Inspiring Innovation: Lessons learned from an academic-library-student partnership to support digital development

Abstract

The topic of the poster, which highlights a successful academic-library collaboration and a 'students-as-partners' approach to learning development, aims to inspire library colleagues around the world to explore innovative student focused approaches to supporting information, digital and media literacy development in higher education and beyond. The students-as-partners approach helps to create "more egalitarian, inclusive learning environments, where students and staff shape university teaching together" (Fulton et al, 2022), and gives students a greater sense of agency and empowerment in shaping the direction and form of their own learning. In this, it aligns well with the ACRL's Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which explicitly recognises students' agency as information creators and interpreters rather than merely passive consumers, and aims to reflect a world in which "students have a greater role and responsibility in creating new knowledge, in understanding the contours and the changing dynamics of the world of information, and in using information, data, and scholarship ethically" (ACRL, 2015).