Information Literacy Instruction - Higher Education for Sisters in Africa

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In our roles as embedded librarians for the Higher Education for Sisters in Africa program (HESA), Leslie and I have experienced challenges (logistical, technological, and cultural) and successes (pedagogical, technological, and cultural). HESA is an innovative program that delivers higher education to African Catholic nuns through partnerships between American and African universities. Marywood University has partnered with the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) to educate sisters living in Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia. These sisters are Education majors and upon completion of the program, they receive CUEA Bachelor’s degrees and have the necessary credentials to become educational leaders in their congregations, communities, and countries. There is a high demand for professionally qualified leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa, but inadequate opportunities to obtain these qualifications for Catholic nuns. Many sisters lack the educational preparation, technical skills, and/or funding to matriculate directly into African universities. The HESA partnership between Marywood and CUEA provides an alternative pathway to higher education through a hybrid online and onsite model. To begin, the sisters take two years of coursework online with Marywood, which prepares them for CUEA and helps remediate any earlier educational inadequacies. They then transfer to CUEA to complete their degrees in person. The online portion of the program first and foremost accommodates the sisters’ need to continue serving in their ministries while in school. It also gives them time to master the technology skills that they will need at CUEA and beyond. Our goal as embedded librarians for HESA is to provide the African sisters with the same level of library support as we do for on-campus students at Marywood. The sisters have access to both the Marywood Library and the CUAE Library throughout their university education, and we created a library portal tailored to the sisters’ needs (available at libguides.marywood.edu/HESA). Since the sisters are new to library research when they enter the program, it is important for them to receive a strong orientation before beginning the coursework. We deliver 8 hours of virtual, synchronous information literacy instruction to the sisters during university orientation; we conduct a baseline information literacy skills survey, introduce them to the library portal and databases, and teach them basic search and retrieval skills. The sisters’ computer skills are not at the same level as American college freshmen, and we must adapt our instruction accordingly. After orientation, we continue to support the sisters’ research needs asynchronously via a learning management system throughout the duration of the program. We plan to conduct further assessment and support of the sisters’ information literacy skill development as they progress through the HESA program.

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