Browsing by Author "Mwiiyale, Jakobina M."

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    Developing information literacy education for first-year students at two universities
    (Tampere University Press, 2012) Asplund, Janika; Mwiiyale, Jakobina M.; Karsten, Siegfriede; Tapio, Saija
    Information literacy (IL) is considered to be an important part of the skills acquired by university students during their studies, and university libraries have developed their instruction to help students achieve this. Tampere University (UTA) Library follows the national IL recommendation (See Recommendation for Universities) in its teaching. In the recent curricula change of the University the Teaching council stipulated IL as a compulsory subject for all students of UTA. All UTA students now have equal opportunities for IL education during different phases of their studies. This has entailed modifying an existing IL course into one more suitable for teaching larger numbers of students. Information specialists of the Library have also participated in university pedagogy training, which has served to strengthen the theoretical basis of their own work and also occasioned substantial changes in the course. The University of Namibia (UNAM) Library is in the process of developing and harmonizing their IL education. Since Finland is regarded as one of the leading countries in IL matters (UNESCO 2005, cited in Walton & Hepworth 2011), we wanted to share our experiences of developing IL education and thus contribute to the knowledge base of academic libraries, and more specifically to see if there was something useful to be learned from the experiences of UTA Library’s development of an IL course for first-year students. In this chapter we introduce the IL course for first-year students at UTA and the teamwork model we used to develop it. As a theoretical framework, we found it especially useful to apply the principles of constructive alignment in our pedagogical developments in IL education. We also discuss whether some of the content and teaching methods of this course could be applied to the present Namibian academic context.
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    Developing information literacy skills within a virtual reference system
    (2016) Mwiiyale, Jakobina M.
    Abstract: The purpose of this study was to instigate the development of information literacy skills within a Virtual Reference System at the University of Namibia (UNAM) Library. An empirical survey was carried out between February and March 2015 using a quantitative approach to investigate how the UNAM Library could improve undergraduate students’ information literacy training using Web 2.0 tools. The author’s insights and understanding of the phenomenon studied was guided by a positivism paradigm and educational learning theories. Data was collected using a close-ended questionnaire, administered to a sample of 352 undergraduate students registered for more than 12 months at all UNAM campuses. An IBM SPSS statistical data analysis version 22 was used to analyse the collected data. Findings showed that although enquiries related to circulation co-activities; access to lecture`s notes and course materials dominated Reference Desk. A total of 36.9% possessed “a fair to moderate” knowledge and skills in searching the library bibliographic system (OPAC) and e-resources databases particularly those at third and fourth year level of study. The study also showed that there is a greater usage of laptops and mobile phones to access internet-based information at the university. Findings revealed that instant interactive services such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube were the most used Web 2.0 tools by undergraduate students. The study therefore recommends that UNAM Library should integrate these Web 2.0 tools into the information literacy program to add value to undergraduate students’ academic knowledge acquisition and skills development processes. The study further recommends that future studies need to evaluate the usability and impact of the UNAM Library Website as well as Web 2.0 tools on students’ undergraduate academic performance.