Recent Submissions

  • Digital literacy for all: Reflections on creating a short course in digital literacy

    Byrne, Ann; O'Dowd, Irene; Davey, Emberly (2024)
    In 2023, a small team at Hibernia College, composed of library staff and the digital learning department researcher, took the initiative to develop an online asynchronous digital literacy course for the college and wider community. This poster will address the rationale, process and outcomes of developing the digital literacy course. The availability of the course as an OER will be discussed, highlighting our interest in contributing to digital citizenship and the SDGs. The poster will also highlight some possible future directions that could develop and build on the work done to date. The poster was presented at the CILIP Ireland/LAI Annual Joint Conference held in Newry, from Wednesday 24th April to Thursday 25th April 2024. It was also presented at the ILTA EdTech Conference held in Sligo, from 30th May to 31st May 2024. It won Best Poster at the CONUL Conference held in Belfast, from Wednesday 29th May - Thursday 30th May 2024.
  • Digital literacy for all: reflections on creating a short course in digital literacy

    Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly; O'Dowd, Irene (2024)
    Presented at the A&SL LAI Conference, 21st of March 2024, Dublin, Ireland. In today’s internet-dominated interconnected world, where anyone with a phone can publish something and share it worldwide, critically assessing the integrity of information has never been more important or more challenging, and to do this successfully requires digital literacy skills. Inspired by global initiatives such as the United Nations SDGs and the European Commission’s DigComp framework, we created an open digital educational resource to help foster digital literacy within our institution and beyond. This project ties in with an ongoing academic integrity project within our institution; it also coincides with the increasing availability of generative artificial intelligence systems that can potentially spread misinformation at scale. In this context, we feel the project is a very timely one. In this paper, we reflect on the process of developing the course, share what we have learned along the way, and indicate future directions for the project.
  • Turning our critical faculties up to eleven: reflections on creating a short course in digital literacy

    O'Dowd, Irene; Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly (2023)
    “I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything.” (David St Hubbins) Approaching life like David St Hubbins from This Is Spinal Tap (1984) was all very well back in the 1980s, but it is a less good idea in today’s internet-dominated interconnected world, where anyone with a phone can publish anything and beam it around the world. Critically assessing the integrity of information has never been more important or more challenging, and to do this successfully requires digital literacy skills. Inspired by global initiatives such as the United Nations SDGs and the European Commission’s DigComp framework, we created an open digital educational resource to help foster digital literacy within our institution and beyond. This project ties in with an ongoing academic integrity project within our institution; it also coincides with the increasing availability of generative artificial intelligence systems that can potentially spread misinformation at scale. In this context, we feel the project is a very timely one. In this paper, we reflect on the process of developing the course, share what we have learned along the way, and indicate future directions for the project.
  • Digital literacy OER

    O'Dowd, Irene; Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly; Hibernia College (2024)
    Digital literacy refers to the effective use of digital media platforms when finding, evaluating and communicating information. This involves a variety of technical and cognitive skills and competencies. The aim of this course is to introduce three key facets of digital literacy and increase your skills and competencies in these areas. The course has three lessons: Information literacy, Digital wellness and identity, and Communication and collaboration. This course is shared as an OER which can be reused, adapted or built upon for educational purposes. This OER is licenced under CC BY-NC 4.0. If you have any queries about this OER please contact iasc@hiberniacollege.net
  • If You Build It, They Might or Might Not Come: How We Became Repository Detectorists

    O'Dowd, Irene; Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly (2023-06-20)
    Developing faculty and staff engagement with a new open-access institutional repository (IR) is a challenge often underestimated during IR implementation projects. The idea that “if you build it, they will come” does not reflect the reality of establishing a successful IR in a third-level institution (Ferreira et al., 2008). Factors that hinder the adoption of open-access IRs are many and varied, and a multi-pronged approach is required both to gain an understanding of these factors and develop a strategy to address them (Narayan and Luca, 2017; Tmava, 2022). For those involved in IR implementation projects, having surmounted the considerable hurdles of securing approval and funding for an IR and then developing the platform, the need for the development of such a strategy often comes as quite a surprise. However, it is arguably the most important part of ensuring a successful IR implementation. In this presentation, the genesis and continuing evolution our own IR engagement strategy will be reflected upon and our learnings shared for the benefit of those at a similar or earlier stage of the open-access IR journey. Crucial to our professional journey has been the process of replacing the hubristic “if you build it” metaphor with one suggesting a more incremental and infinitely less glamorous approach to the problem. Inspired by a popular television series (Crook, 2014-2022), we reflect on the role of IR administrators less as architects and more as detectorists. Informed by the reflective model of Experience, Reflection, Action (Jasper, 2013) and guided by Holliday’s (2017) thinking on the power of metaphor in theory and practice, we present a story of lofty idealism giving way to scuttling skullduggery; of the painful metaphorical journey from building a magnificent baseball stadium to squelching through a muddy field with a metal detector. It is also a story of how we were (almost) desperate enough to dress up in fish onesies and jump into the Liffey.
  • Establishing an Institutional Repository:​ The story of IASC

    Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly; O'Dowd, Irene (2023)
    Presentation delivered at the LAI/CILIP Joint Annual Conference 2023
  • Enhancing Student Access and Engagement: A Reading List Migration Project

    Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly (2023)
    Poster presented at the LAI/CILIP Joint Annual Conference 2023
  • Institutional Repositories: The HECA Experience

    Byrne, Ann; Zorzi, Debora; Tiernan, O'Sullivan; Ni Bhraonain, Dimphne (2022-11-15)
    A presentation given by the HECA Library Group at the inaugural HECA Research Conference, held in Griffith College, Dublin on November 15th, 2022. The presentation addresses the experience of HECA colleges in setting up and maintaining institutional repositories. It also addresses some of the challenges faced by repository users and managers, as well as the opportunities they provide to researchers and institutions.
  • Developing a student-centred approach to academic referencing support for postgraduate distance learners

    O'Dowd, Irene; Byrne, Ann (2022)
    Poster presented at IFLA WLIC in Dublin 26th to 29th July 2022.
  • Enhancing student access and engagement: a reading list migration project

    Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly (2022)
    The poster was presented at IFLA WLIC in Dublin in July 2022. In late 2021 Hibernia College library began migrating reading lists on the student VLE from PDF to EBSCO Curriculum Builder (CB) software. Following student surveys, an improvement in the student experience of reading lists was observed. The move reduced library staff's administrative load and improved reading list management. The migration project is in its final stages, but next steps will need to be considered.
  • Bridging the online support gap: developing academic referencing competences among remote-learner PME students

    O'Dowd, Irene; Byrne, Ann (2021)
    In Hibernia College, students are expected to take primary responsibility for maintaining academic integrity in their studies. However, lecturers and support staff have an important role to play in educating students about academic integrity and helping them develop the skills needed to practise it. This paper describes a project initiated by the Digital Learning Department (DLD) to improve the College’s online referencing supports, in response to the high volume of referencing queries being received daily by the Digital Librarian. Recent changes to the focus of capstone research projects on the PME programmes, combined with the move to fully online instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic, further highlighted the urgency of ensuring that these resources met students’ needs. The project consisted of a comprehensive update of the College’s core Referencing Guide and the delivery of a series of drop-in webinar workshops where referencing queries from students could be dealt with directly and specific problem areas addressed. The paper outlines the principles informing both the updating of the Referencing Guide and the structure of the online workshops. A preliminary analysis of library logs and student feedback survey data provides early indications of student engagement with and responses to these new supports.
  • Connecting Librarians: The HECA Library Group Pilot of the Professional Development Framework

    O'Neill, Marie; Alfis, Robert; Buggle, Jane; McKenna, Robert; Geraghty, Audrey; Buckley, Mary; Smyth, Justin; Ní Bhraonain, Dimphne; Hughes, David; Haugh, Trevor (2019)
    The Higher Education Colleges Association (HECA) represents the interests of fifteen private higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland. Its Committees include a Teaching and Learning Committee and a Library Committee (also known as the HECA Library Group). The Library Committee was invited by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning to pilot the Forum’s Professional Development Framework for all Those Who Teach in Higher Education to test its suitability for librarians. This chapter reports on the six-month pilot of the Framework, using feedback collected from two focus groups conducted in June 2017 at the close of the pilot and in April 2018. A significant finding is that use of the Framework has made private college librarians feel more connected to, and less “siloed’ from, other professionals in the higher education sector. The chapter explores the implications of this feedback for private college librarians, and librarians generally, in terms of their professional identity, professional practice and professional development.
  • Enhancing student access and engagement: a reading list migration project

    Byrne, Ann; Davey, Emberly (2022)
    This presentation details a migration project from PDF reading lists to online reading list software. The project was carried out by library staff at Hibernia College beginning in Autumn 2021.
  • Developing a student-centred approach to academic referencing support for postgraduate distance learners

    O'Dowd, Irene; Byrne, Ann (2021)
    Presentation on an academic referencing support initiative undertaken at Hibernia College, Dublin by Irene O'Dowd (Researcher with the Digital Learning Department) and Ann Byrne (College librarian). The presentation was delivered at the IADTU conference, held in Bari, Italy in November 2021.