i-Skills in the Workplace: assessing and meeting staff development needs

What are i-Skills?

"The ability to identify, assess, retrieve, evaluate, adapt, organise and communicate information within an iterative context of

review and reflection"

Background - previous JISC projects

Student & staff skillsBig Blue, Big Blue connect

2005 i-Skills model & publications

2006 NetskillsResearch, workshops and self-evaluation tool

Leeds and Loughborough UniversitiesExemplifying the i-Skills model in specific job roles

Exploring implications for staff development

2007 Netskills funded toPrepare self-evaluation for online conversion

Run a series of workshops for staff development

Key Issues for Staff Development

Skills gaps

Defining i-Skills

i-Skills not adequately addressed

Fragmented provision and poor take-up

How to identify needs

How to meet needs

But…

High level of interest

Skills reflection welcomed"I found the course very interesting and useful, at least in terms of opening my eyes to the need for more skills development in this area"

Staff development must focus on individual needs

Opportunities for partnership in meeting needs

2007 Workshop Programme

"i-Skills and Staff Development: are you doing enough?"

8 workshops around UK, 87 attendees from HE and FE

Charge of £45 to attend

Job role: Administration 6

Learning Support 5

Management 14

Library 18

Staff Development / Training 28

Teacher / Lecturer 5

Other 2

Identifying Development Needs

The challengei-Skills encompass a wide range of skills/abilitiesStaff use information in varied waysHow to assess these varied needs?

Identify different levels of needNeeds across a team / for particular roles

Audit information needs for job role?

Generic needs for all staff Individual needs

Integrate with existing staff development processes

The i-Skills Online Self-Evaluation

Individualised, reflective and developmentalFeatures:

Defined i-Skills / behaviours Examples & brief tutorial contentSelf-ratings & job profileGuidance on opportunities for developmentSummary

Institutional useTraining needs analysis Appraisals / Professional Development Reviews

Meeting Development Needs

Audit existing staff development provisioni-Skills often embedded in other topicsProvision may be fragmented across institution

Identify related areas'Gateways' to time management, networking and teamwork

How will gaps in provision be met?Not just short courses…

Who will meet these gaps?Opportunities for partnership

Strategies - an i-Skills Framework

Workshop Programme

"A useful workshop helping to boost initiatives required at my college."

"Useful additional information to preliminary i-skills workshop attended last year. Intend to take ideas forward with admin and clerical team this semester in prep for next academic year."

"Very thought-provoking and inspiring. I hope there are further workshops/information regarding this area as it would be very interesting to see how it grows and evolves."

"A really useful workshop. I've got lots of ideas for going forward with this: just got to put them into practice!"

Issues

Differences between HE and FE

Need for practical examples and good practice

Auditing i-Skills provision

Drivers / marketing

Terminology and 'visibility' of i-Skills

Self-evaluation tool

What next?

i-Skills are dead?

Long live i-Skills!

References

Netskills information skills projectshttp://www.netskills.ac.uk/infoskills

JISC i-Skills publicationshttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/pub_sissdocs.aspx

AUA Perspectives article: H. Conroy, 2007, "Skills for the Information Age" Vol.11, No.1.

e-Staff Development project case studyhttp://e-staffdev.lboro.ac.uk/ (Select Project Outputs > Case Studies)

Big Blue & Big Blue connecthttp://www.library.mmu.ac.uk/bigblue/