Digital literacy in practice: Developing an interactive and accessible open educational resource based on the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy

Abstract

As part of a review of the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum at Leeds Metropolitan University, digital literacy was formally adopted as a graduate attribute in 2011. Libraries and Learning Innovation (LLI) have since been working on ways to improve the digital literacy of staff and students through a variety of means including promotion of Open Educational Resources (OER). This paper deals with one of those projects: the use of Xerte Online Toolkits (XOT) to create interactive resources which are supported by mobile devices. This ongoing project is truly collaborative, with members of academic staff and library staff (academic librarians, learning technologists and the repository developer) working together to create useful tools to support learning. The XOT project resulted from an audit by the university’s Open Educational Resources Group (led by LLI) which identified a need for mobile-friendly tutorials. From this, an interactive tutorial focussing on the SCONUL 7 Pillars of Information Literacy was developed. With the addition of new software to create interactive subject guides, the project aims to create more interactive resources to support students’ digital literacy.