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| Botswana Approach | PRINT | | Building an Information Literate Community |
Gaborone (BOT), May 2007 - Institutions of higher learning acknowledge the relevance of teaching Information Literacy Skills (ILS). What is the role of University Libraries here? Ayanda A. Lebele, Chief Librarian at the Botswana Institute for Development Policy, speaks about her experience at the University of Botswana.
What is the special approach for ILS training at the University of Botswana?
Ayanda A. Lebele: The University Of Botswana's approach is what I can term a "team approach". The course content is developed by a team of librarians, while the delivery (online and the traditional face-to-face type) is done by another team. The team working on the content is not necessarily the one working on the course delivery.
Though there are other ILS programs for other user groups, more attention is given to the programme for first years. The ILS course is compulsory and examinable to all first years. This approach ensures that by the end of program of qualification, all university graduates will have basic information literacy competencies.
How do you see the role of librarians in the teaching of ILS compared to other University departments?
Ayanda A. Lebele: The librarians has direct link with the actual learning process as the librarian has the opportunity to guide the student on how and where to find more information. The academic lecturer in most cases does the teaching, while the librarian guides the user to learning more on what has been taught. So the librarian deals with the investigative learning component of the students’ growth.
What can you tell us about collaborative efforts at the University of Botswana?
Ayanda A. Lebele: Given that the ILS course is a component if the Computer skills course, librarians collaborate with the department of computer science in course building, delivery, and evaluation. There has also been very close collaboration with the graphic designing section of the Centre for Academic Development (CAD), which is responsible for the University-wide eLearning programs. At the faculty level, the collaboration is with the subject librarians and with the teaching faculty members who are interested in issuing a joint assignment.
Could you please give us an overview of recent developments?
Ayanda A. Lebele: The librarians have been able to develop an interactive online tutorial to supplement the traditional face-to-face teaching. Though there are faculty teams of librarians, the actual course delivery is done by two faculty librarians. This then builds a library "teaching team".
How do you see the future of teaching ILS?
Ayanda A. Lebele: I can foresee a situation where the course is no longer part of the library, i.e., where the Department of Computer Science engages a full-time librarian or several. Alternatively, the whole General Education Unit could have provision for librarians to handle the information literacy component of the units.
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