JISC

Intute enables learners at Darlington College to improve their information and online research skills.

Upgrading the skills

'Intute is pitched just right for FE students and helps them learn how to find good quality information quickly online' Intute is a free online service providing access to the very best web resources for education and research. All material is evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists to create the Intute database.

Darlington College has over 8000 students on courses ranging from entry level to foundation degrees and professional programmes in a University Centre. Many learners at all levels require basic online research skills in order to find good quality information quickly and efficiently to support their studies. The Learning Resource Centre uses the Intute services from JISC to support the development of information skills with increasing numbers of learners and staff using an online portal, supported by specialist workshops, training sessions in specific vocational areas, and general support and advice.

About Intute

Intute is a free online service originally developed for HE, but also of great interest to FE, providing access to the best web resources for education and research categorised into four main subject areas:

• Science and technology
• Arts and humanities
• Social science
• Health and life sciences

All material is evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists in the consortium of seven partner universities to create the Intute database. The database contains over 100,000 high quality websites and internet resources that are relevant to academic work that have been evaluated for quality and relevance.

Intute also offer innovative resources and services to help learners and practitioners in FE colleges develop their internet research skills. These include:

• The Virtual Training Suite (VTS), a set of free online tutorials to help learners make discerning use of the internet to find information for coursework and assignments, at a time and pace that suits them. All VTS tutorials are written and reviewed by qualified lecturers and librarians from across the UK.
• Internet Detective, an more advanced tutorial to develop the critical thinking required when using the internet for research and offering practical advice on evaluating the quality of websites. Internet Detective is now also available in Welsh.
• Informs, a flexible adaptive tool for the creation of interactive online tutorials
• Intute seminars and events either within a single college or through a JISC Regional Support Centre

Challenge

The school system is increasingly under pressure to meet assessment targets and the development of good research skills can be low on the agenda for many learners. This lack of skills can often lead to a lack of confidence in knowing where to start to look for information and learners are often not trained to be critical of sources of information that they do find. Search engines such as Google are often the first choice for learners wanting to find specific information on the web. However, when faced with a long list of search results learners often lack the skills to filter the information in those results to decide what is going to be appropriate or relevant.

Learners can often end up wasting a lot of time on fruitless and unproductive online searches or, since many young people expect immediate results and are not used to trawling and being selective to find the best information, they can end up with poor quality resources from inappropriate sites.

Solution

The Learning Resource Centre (LRC) team have the development of ‘information skills’ at the heart of their service for all staff and students at Darlington College and Intute services form an intrinsic part of this.

An increasing number of enrolled learners are offered an information skills induction by the LRC staff . These sessions use wireless enabled netbooks for internet access and cover topics such as, how to:

• search effectively for information, using both printed and online resources
• evaluate information
• cite references and compile a bibliography

Subject specific workshops can also be delivered based around specific assignments or vocational areas if required. Construction, health and social care, hairdressing, early years education, and outdoor adventure all featured in the programme in 2008/09.

Intute is used as the ‘portal’ for the first point of reference for searches and can be accessed by all learners through the LRC section of the College’s Virtual Learning Environment. The structure of the Intute site is seen as intuitive and user-friendly with not only fully vetted, up to date, and recommended sites but useful summaries sitting above more detailed information.

Impact on the learning provider

Demand for information skills workshops from LRS is already ‘beginning to snowball’. This is likely to increase as new qualifications such as Diplomas may be introduced with extended projects, in which research skills are explicitly required.

As Darlington is also planning to extend progression routes into HE with the Universities of Teeside, Sunderland and Huddersfield. For those learners preparing to go on the HE, information literacy will become even more central and is therefore likely to become embedded in even more Darlington College programmes in the future.

There are also plans for an introduction to the Intute portal and services to be offered to all staff as part of CPD.

Impact on the learner

Feedback indicates that 92% learners felt that information skills sessions and the introduction to Intute had been useful, stating that the skills learned would help them find reliable information quickly and effectively, and that this would help improve the quality of their work.

Our students may think they understand the internet, but they don’t understand how to use information, Jane Aiken (Learning resource centre manager)

In addition, tutors report that the sessions have been beneficial to their students in broadening their awareness of the importance of the quality of information used in assignments, and has proved that there are reliable alternatives to Google.

Even less confident adult learners are comfortable with the layout of Intute and the search facilities provided. Jane Aiken (Learning resource centre manager)

Key messages

1. Enhanced information and online research skills improve the quality of learning
2. Intute can be used to improve the information skills of learners and staff

Further information

Intute 

Darlington College