy is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to develop informed views and to engage fully with society.
CILIP Information Literacy Group.
In my current role I support students from undergraduate to postgraduate researcher level and this has increasingly resulted in the need to develop resources on information literacy skills. Many people assume that this is something only delivered during the first stages of study but these skills are in needed throughout an academic career. Although postgraduate students have more experience when it comes to study we should never assume that they have a thorough knowledge of information literacy. The resources on this page are aimed at any students who will find them useful.
Training sessions
Your Literature Review: Finding What You Need – literature reviews are a great way to explore the current thinking on a topic and you will often be asked to conduct one to determine the landscape in your discipline. But where do you start and how do you find results that are actually useful? This session will guide you through the process of thinking about what you want to search for, creating a bespoke search strategy, evaluating your results and putting everything together into a literature review.
Making Your References Work for You (with Zotero) – referencing is a face of academic life. Students and researchers need to explore the work of others in order to build upon it and proper referencing helps to showcase the range and breadth of research undertaken. The ideas of others also need to be credited appropriately in order to avoid accusations of plagiarism. But – it’s also a fact of academic life that referencing can be boring and complicated. This session aims to change all that! In this session we will explore online reference management tools and how they can save you time and effort when compiling your bibliography. Using the tool Zotero as an example we will show you how to import references from a range of sources, create easy in text citations and produce a bibliography at the click of a button.
Taking Good Notes: Making the Most of Your Time – taking notes is a valuable skill, both during your studies and beyond. In this session we will share with you our top tips for taking notes in lectures, from readings and when watching recordings. We will showcase some tried and tested templates you can use to structure your notes as well as a range of digital tools for notes on the go. Finally the session will show how to use your notes in your writing and revision for academic success.
Building an Effective Search Strategy – you have your research topic and access to millions of resources – but how do you find relevant material? This session will help you turn your research idea into a comprehensive search strategy designed to get maximum results. It will cover creating targeted keywords, filtering results, evaluating materials and recording your methods to save you time throughout your project.
Refreshing Your Study Skills – this session is designed to work as a ‘choose your own adventure’ style game where learners select three key study skills to review from a choice of:
Database training – training on Scopus and Web of Science databases (produced in 2023).
Short guides
Short videos