Information Use in Natural Habitats: A Comparative Study of Graduates in the Work Place in Ireland & Canada Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference UCD, 21-23 March 2016 Siobhán Dunne | DCU | @dunnesiobhan Margy MacMillan |MRU | @margymaclibrary Image source: http://www.starfm.com/tag/office/ Overview • Genesis of collaborative research • A look at the standards and literature • Methodology and ways of working • Analysis of findings • Future directions Genesis of our joint research • Resource development and close working relationship with journalism faculty already happening in DCU & MRU • Our professional connection led to a discussion around collaborative sharing of expertise • Benefit of symbiotic data analysis and recommendations COMM 3709 – Journalism Practice What the Organisations Say US, UK, and EU standards include aspects of IL e.g. European Journalism Training Association Tartu Declaration: The competence to find relevant issues and angles The competence to gather information swiftly Literature Review • ILI for Journalism - Diekerhof 2013; MacMillan 2014 • Workplace ILI - Hicks 2015; Head 2016 • What Journalists Actually Use - Agarwal & Barthel 2013; Zeller & Hermida 2015 Methodology • Ethics Approval • Access to population sample • Verifying instrument with journalists • Data collection • Data Analysis Year of Graduation DCU MRU DCU MRU I work in this format (please select all that apply) Print 51% Online 62% TV 7% Radio 11% Other 22% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Finding 1: Verification of information remains a substantial challenge for journalists “Resisting what the internet throws up, which is rarely, rarely the real story ” “In the digital age, everyone and their dog can publish content and call themselves "experts." There are pros to having the world of information at your fingertips, but it can prolong the research process that is if you're not the most experienced researcher or if you have strict guidelines for the kind of sources you can or cannot use” “Trying to verify breaking news on Twitter and other social media sites can be a challenge” Finding 2: Journalists are expected to produce several articles a day and this impacts finding and verifying sources “Investigative/research-based work is being pushed aside, and many print/online journalists could be expected to churn out five or six stories a day. This obviously impacts on the amount of research they can do” “So much of journalism (especially by recent JR graduates/those in junior roles) won't actually involve much research, and is generally more instantaneous and reactive” Finding 2: Journalists are expected to produce several articles a day and this impacts finding and verifying sources “You can't properly find information if your every day tasks take up every minute of your day”. “Speed. There's no real secret about where to get information anymore, it's how quickly you can source it!” “Lack of time available to do in-depth analysis was always my issue. I was never told not to cover a story but even the very best editors could not reallocate my coworkers to free up enough time to allow us to work on research heavy stories.” Spotlight on Sources (Finding 3) Sources we currently teach DCU MRU News • Nexis UK • Irish Times Digital Archive • Irish Newspaper Archive • Canadian Newsstand • Calgary News • Google News Data • Fame (company) • Passport (market research) • OECD iLibrary • CSO (statistics) • StatsCan • Associations Other • Communications & Mass Media Complete • Google • • • • CanLII (legal) Social Media Google Google Scholar Over to You How do you think our graduates answered these questions? 1. What were the top 5 sources used? 2. Since graduating, have you participated in further training in searching for information? Top 5 sources used for a standard story DCU 1. Twitter 2. Google* 3. Reports from News Orgs. 4. Press Releases 5. Facebook/My Organization MRU 1. My Organization 2. Reports from News Orgs. 3. Facebook 4. Other Organizations 5. Twitter Top 5 sources used for a story that took 1 day + DCU 1. Reports from News Orgs. 2. Google* 3. Other Organisations 4. My Organisation 5. Twitter MRU 1. My Organization 2. Other organisations 3. Reports from News Orgs. 4. Press Releases 5. Org. Reports/ Govt. Sites Use of Sources (%) Standard 1+ days story story Twitter 78 32 Google 67 52 News/media outlets 60 60 Press releases 52 28 My org.s internal archive 48 40 Facebook 48 24 Other org. sites 37 40 Government sites 22 16 News databases 19 24 Organisational reports 19 16 Phone book 19 16 Statistical sites 15 28 Financial/bus. databases 11 16 LinkedIn 11 4 Academic databases 7 28 Courts databases 4 8 News/media outlets Press releases Facebook Government sites Twitter Other org. sites My org.s internal archive Organisational reports Statistical sites LinkedIn Phone book Academic databases Courts databases News databases Financial/bus. databases Google Standar 1+ days d story story 81 69 63 36 63 19 63 6 56 31 56 31 50 19 31 25 31 25 13 6 13 6 6 0 0 0 0 6 19 13 6 0 Most Important Source DCU 1. Twitter 2. Press Releases 3. Phonebook 4. My Organisation 5. Reports from News Orgs. MRU 1. My Organization 2. Twitter 3. Facebook 4. Reports from News Orgs. 5. Press Releases/Statistics DCU: most important source MRU: most important source Twitter is a great way to get news stories, see what people are talking about and find verifiable sources. Internal archives. We built a large body of research and work we like to link back to. Phone book - nothing gives me a better interview, or clarifies information as easily, as a phone call to someone. Reports from news/media outlets and statistical sites. I need my information to be as current and relevant to Calgary as possible. I also rely on statscan because it is accurate and dependable. Finding 4 – reliance on social media as both source & communication tool “Twitter because it's an information network and does breaking news very well. I also use it to find people and request interviews.” “Real time information. Contacts on the ground in incident areas across the globe, sharing info and content to the world as it happens. Being on social means they are readily contactable and will reply in a quicker time than someone would to phone or email” “They [Twitter and Facebook] lead you to sources that are usually untapped and stories not yet told” “News tends to break on Twitter, you can be very early to a story and use that as your starting point” “Twitter - it's so immediate and I think crowdsourcing is really important now” Finding 5 – none of the respondents had participated in IL training since graduating DCU: 22% had training including: MRU: 23% had training including: Digital marketing Reuters Institute on multimedia storytelling Internally by news organisation Advanced Photography Video & mobile journalism WordPress Press Association Course Public Relations Association seminars Further third level programme Digital Communications Strategies Final Cut Pro Statistics course NUJ freelance workshops Mag. Publishers Association course What does the data tell us about the local Canadian and Irish context? • MRU grads are less likely to be working in journalism • DCU grads rely heavily on social media – to identify sources and communicate • MRU grads identified reduced access to reliable government info as a challenge • Occupation affects sources used – higher use of internal archive for non-journalist positions Over to you – individual task Thinking of YOUR teaching discipline and the related careers your graduates pursue…. What 3 questions would YOU ask about sources used in daily professional practice? Recommendations 1. Verification: help students to develop habits that get better information in the first place, and strategies for verification: triangulation and collecting ‘trusted sources’ 2. Time: students require efficient strategies in 24/7 world harness this to promote the role of IL 3. Sources : engage faculty on the variation in use of sources for standard/frequent versus in-depth work Recommendations 4. Further training: students need to develop self-teaching strategies. Include learning activities where they can harness tools to help them stay current, learn new skills 5. Social media: identify where in the curriculum students are learning how to deploy them – is there a gap? 6. Mismatch – librarians need to retool and develop familiarity with resources and work patterns Action Plan • Harness our findings to improve IL curriculum in partnership with faculty • Ensure students are equipped with appropriate skillset to upskill themselves in their careers in and beyond journalism • Ensure we top up our skillset to keep up to date with current journalistic practice eg. data visualisation • Future research: interviews/focus groups to tease out survey findings Research Benefits MRU • Using data for programme review • Using data to realign ILI with professional practice • Considering data in light of ACRL Framework DCU • Re-establishing connection with alumni community • Building cross campus relationships • Feeding into future institutional research References 1/2 Journalism IL Bornstein, J. (2003). Journalism students and information competencies. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 7(3), 204–208. Boyle, M. E., & McPherson, P. O. (2012). What’s a phone book? Teaching information literacy skills to digital native journalism students. Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication:, 2(1). Retrieved from http://aejmc.net/spig/2012/whats-a-phone-book-teaching-information-literacy-skills-to-digital-native-journalismstudents/ Diekerhof, E. (2013). Teaching journalistic research skills in the digital age : Between traditional routines and advanced tools. Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, 2(2), 231–244. doi:10.1386/ajms.2.2.231 Du, R. Y., & Thornburg, R. (2011). The gap between online journalism education and practice : The twin surveys. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 66(3), 218–230. Dunne, S. (2014) ‘Skills for Success Bridging the Information Literacy Gap Between University and Professional Practice’. Presentation at IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2014, 14th-15th August, Limerick. MacMillan, M. E. (2014). Fostering the integration of information literacy and journalism practice: a long-term study of journalism students. Journal of Information Literacy, 8(2), 3-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.11645/8.2.1941 Workplace IL Head, A. J., (2016). Staying smart: How today’s graduates continue to learn once they complete college. Retrieved from http://projectinfolit.org/images/pdfs/2016_lifelonglearning_fullreport.pdf Head, A. J., (2012). Learning curve: How college graduates solve information problems once they join the workplace. Retrieved from http://projectinfolit.org/images/pdfs/pil_fall2012_workplacestudy_fullreport_revised.pdf Hicks, A. (2015). Drinking on the job: Integrating workplace information literacy into the curriculum. LOEX Quarterly, 41(4), 9. Retrieved from http://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1060&context=libr_facpapers Hicks, A. (2014). Bilingual workplaces : integrating cultural approaches to information literacy into foreign language educational practices. Journal of Information Literacy, 8(1), 20–41. References 2/2 Journalism Information Practices Agarwal, S. D., & Barthel, M. L. (2013). The friendly barbarians: Professional norms and work routines of online journalists in the United States. Journalism. doi:10.1177/1464884913511565 Attfield, S., & Dowell, J. (2003). Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists. Journal of Documentation, 59(2), 187–204. Bradley, F. (2003). Information literacy and news libraries: The challenge of developing information literacy instruction programs in a special library environment. Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA, Australia. Retrieved from http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au/R?func=search-simple-go&ADJACENT=Y&REQUEST=adt-WCU20040119.113050 Drok, N. (2013). Beacons of reliability: European journalism students and professionals on future qualifications for journalists. Journalism Practice, 7(2), 145–162. doi:10.1080/17512786.2012.753209 Fortunati, L., Sarrica, M., O'Sullivan, J., Balcytiene, A., Harro‐Loit, H., Macgregor, P., ... & De Luca, F. (2009). The influence of the Internet on European journalism. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 14(4), 928-963. Machill, M., & Beiler, M. (2009). The importance of the Internet for journalistic research: A multi-method study of the research performed by journalists working for daily newspapers, radio, television and online. Journalism Studies, 10(2), 178–203. doi:10.1080/14616700802337768 O'Sullivan, J. (2011). The Internet and professional journalism: content, practice and values in Irish online news (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin City University).Retrieved from http://doras.dcu.ie/16604/1/josthesis2011.pdf Wenger, D., & Owens, L. C. (2013). An examination of job skills required by top U.S. broadcast news companies and potential impact on journalism curricula. Electronic News, 7(1), 22–35. doi:10.1177/1931243113484314 Zeller, F., & Hermida, A. (2015). When tradition meets Immediacy and Interaction. The Integration of social media in journalists’ everyday practices. Sur le journalisme About journalism Sobre jornalismo, 4(1), 106-119. Retrieved from http://www.surlejournalisme.com/rev/index.php/slj/article/download/202/88 Standards Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. (2012). ACEJMC-accrediting standards. Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, or ACEJMC. Retrieved June 30, 2014, from http://acejmc.ku.edu/PROGRAM/STANDARDS.SHTML The European Journalism Training Association. (2006). The Tartu Declaration. Retrieved from http://ejta.eu/tartu-declaration National Council for the Training of Journalists. (2014). Emerging skills for journalists. Retrieved from http://www.nctj.com/downloadlibrary/NCTJ%20Emerging%20Skills%20FINAL.pdf Thank You siobhan.dunne@dcu.ie @dunnesiobhan mmacmillan@mtroyal.ca @margymaclibrary Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/safetylast/3909869662 Survey for Information-seeking behaviours of journalism graduates study. # Question Type 1 Year of graduation from the MRU Journalism program: (e.g. 1982) Multiple Choice 2010; 2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2015 2 I am (Please check all that apply): Multiple Checkbox Freelance; I am employed by an organisation (or more than one organization) 3 My current job title is: (e.g. sports reporter; communications coordinator, etc) Long Answer 4 My role is primarily concerned with (please check all that apply): Multiple Checkbox News; Current affairs/Politics; Features; Business; Sports; Foreign ; Arts/Entertainment; Opinion/Editorial; Corporate communication; Advocacy communication; Nonprofit communication; Political communication; Other 5 If you checked Other, please explain Long Answer 6 I mainly produce (please check all that apply): Multiple Checkbox Articles; Features; Documentaries; Reports; Press releases; Internal communications documents; External communications; Other 7 If you checked Other, please explain Long Answer 8 I work in this format (please check all that apply): Multiple Checkbox Print; Online; TV; Radio; Other 9 If you checked Other, please explain Long Answer 10 The audience for my work is primarily Multiple Checkbox Local; National/International; Other 11 If you checked Other, please explain Long Answer 12 From the following list please check the top 5 sources you used in the last month. Multiple Checkbox - My organisation's' internal archive,- Other organizations’ sites, - Reports from news/media outlets,- Press releases,- Organisational reports - Financial/business databases,- Academic literature databases, -News databases, - Courts databases,- Statistical sites, - government sites, - Google Scholar, - Google -Twitter, - Facebook, - LinkedIn, - Phone book, - Other directories,- Other (please specify) 13 If you checked Other, or Other article databases, please explain Long Answer 14 Which of the 5 sources you checked do you consider most important and why? Long Answer 15 Thinking of the most recent work which took more than one day to work on, which resources did you use to help with the research? (Check all that apply) Multiple Checkbox 16 If you checked Other, or Other article databases, please explain Long Answer 17 How many stories that take more than one day to work on would you work on in a typical week? Long Answer 18 How many stories that take more than one day to work on would you work on in a typical month? Long Answer 19 Since graduating, have you participated in further training in searching for information. If so, please provide details including title of programme or resource, and provider: Yes/No and Long Answer 20 I believe the biggest informationseeking challenge facing journalists is: Long Answer - My organisation's' internal archive,- Other organizations’ sites, - Reports from news/media outlets,- Press releases,- Organisational reports - Financial/business databases,- Academic literature databases, -News databases, - Courts databases,- Statistical sites, - government sites, Google Scholar, - Google -Twitter, - Facebook, - LinkedIn, - Phone book, - Other directories,- Other (please specify) Information Use in Natural Habitats: A Comparative Study of Graduates in the Work Place in Ireland & Canada Siobhán Dunne | DCU | @dunnesiobhan / siobhan.dunne@dcu.ie Margy MacMillan |MRU | @margymaclibrary / mmacmillan@mtroyal.ca Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference UCD, 21-23 March 2016 Background: Two librarians, interested in what happened after graduation – what did graduates of our journalism programmes actually use to find the information they need for professional purposes. Survey: http://bit.ly/jgradsurvey Population: MRU: 84 responses from 2010-2015 graduates; 16 working in journalism, most in other communications roles DCU: 32 responses, almost all working in journalism Finding 1: Verification of information remains a substantial challenge for journalists Finding 2: Journalists are expected to produce several articles a day and this impacts finding and verifying sources Finding 3: Spotlight on Sources How do you think our graduates answered these two questions?  From the following list please check the top 5 sources you used in the last month ___ My organisation's' internal archive; ___ Other organizations’ sites; ___ Reports from news/media outlets; ___ Press releases; ___ Organisational reports; ___ Financial/business dbases (e.g. Bloomberg); ___ Academic lit dbases (e.g. Comm. and Mass Media Complete); ___ News dbases (e.g. UKPressOnline or Canadian Newsstand); ___ Courts databases; ___Statistical sites; ___Government sites; ___Google; ___Google Scholar; ___ Twitter; ___ Facebook; ___ LinkedIn; ___ Phone book; ___ Other directories; ___Other (please specify)  Since graduating, have you participated in further training in searching for information? Most Important Source DCU 1. Twitter 2. Press Releases 3. Phonebook 4. My Organisation’s Internal Archive 5. Reports from News Organisations. MRU 1. My Organization’s Internal Archive 2. Twitter 3. Facebook 4. Reports from News Organisations. 5. Press Releases/Statistics Finding 4 – reliance on social media as both source & communication tool Finding 5 – none of the respondents had participated in IL training since graduating Recommendations: 1. Verification: help students to develop habits that get better information in the first place, and strategies for verification: triangulation and collecting ‘trusted sources’ 2. Time: students require efficient strategies in 24/7 world - harness this to promote the role of IL 3. Sources : engage faculty on the variation in use of sources for standard/frequent versus in-depth work 4. Further training: students need to develop self-teaching strategies. Include learning activities where they can harness tools to help them stay current, learn new skills 5. Social media: identify where in the curriculum students are learning how to deploy them – is there a gap? 6. Mismatch – librarians need to retool and develop familiarity with resources and work patterns Action plan • Harness our findings to improve IL curriculum in partnership with faculty • Ensure students are equipped with appropriate skillset to upskill themselves in their careers in and beyond journalism • Ensure we top up our skillset to keep up to date with current journalistic practice eg. data visualisation • Future research: interviews/focus groups to tease out survey findings Discussion/Homework:  What 3 questions would YOU ask about sources used in daily professional practice?