Sparking motivation: Integrated approaches to teaching research and digital literacy skills

In today's complex information environment, it is essential to facilitate university students' development of skills in finding, evaluating, and using information. However, learning outcomes and assessments that are meant to foster these skills are frequently set with in isolation, with only the final output (i.e., a paper or project) in mind, rather than the learning process (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). This presentation explores how educators, including unit coordinators and librarians, can work collaboratively to support the holistic development of research and digital literacy skills. A growing body of research evidence makes it clear that embedding or integrating research and digital skills into curriculum design is the most effective way to ensure that students can develop and apply them (e.g., Cope & Sanabria, 2014; Head, 2013; Lloyd, 2010). Therefore, it is essential to provide scaffolding for research and digital literacy skills development in the context of specific disciplines. A "one-shot library vaccine" simply is not effective. In this presentation, a view of undergraduate students' information behaviour will be offered, as informed by the presenters' experience and by research in library and information science. We will share best practices for sparking student engagement through the integration of research and digital literacy skills with curriculum design, including assesment and scaffolding of skills, with a focus on holistic collaborations between professors and librarians at UWA in various subject disciplines.