IRC18: Offline, Kandbari, February 22-24, 2018

 

10. #MILOfflineOnline
Media and Information Literacy (MIL) in Offline and Online Environments, particularly for Academics and Researchers

Last updated on Dec 25, 2017.

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Context of the Session

This proposed workshop session would encompass the vast, diverse, and unstable information universe, having information and media content available in different sources, formats, forms, and languages in offline and online environments. One of the questions generally raised in this context is regarding the skills and competencies required by end-users to access, evaluate, and ethically use such content both in offline and online environments for their daily life and work. Media and Information Literacy (MIL) skills are considered a sine qua non in the transition towards information-based or information-intensive society, where many services and facilities are being made available online, sometimes only online.

Being offline is a major challenge for an increasing population of users in the country, and especially for certain user groups, who are not tech-savvy or are not very familiar with English language or are otherwise in a disadvantageous position regarding online systems. MIL skills are seen as a part of the solution in this transition. Besides documentary sources of information in printed, audio-visual and electronic form, the emphasis of MIL skills would be in harnessing the potential of human sources of information and media content. There are diverse areas of application of MIL such as health information literacy; MIL in agriculture and food security; MIL for academics and researchers in different subject areas, etc. This proposed workshop session would focus on the MIL skills for academics and researchers for their work and research.

Session Plan

This proposed session would be an interactive one, where conference delegates would be working in different groups, and each group would be addressing a different facet of the session theme. The time required for such a session would be between 75 to 90 minutes, in six steps as shown below:

  • Step I – 15 to 20 minutes – Introduction to MIL: In this step the resource persons would set the context by overviews on media and information literacy (MIL), and a few areas of application of MIL skills. In addition to the overview, the proposed introductory step would also give the participants an international perspective on Media and Information Literacy from UNESCO's viewpoint as well as that of UNESCO-facilitated Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL). For more information on GAPMIL, participants can access the document on the UNESCO website.
  • Step II – 5 to 8 minutes – Introduction about Participants: A quick introduction about the participants, and their areas of work and research. This step would be required to group the participants into different groups in step III.
  • Step III – 5 to 7 minutes – Group Formation: Each conference participant would be requested to join one of the 4-5 groups where other participants in that group have, as far as possible, dissimilar areas of work/research. Diversity in the group would help discussion in a group (step IV) from different perspectives.
  • Step IV – 25 to 30 minutes – Discussion and Brainstorming: Each group would be given one facet of the theme for discussion and brainstorming. Facets would be worked out both on the basis of the content of the theme as well as the sectors of its application.
  • Step V – 18 minutes – Group Presentation: One/two of the lead participants from each group would be presenting the key issues and concerns that emerge from the discussions.
  • Step VI – 7 minutes – Summarization: Workshop resource persons would present a summary of the key issues and concerns, as well as identify areas where further work/research could yield solutions to the problems and issues raised by the resource persons and the participants.

Session Team

There are two resource persons in the Workshop team, namely Dr. Harinder Pal Singh Kalra and Dr. Navkiran Kaur. Brief biographical notes on them are given below.

Dr. Harinder Pal Singh Kalra is currently serving as Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science, Punjabi University, Patiala (Punjab). He has 24 years of experience in teaching & research, and practice of librarianship and information work. He has published more than 50 research papers, articles, and book reviews in national and international journals, conference proceedings and edited books. Dr. Kalra is Vice Chair of International Steering Committee, UNESCO-facilitated Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL) since its inception in 2013; and is Member of the Working Group, Open Access India (OAI). He has organized and conducted many workshops on media and information literacy at national and international forums. In September 2016, Dr. Kalra along with other resource persons from different countries, organized a workshop on ‘media and information literacy’ at the quadrennial World Forum for Media Development held at Jakarta (Indonesia). Besides Indonesia, he has visited France, Germany, Nepal, and Nigeria on invitation for academic and professional assignments.

Dr. Navkiran Kaur is currently serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science, Punjabi University, Patiala (Punjab). She has more than 7 years of experience in teaching & research, and practice of librarianship and information work. Her doctoral research work is on the topic ‘health information literacy’. She has served as a rapporteur and as a resource person at some conferences and workshops in India. She has published several papers and has edited a few books. She is serving as the Treasurer of the Indian Association of Teachers of Library and Information Science (IATLIS). She has travelled to different parts of the country for academic and professional assignments.