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För psykologen är det viktigt att kunna söka fram och tillämpa relevant forskning i sitt yrkesliv. I Sveriges psykologförbunds ”Principer för evidensbaserad psykologisk praktik” (EBPP) är en del är att psykologen söker efter vetenskaplig information i arbetet med klienter. I högskoleförordningen (SFS 1993) finns det också krav på att studenter efter examen ska kunna läsa, söka, värdera och kritiskt tolka relevant information. 

Studenter vid psykologprogrammen efterfrågade ytterligare undervisning och praktisk träning inom informationssökning under utbildningen. Det finns sedan tidigare inslag av informationssökning på psykologprogrammen, det som efterfrågats är en tydligare progression av informationssökning över programmen. Ett tidigare samarbete mellan Umeå UB och psykologprogrammen har handlat om inhopp på enstaka föreläsningar och workshops på programmen. 

Ett utökat samarbete har sedan några år inletts med syftet att på ett mer systematiskt sätt införliva Umeå UB:s inslag i informationssökning. En tanke bakom samarbetet är att universitetslärare kan spara tid eftersom vissa av studenternas frågor kan fångas upp och besvaras vid undervisningstillfällena med bibliotekarien. En genomlysning gjordes av programledningen för psykologprogrammen och Umeå UB för att se var undervisningen passade in på programmet genomfördes, vilket ligger i linje med tidigare forskning (Lokse et al, 2017). 

En plan med progression utarbetades där undervisning i informationssökning och referenshantering sker i anslutning till att studenterna har ordinarie uppgifter på termin 1, 4, 6 och 9. Arbete med progression och att informationssökning är knutet till det aktuella ämnet har genomförts på andra lärosäten i Sverige med goda resultat och förbättrad kvalité på studentuppsatser (Ejdebäck & Wickenber 2022; Näverå & Olsson 2022). 

Återkoppling på kursutvärderingar på programmen har varit positiva och inslagen som Umeå UB har stått för har upplevts som relevanta och kopplingen till inslag i den aktuella kursen har varit naturlig och hjälpsam. Progressionen har ännu inte kunnat utvärderats på psykologprogrammen i Umeå eftersom ingen studentkull har gått igenom alla ”steg”. 

I skrivande stund så planeras för att utöka samarbetet och även innefatta akademiskt skrivande under utbildningen. Psykologstudenter har höga antagningspoäng, men även dessa studenter har behov att stärka sin akademiska literacitet genom progression och att involvera skrivpedagoger från Umeå UB.

Referenser

Ejdebäck, & Wickenberg, M. (2022). Progression inom informationskompetens och utveckling av studenters akademiska skrivande. NU2022, Nätverk och Utveckling, Att synliggöra lärande, Stockholm. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-21724

Lokse, M., Lag, T., Solberg, M., Andreassen, H. N., & Stenersen, M. (2017). Teaching information literacy in higher education: Effective teaching and active learning. Chandos Publishing.

Näverå, & Olsson, A. K. (2022). Library-faculty collaboration in the light of a business administration bachelor’s program: ‘The Scientific Wave. Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education, 13(1), 39–55. https://doi.org/10.15845/noril.v13i1.3781

SFS 1993:100. Högskoleförordning. Utbildningsdepartementet. Hämtad 2021-06-10 https://riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/hogskoleforordning1993100_sfs-1993-1

Studenters svårigheter med att leva upp till krav inom högre utbildning gällande språkkunskaper och skrivande har under senare år uppmärksammats (Garberding, 2019; Börjesson et al, 2021; Grönvall, 2015). Studentgrupperna är idag mer heterogena som en följd av bl.a. utbyggnad av högskolan samt breddad rekrytering. Under senare år har lärare vid institutionen för socialt arbete uppmärksammat att studenter behöver allt mer stöd för att kunna uttrycka sig på en godtagbar och förståelig svenska, samt i att skriva akademiska texter. Utöver det akademiska skrivandet måste studenterna kunna läsa, söka, värdera och kritiskt tolka relevant information, i enlighet med de krav som ställs för en kandidatexamen (SFS 1993:100) Dessa akademiska färdigheter är nära sammanlänkade med det akademiska skrivandet och studenterna behöver träna sig parallellt i båda delarna (Eklund-Heinonen et al., 2018; Eklund Heinonen & Sköldvall, 2015).

Socialt arbete har sedan länge ett samarbete med Studieverkstaden vid Umeå UB gällande undervisning i informationssökning. Under senare år har diskussioner förts om hur samarbetet kan utökas, då vi ser bristande kunskaper bl.a. i hanteringen av vetenskapliga källor, referenshantering och parafrasering. Det medför merarbete både för studenter, lärare och Studieverkstaden, det leder till misslyckanden i studierna och ibland också misstankar om plagiat.

Att ämnesintegrera undervisning om akademiskt skrivande har lyfts fram under senare år, men forskning om hur det kan ske på bästa sätt är ännu sparsam (Eklund-Heinonen et al 2018). Studier visar även att studenters lärande i informationssökning fungerar bäst när det är integrerat i kurser (Lokse et al., 2017; Smith, 2003) och att undervisning i informationssökning måste ske vid flera tillfällen (Kim & Sin, 2008). Sedan höstterminen 2020 har vi infört fler undervisningstillfällen i informationssökning och referenshantering på tre olika terminer. Alla undervisningstillfällen, där även ämneslärare ofta deltar, knyts till en specifik uppgift med koppling till kursens innehåll och bygger på aktivt studentdeltagande.

Granruth och Pashkova-Balkenhols (2018) studie visar att socionomstudenter som utvecklar sin informationskompetens (information literacy) också utvecklar sitt skrivande. Som ett led i att stötta studenterna i det akademiska skrivandet har även ett samarbete med Studieverkstaden inletts, där inslagen sker parallellt med undervisning i informationssökning i termin 1 och 3 och oftast knutet till samma uppgift. Presentationen kommer att konkretisera arbetet med att stötta socionomstudenterna i att utveckla sina akademiska färdigheter.

Our presentation discusses the practices and findings from a PhD workshop series at the Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University Library, Sweden. The partnership between librarians, writing tutors/researchers in supporting PhD research has recently become a new reality with Information Literacy courses offered as tools for resources and searching (Hassani, 2015; Paasio & Hintikka, 2015; Garson,2016). The insights from our course contribute to this literature by re-conceptualizing “academic literacy”, including Information Literacy, in doctoral education.

Adopting Academic Literacies (Lea & Street, 1998, 2006) as our workshops’ underlying framework, we propose literacy beyond individual, transferable cognitive skills of writing and reading. Rather, it is an interrelated, dynamic, and situated set of knowledge, skills, and personal attributes that help PhD students acculturate into disciplinary discourses, the academic community, and wider social contexts.

Our course approaches literacy holistically as comprising Research competence, Information literacy, and Academic English, with consideration to social processes (power, identity, and authority). The workshops cover critical reading, the literature review, writing abstract, communicating research and writing papers, but the PhD students are also encouraged to make sense of their writing by having critical, inquiry-based reflections about themselves, academia, and social discourses.

The results from the first three workshop seasons emphasize knowledge co-creation – between academic librarians and researchers, and between workshop instructors and PhD students, as one key principle in developing academic literacies. The findings indicate that Information Literacy can be seen beyond tools and resources but rather a springboard that stimulates PhD students’ critical thinking in their becoming researchers. The positive feedback from the participants also gives the rationale for the expanding roles of the library (Delaney and Bates, 2018). These workshops have strengthened our belief that collaboration is one important strategy for librarians and writing tutors/researchers to acquire the skills of the future.

This presentation reports on the process of developing and implementing a workshop series for PhD students at the Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University, launched for the first time during the spring term 2017. Adopting an academic literacies model (Lea & Street, 1998, 2006) as the framework for the course's underlying principles, its design and instruction, we propose that literacy in a university setting and especially at doctoral level can be understood not only as the individual, transferable cognitive skills of writing and reading. Rather, it is an interrelated, dynamic, and situated set of knowledge, skills, and personal attributes that support PhD students to acculturate themselves into their disciplinary discourses, as well as the academic community and wider social contexts.

Lea and Street's (2006) academic literacies model draws from both the surface features of language form (the study skills model) and students' acculturation into a disciplinary and subject area community (the academic socialisation model). However, the academic literacies model moves beyond the academic socialisation model by considering social processes (such as power, identity, and authority). This model has been used in different higher education contexts, enabling the conceptualising and reconceptualising of the knowledge students should learn and do with regards to academic writing and reading (e.g. Wingate, 2012; Castanheira, Street, & Carvalho, 2015; Guzmán-Simón, García-Jiménez, & López-Cobo, 2017).

In the particular setting of Umeå University, the Academic Resource Centre, University Library is the unit who provides academic support to students at all levels, including PhD students. From our experience as academic tutors, academic librarians and researchers working with the University's doctoral students, we were able to identify their need for support not only with thesis texts written in English but also a range of capabilities such as article reading, research communicating, information searching, and publishing. These needs have also been expressed by PhD students themselves. As a result, the workshop series "Write here, Write now" was developed and implemented by the Academic Resource Centre during March – May 2017. Informed by the academic literacies model, a number of factors were considered as we approached writing. Besides the focus of helping students to improve their academic English, we wished to highlight that writing is a process which involves a myriad of competence, and it is a social practice rather than merely an individual cognitive skill. Above all, we aspired to develop a course that aligns with the national goals for Swedish PhD education which are set beyond the final thesis; the aim is to educate a critical, autonomous, creative, and responsible PhD researcher (Swedish Higher Education Ordinance, Annex 2, Qualifications Ordinance). The course should also be designed following the fundamental principles of teaching and learning in higher education that promote critical thinking, active learning, learner autonomy, and collaborative learning.

In our presentation, we will show how these aspirations have helped us with our attempts at defining "literacy" in PhD education at Umeå University as lying at the intersection of English language, research competence, and Information literacy. Examples of how we incorporated the intended contents and guiding principles in our pedagogical practices will be provided. Reflections on our roles as instructors and further implications regarding policy on PhD education in the Swedish context will also be discussed.

Printed material is no longer the only source for information. The media landscape of today consists more and more of films, vlog and video. Despite this, printed sources are often the only referred to in the students' academic work. Umeå University Library conducted interviews and workshops with student groups from different disciplines. From this we learned that the library can play a crucial role to facilitate guidance to evaluate the reliability and credibility of films and how to cite different online sources.

Together with HUMlab we aim to develop a new way of guiding the students in source criticism, both in technical and pedagogical aspects.

Writing center tutors and librarians share in the goal of helping students with the recursive processes of writing and researching. Nevertheless, few writing centers that are located in university libraries work collaboratively, but rather simply share a location.

Research from the US shows that collaboration can take different forms, and while some of these may be readily transferable to European university systems, some will be challenging to implement. Also, this research tends to originate from librarians rather than writing consultants (Ferer, 2012).

Umea University is unusual in that it works collaboratively. Drawing on our experience, we will provide a Swedish university's perspective based on the collaboration between its Writing Centre and University Library. We explain how we work together to match students' writing and researching needs, the challenges in collaborating, and what future additional collaborations are possible. Finally, we raise the question, what more can we do to develop and maintain our collaboration?

Discussing best practices can provide valuable information to better meet the new generation of students. Research, thinking and writing go hand in hand. Rather than compartmentalizing these processes, writing tutors and librarians can work together with students to help them navigate these intricately linked processes. Collecting this expertise into one location allows students more comprehensive support and convenient access: "one-stop shopping" (Cooke & Bledsoe, 2008).

Writing centers and libraries can have an influence in the current reformation of higher education and should contribute to the discussion by promoting their strengths and sharing their respective knowledge (Elmborg, 2005). We hope to contribute to the conversation through our presentation.

Many academic libraries are asked to do more for less money. By reaching out to other academic services, for example, the writing centre, might make it easier to fulfil the expected goals placed upon the library by the University administration (Ferer, 2012). However, there are also pedagogical reasons for collaboration. Academic librarians and academic writing tutors who transcend the traditional organizational boundaries within a university can together provide a more integrated picture of information seeking and the writing process for their students. This team approach, which emphasizes helping students become independent and active learners, can strengthen their academic skills, such as information literacy, that are essential when attending university.

Nevertheless, in Sweden the few university libraries that house writing centres simply share a location rather than collaborate on a routine basis. Umeå University Library is unusual because the Library and Writing Centre are organized in the same unit, Scholarly Communication, and work as a team. Collecting this expertise into one location allows students more comprehensive support and convenient access: "one-stop shopping" (Cooke & Bledsoe, 2008). Drawing on our practices, we will describe Umeå University Library’s collaborative approach to teaching information literacy.

Academic librarians are taking a greater role as literacy educators in helping students create personal knowledge (Elmborg, 2006). This personal knowledge is then transferred into writing where students demonstrate their evaluation and understanding of sources and through writing enter the conversations in their field, thereby finding their own voice. Rather than compartmentalizing these information seeking and writing processes, librarians and writing tutors can work together with students to help them navigate and come to understand that these processes are intricately linked.