Community councillors’ information literacy

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Bruce Ryan

We’re very pleased that we have successfully finished the Information literacy for democratic engagement (IL-DEM) project. We’re even more pleased that we have just started a follow-up project called LIL-DEM (longitudinal information literacy for democratic engagement). This will also investigate community councillors’ information literacy, but it will sharply focus on the factors that IL-DEM revealed to be relevant to community councillors’ information work. It will also investigate who community councillors work with to find, process and publish information, and any associated training needs. Finally, it will enable us relevant to finish a literature review around information literacy, lifelong learning and (local) democracy.

Data-gathering will start in just over a week – our main tool will be an online survey. So if you are a community councillor, look out for the online link we’ll reveal soon. If you know any community councillors, please tell them about this project.

In the meantime, please download and read…

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Stranger in a strange(ly digital) land

Posted on December 16, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

Understanding Digital Policy was the title of an unconference I was at this week. (It was at an outpost of the University of Liverpool in central London – hence the title and illustration for this post.)

Although it was billed as covering

How is policy shaping the uptake and use of Digital Media and Technologies?
How are Digital Media and Technologies shaping policy making and policy implementation?

it went much further than that, into how will and how should policy be shaped, and what research should be done. This was at least in part due to the organiser, Simeon Yates, leading the the ESRC Ways of Being in a Digital Age team, and so being highly influential on research directions.

You can jump straight to my personal reactions if you want, but here’s how the day progressed. Firstly, we found interesting and/or kindred spirits by writing our own ‘about-me’s, looking at each others’ and deciding who we wanted to work with. Continue reading →

Blast from the past

Posted on December 10, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

While transcribing interviews for the ILDEM project, I was reminded of one of my MSc courseworks, about Scottish Local Authority websites. It wasn’t perfect but I think my conclusions were based on good evidence. They were

There is marked variation in LA website accessibilities, some having very few accessibility features. It seems no Scottish local government website is ‘perfectly’ accessible while a signicant number do not follow a national standard, the Scottish Navigation List. [1]

Continue reading →

IL-DEM post 3

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

Here’s our third post about the Information Literacy for Digital Engagement project. You can follow this and related work at Community, Knowledge, Connections, and via @Community_Knect.

ILDEM post 3: Diamonds in the rough – modelling information literacy and lifelong learning

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

img_0371-1

Here’s our third post about the Information Literacy for Digital Engagement project. You can follow this and related work at Community, Knowledge, Connections, and via @Community_Knect.

We interrupt this broadcast…

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

… or, rather, tales of my doings to showcase some of the fine work my Napier colleagues are doing.

Hat-tip to Lindsay Jenkins for this presentation.

Looking ahead

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

I’m leaving Napier for 6 months at the end of tomorrow to pursue some personal interests. However, it’s very reassuring to know that I have some work to come back to. I’ll be working with Peter Cruickshank and Hazel Hall, investigating levels of digital and information literacy within Scotland’s Community Council system in a project entitledInformation Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM). The award has been granted by the CILIP Information Literacy Group.

Hazel has blogged about the project’s aims and objectives, so it only remains for me to say that I’m looking forward to venturing into a slightly different research focus, while still working on aspects of Scotland’s hyperlocal democracy.

There may be some different research methods too, thus increasing my research skills, although the work will centre on understanding how people learn to use technology away from conventional education. In that sense, the work is likely to of interest to anyone concerned with helping people who struggle to make the best of their personal IT.

So I’ll be working with great colleagues, on interesting and practically useful things. What’s not to like?

Wise words and mega maps

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

Leah Lockhart, social media advisor and all-round good egg, has been blogging about fears and barriers in public services on LinkedIn. Here are her thoughts on fears people have about being abused online, fears around negotiating online identity, fears digital champions have about inertia generally but especially in hierarchical leadership and finally about fears around BYOD.

Thanks also to ‘Lelil’ for drawing me to Leah’s tale of how to use topical hashtags to draw extra traffic to community council Tweets.

Well worth a read for any CC member (or any other elected member or public servant) involved in digital engagement with their citizens, in my opinion.

Continue reading →

Digital engagement workshops report

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Bruce Ryan

We’ve published our report on the autumn digiCC workshops – you can find it on the national website for CCs at http://www.communitycouncils.scot/read-the-report-of-the-digital-engagement-workshops.html and in the library belonging to the KnowledgeHub group for CC members at https://khub.net/documents/10440977/0/2015+digiCC+workshops+report. (You’ll need to join the KnowledgeHub and then the CC members group to access that library.) Continue reading →

Bruce's IT-ish world

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