Open Password – Monday March 14, 2022
#1041
IDESA 2021 – Information Literacy for Democracy – Information Professionals – Civic Development – Bosnia and Herzegovina – Mario Hibert – University of Sarajevo – Emir Vajzovi? – Thomas Mandl – University of Hildesheim – Skills Required – Critical Thinking Skills – Libraries as Central Agents for Information Literacy – Train the Teachers – Sre?ko Jeluši? – Radical Personalization – Sanel Huski? – Wolf Schünemann – Regulation – NetzDG – Hate Speech – Balancing the Protection of Democracy and Undue Censorship – Media Control by Autocracies – Self-Regulation – Milijana Mi?unovi? – Krisitna Feldvari – University of Osijek – DECrisS – Open Educational Resources – COVID Crisis – Joachim Griesbaum – Theresa Woltermann – Uroš Kr?adinac – Singidunum University – Algorithm Art – Data Visualization – Alton Grizzle – UNESCO – Think Critically, Click Wisely – Information Literacy – Educational Program – Tom Mackey – SUNY Empire State College – Trude Jacobson – University Albany – Framework Integrating Visual and Cultural Aspects – Civic Values and Openness
WTI databases – Kathrin Höhner – UB of TU Dortmund – Crowdfunding – Potsdam Library Society – Perpetual Calendar – Potsdam City and State Library – Hans-Christoph Hobohm – Library and Information Society – AI-SDV – Early Bird Booking – Christoph Haxel – AI, text and Data Mining – Analytics – Digitization 2.0, Deep Learning, Visualization
- Title
IDESA 2021 Conference in Sarajevo: Information Literacy for Democracy – The Role of Information Professionals for Civic Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina – By Prof. Dr. Mario Hibert, University of Sarajevo – Prof. Dr. Emir Vajzovi?, University of Sarajevo – Prof. Dr. Thomas Mandl, University of Hildesheim
II.
Letters (1): WTI databases are often used
Letters (2): Crowdfunding for the 20th anniversary of the Potsdam Library Society
Letters (3): Early Bird Exhibition Booking for AI-SDV Conference
IDESA 2021 Conference in Sarajevo
Information Literacy for Democracy:
The Role of Information Professionals for Civic Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina
By Prof. Dr. Mario Hibert, University of Sarajevo – Prof. Dr. Emir Vajzovi?, University of Sarajevo – Prof. Dr. Thomas Mandl, University of Hildesheim
The interdisciplinary conference IDESA presented different perspectives on the notion of Information Literacy. All speakers agreed that Information Literacy is a key competence for informational autonomy in a digital environment. IDESA took place on November 28 and 29 in a hybrid mode in Sarajevo. It was funded by the DAAD. https://fpn.unsa.ba/b/information-literacy-and-democracy-idesa-2021/
In particular, the situation in Bosnia and Hercegovina was in the focus. This situation is characterized by much biased and partisan information. The University of Sarajevo works towards the installation of programs to support students in secondary education to improve their informational autonomy. A hybrid program is practically implemented in schools and their libraries within the Canton of Sarajevo. The conference topics were grouped around this educational program and its concepts.
The conference showed that several controversies exist in the field. A central practical question is related to the organizational setup. Should Information Literacy be taught as a separate subject or embedded into existing disciplines? Are the skills required for Information Literacy independent or can they only be developed together with competencies and knowledge in specific domains? Should Information Literacy be seen as a concept mainly related to search skills and competences as they are stated in the ACRL definition or does it refer to critical thinking skills in general? And finally, how and how strongly are the concepts comprising Information Literacy challenged by the digital world? This report will show in the following which facets of Information Literacy were discussed and how these controversial topics were approached by the presenters.
The authors of this article (from left to right):
Prof. Dr. Emir Vajzovic, Prof. Dr. Mario Hibert and Prof. Dr. Thomas Mandl. In the Faculty of Political Science, University of Sarajevo
The conference was organized by the Department for Information Science and the Department for Political Science of the University of Sarajevo and this cooperation also shows that Information Literacy is not considered as a narrow topic. The question on how to improve Information Literacy was practically and theoretically approached by the team from the University of Sarajevo and the resulting educational program mentioned above are described in a book (Vajzovi? et al. 2021).
_____________________________________________________
Libraries as Central Agents for Information Literacy Providing Support for a Radical Personalization.
_____________________________________________________
The program was disseminated to 35 librarians throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the year 2021. This training of the teachers led to a final workshop on November 28 which marked the first day of the IDESA event. This program empowers librarians and implements an integration of information literacy into other subjects. Presentations by external experts complemented the program. Juanjo Boté from the Universitat de Barcelona explained basics of Multimedia in Education. Martina Dragija Ivanovi? from the University of Zadar provided the perspective of Information Literacy education in Croatia.
On the second day, the IDESA conference opened with a review and a presentation of the book delivered by Sre?ko Jeluši?, who is a retired professor from the University of Osijek and the University of Zadar. He emphasizes the strong theoretical background of the book and he educational program which are deeply rooted in the vision of an egalitarian society. Sre?ko Jeluši? showed how theories of media have impacted the work of the authors and mentioned Rafael Capurro, Max Weber, Marshall McLuhan, Jacques le Goff and Manual Castells. It is important to view the digital world as something that is being produced and programmed and not as something that happens and needs to be accepted. Sre?ko Jeluši? views libraries as central agents for Information Literacy and he pointed out that even Nicholas Belkin as a representative of a strong computational approach to Information Science has supported this view recently. Libraries are necessary according to Belkin to reduce the number of choices for users and they should provide support for a radical personalization.
_____________________________________________________
Balancing the Protection of Democracy and Undue Censorship. Or did Democracies Learn Media Control from Autocracies?
_____________________________________________________
The following talk by Sanel Huski? from the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Sarajevo further elaborated on the concept of Information Literacy and the successfully implemented educational program within the canton of Sarajevo. He showed how the UNESCO guidelines for Information and Media Literacy were adapted to the local and regional needs. This led to a highly integrated, cross-curricular design. The program considers the digital reality of the learners and is situated around dynamic digital objects. It promotes active learners and inquiry-based learning. Sanel Huski? also described the policy development process and its challenges.
Wolf Schünemann from the Institute for Political Science at the University of Hildesheim moved the discussion to the level of regulation of online content and elaborated on the disinformation dilemma in liberal democracies. Knowledge about regulation and governmental influence on online content are certainly also a goal for information literacy. Within the last few years, countries have tended to implement more and more models for online information control. The NetzDG law in Germany for limiting online hate speech can be seen as an example and Wolf Schünemann introduced examples from other democratic countries. He emphasizes that regulating media content remains a balancing act for law makers. They need to find a balance between the protection of democracy and undue censorship. Lately, even the hypothesis of a diffusion has been proposed: Did democracies learn media control from autocracies? Wolf Schünemann further elaborated on the relationship of these laws to self-regulation by house rules of the platforms and related his topic to international relations and foreign disinformation campaigns which are intended to de-stabilize countries. Finally, he introduced a typology of democratic speech regulation.
_____________________________________________________
The Use of Open Educational Resources is Not Widespread and Many Barriers Remain.
_____________________________________________________
Milijana Mi?unovi? and Kristina Feldvari from the University of Osijek shifted the focus to a specific topic and the Information Literacy of university professors to find, adapt and use online learning resources. They presented first results of the DECriS project (decris.ffos.hr) which intends to analyze the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in teaching within Information Science institutions in Europe. DECriS also intends to identify ways to improve the use of OER. The first question was whether institutions for higher education have really shifted towards open and digital education during the COVID crisis. A questionnaire study among university professors among LIS schools shows how OER are used and integrated into teaching practice. The results are collected in the long report which is available at the project site. It shows that the use of OER is not widespread and that many barriers remain.
Joachim Griesbaum and Theresia Woltermann from the University of Hildesheim reported on the results of an international online course which was focused on teaching Information Literacy to students from India, the USA, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Germany. They reported how this course was organized, presented the infrastructure and the tools and showed how students were working groups with participants from different countries. In a final workshop with international speakers and student presentations, the results were shown. Students reported that they had a very good experience and professors observed a low dropout rate.
_____________________________________________________
Algorithmic Art, Data Visualization and Meta Literacy,
_____________________________________________________
Uroš Kr?adinac from Singidunum University from Belgrade brought in a completely different perspective and showed how data literacy can be combined and enhanced art, algorithms and visualization. He offers a course online as well as in presence which enables children to create algorithmic art (krcadinac.com). A Java-Script system is used to teach the creation of artistic designs with very low barriers. Uroš Kr?adinac emphasizes that such courses can be applied within different subjects such as Mathematics, Art and Computer Science. He elaborated on the theoretical basis within data visualization.
Alton Grizzle from the UNESCO in Paris spoke about the UNESCO programs for Media and Information Literaty which adopted the slogan “Think Critically, Click Wisely”. He discussed the challenges for freedom of expression due to the rise of content moderation regulations. Alton Grizzle emphasizes the importance of the international flow of information across cultures and how important video and audio have become for Information Literacy education. The policy and strategy for creating Media and Information Literacy guidelines within the UNESCO were elaborated. Alton Grizzle illustrated very nicely how easy one may neglect critical thinking skills. He told an anecdote when he was finding a beautiful online video of two minutes which explained the recipe for a chicken dish. He got emotionally involved and thought that he could prepare the dish with the same ease as presented in the video. However, it took him many hours and he reflected that the video from a social media platform had an immediate impact and led to completely wrong assumptions about reality even for a trained and critical person. And Mario Hibert from the University of Sarajevo presented the current status and the future plans for the implementation of the Information Literacy educational program. They showed plans to further establish the program within the region.
Tom Mackey form SUNY Empire State College and Trudi Jacobson from the University at Albany (USA) presented their model for Meta-Literacy as a framework for Information Literacy. They used Blooms taxonomy as a basis and stressed that many current courses are focused too much on basic search skills and purely on text. Mackey and Jacobson argue that their Meta-Literacy model is better suited to integrate visual and cultural aspects and the requirements of connected digital environments. Their model integrates the importance of the individual as a producer of information and promotes civic values and openness. This model is highly flexible and adaptable. However, it needs to be analyzed how well it can serve concrete educational goals.
Letters (1)
WTI databases are often used
“Dear Mr. Bredemeier,
…I am very grateful for the reporting in Open Password about WTI – we enjoyed using the databases frequently and were only informed about the insolvency thanks to Open Password.”
Kind regards
Kathrin Höhner, University Library of the Technical University of Dortmund
Several other letters have been received in response to Open Password’s recent reporting – with very similar messages and the same tendency.
Letters (2)
Crowdfunding for the 20th anniversary
of the Potsdam Library Society
Dear friends and supporters,
I am turning to you (or you) with a personal request.
With my retirement, I enjoyed the voluntary work of activating the support association of the city and state library, the “Potsdamer Bibliotheksgesellschaft eV”. The club is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and has neither become younger nor significantly more active since it was founded in 2002 due to the threat of cuts at the SLB. I would like to change that. One project is to offer a series of events for members on the occasion of the anniversary year, another is to produce a large-format (perpetual) calendar with attractive photos from the state library’s holdings. We are working here with well-known partners from Potsdam – in addition to the SLB itself – and are confident that the result will be really good.
However, as a small association, we cannot easily co-finance the project and therefore came up with the idea of acquiring additional funds via the crowdfunding platform of Stadtwerke Potsdam . This offer has already been used quite successfully for other support campaigns in Potsdam, for example for the Potsdam Museum Support Association. You can find out more about this on our website: bibliotheksgesellschaft-potsdam.de .
With this in mind, I would like to ask you very warmly to make a contribution to the success of our campaign:
https://www.potsdam-crowd.de/bibliothekskalender
A considerable sum has already been raised. I think the nature of the project alone will show how high the acceptance of libraries is in our world – and personal support and for passing on information to friends and acquaintances. Of course, membership is always welcome.
Warm spring greetings – stay healthy and confident!
Hans Christoph / Hobohm
Prof. Dr. Hans-Christoph Hobohm, library and information science, www.hobohm.info /
Letters (3)
Early Bird Exhibition Booking
for AI-SDV Conference
Dear colleagues,
The show must go on – physically and/or online. Please take that on board and make your positive plans for 2022. The call for papers is open and Early Bird Exhibition Booking with special prices is possible… more @ www.ai-sdv.com
AI-SDV brings together specialists in scientific and technical information, who want to update themselves and learn the latest from practitioners and technology specialists working in the field of AI, text and data mining, analytics, digitization 2.0, deep learning, visualization, etc. The conference is an integral part of a two-day event of learning, networking and exploring technologies and concepts that are changing the way individuals and organizations work, rest and play.
Conference topics may include, but are not limited to:
- User – vendor case study relating to successful software implementation
- AI, machine learning, machine translation and deep learning
- New tools for competitive intelligence
- Search engine development, personalization, recommendation engines, collaborative filtering
- Scraping content, semantic technologies
- New visualization tools and mapping
- Innovative tools for analyzing or manipulating big data including news analysis
- Text and data mining tools
- Advances in text searching and analysis such as patent, techno-economic and news searching), mining, mapping and analysis
- User identification and testing new information tools
- Training and adoption
The conference includes plenary sessions, expert panels and product updates from practitioners, vendors and subject matter specialists.
Presentation submissions should include:
- An engaging title
- Short descriptive abstract – what attendees will take away from your talk
- Speaker biography (max 200 words)
News of new innovative products or beta versions with substantial upgrades may also be of interest to attendees.
Presentations accepted will be expected to make real contributions within the field of scientific, technical, business, patent and information searching, analysis and data mining – or in furthering the understanding of meeting participants within these areas. All presentations will be in plenary sessions to the full conference audience (virtually and/or physically) – there are no parallel or breakout sessions taking place. Conference language is English. Presenters receive one complimentary pass to the two-day conference (one registration per presentation). Speaker reimbursement is not normally provided.
Please send your proposals to Christoph Haxel at Dr. Haxel CEM GmbH ( c@haxel.com ). Deadline: June 30, 2022. However, we would also welcome proposals, suggestions, sponsorship inquiries, etc. prior to this date.
There are also a very limited number of exhibition (table-top) spaces available on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. Please contact the organizers early to secure a place. An additional benefit of exhibiting is that all exhibitors are provided with a short “product presentation” slot during the main conference.
I am looking forward to seeing you in nice Vienna – physically or online.
Kind regards Christoph (Haxel)
OpenPassword
Forum and news
for the information industry
in German-speaking countries
New editions of Open Password appear three times a week.
If you would like to subscribe to the email service free of charge, please register at www.password-online.de.
The current edition of Open Password can be accessed immediately after it appears on the web. www.password-online.de/archiv. This also applies to all previously published editions.
International Cooperation Partner:
Outsell (London)
Business Industry Information Association/BIIA (Hong Kong)
Open Password Archive – Publications
OPEN PASSWORD ARCHIVE
DATA JOURNALISM
Handelsblatt’s Digital Reach
MARKET TRENDS
Library Trends 2022
What are the key trends in the library market for 2022?
Online-Publications | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | GPT AI SEARCH
Print Archive | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000
