The effectiveness of a virtual Information Literacy programme for first ...

[Pages:21]The effectiveness of a virtual Information Literacy programme for first year law students at the University of Venda.

Maropene Ramabina

Area of the study

Background of the study

Limpopo Province, Vhembe District, Thohoyandou town 17 000 students in 2021 Four (4) Faculties

1. Faculty of Management, Commerce and Law 2. Humanities, Social Sciences and Education 3. Faculty of Science, Engineering and Agriculture 4. Faculty of Health Sciences Univen Library has forty (40) staff (Librarians and Library Assistants) Univen Law Library has four (4) staff Main customers of the law library: forty (40) Law Academics and 1200 Law students (level 1 to postgraduate).

University's strategic objectives supported

To enhance student well-being and success To enhance the curriculum and improve graduateness To enhance teaching and learning support To enhance research outputs for innovation and impact To strengthen the engagements of students, staff and community

University motto: creating future leaders

Information literacy

Goal of the research study ?to impart / transfer skills of finding and evaluating information on first year law students (Independent researchers).

Information literacy is the "ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed views and to engage fully with society" (CILIP, 2018: 3).

Legal research ? students are shown how to carry out their legal research (not teaching students content of books) (Toteng, Hoskins and Bell, 2011)

Virtual Infolit Programme @ Univen

Univen Library closed (malfunctioning air conditioners) Shift from print to electronic information @ Univen (subscription & free electronic databases to locate legal information). "Access to, and critical use of information and information technology, is absolutely vital for lifelong learning, and accordingly no graduate; indeed no person, can be judged educated unless he or she is information literate and, to an extent, computer literate as well" (Candy, 1994)

Cnossen and Smith(1997) stated that the practice of law is becoming increasingly reliant on electronic sources of information. According to Trosow (2004: 63), the law, by its nature, is information-intensive and access to legal resources has been greatly facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICTs).

If librarians did not train end-users sufficiently in the use of electronic resources there would be an access paradox (Secker 2004: 56).

Content of Univen Information Literacy

programme

CONTENT

COVERAGE

1. Univen Catalogue / Discovery / Primary Searching for print Books, Past exam

and secondary sources of law

papers, Learning Guides, Classnotes etc

2. Online Journal Databases for research Sabinet, EbscoHost, Google Scholar,

articles

SAFLII etc

3. Univen Law eBooks and IR 4. Print Materials from the law library

5. Electronic law reports 6. Referencing 7. Plagiarism

Law eBooks and Masters and PhD papers

Textbooks, Law Reports, Juta Statute of SA (Video on Youtube). Jutaonline, LexisNexis, SAFLII etc.

Microsoft word, Endnote, Bibliography

Turnitin and copyright

Platform

Methodology

Virtual (Microsoft Teams) One Face to Face (Physical 100 Indoors)

Number of students (Introduction to the Theory 311 (Divided into 6 groups, 10 sessions). April-

of Law ? INT 1141 2021)

June 2021

Assessments / Assignment

INT 1141 Law Library Test (Average pass 79.4%) INT 1141 Special Test

Summarise a case: Mphephu v MphephuRamabulana and Others (948/17) [2019] ZASCA 58; [2019] 3 All SA 51 (SCA); 2019 (7) BCLR 862 (SCA) (12 April 2019) Turnitin

Moodle Platform (235 Wrote): ()

75 students wrote (311 wrote)

Credit-bearing (Univen School of Law Calender 2021)

INT 1141 Evaluation Survey on Google Forms

10% towards the semester marks for INT 1141 Course

VMN6wImXvwf5uATh8NaKJHGQ5Nyy7tUY/edit #responses )

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