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Prior to the academic year 2008/09 skills were taught as part of a 30 credit module “English Legal System and Study Skills” (ELS3). Timetable constraints meant that the module's study skills elements were studied after Christmas in a cycle of lectures and tutorials. This was not ideal since students clearly needed some of the information to support their studies in the Autumn term. Not surprisingly, the ELS3 module feedback showed that students were dissatisfied. Working alongside the ELS3 module leader we analysed the 2007/08 feedback and discovered two major recurring themes. First of all, the fact that timetable difficulties had pushed the skills element well into the Spring term meant that these topics had been perceived as unimportant “extras” rather than crucial content which would enrich learning throughout the degree course. The skills topics were certainly not seen as something which would prove essential to future employability. Secondly, the students felt that a more practical focus was needed and that workshop delivery might be more appropriate. Encouragingly, however, the feedback did show that useful skills topics were being delivered – students just felt that they were not scheduled at the right times to underpin their studies. The feedback indicated that the 2007/08 cohort had very largely disengaged from the skills part of the ELS3 module, believing the material covered to be disposable and lacking in any sort of real applicability. What were we to do?

Redesigning the course

At first we considered disaggregating skills completely and looked at the feasibility of offering instead skills learning opportunities in the context of core modules throughout the undergraduate course. This would have created a “Skills Train” where students had opportunities to acquire pertinent skills as they were studied in the context of core modules such as Contract and Criminal Law. On considered reflection this approach was much too complicated and would have created a timetabling nightmare causing confusion for both students and staff. It was also felt that it might lead to dangerous dilution and dislocation of the skills content, potentially creating a situation where skills became almost lost in the context of the other subjects being studied. Instead, we decided to create a Level 1 module which focused on the basic skills and then to build upon this foundation contextually and incrementally within core modules at Levels 2 and 3.

We were very fortunate to have high level university backing for this change. Since 2007/08 there has been significant strategic emphasis within Staffordshire University on embracing the UK Government's skills agenda. Executive Pro-Vice Chancellor, Gill Howland, was given strategic responsibility for taking this initiative forward and the Law School, with Rosemary Evans as its new Dean, especially seeks to support this new direction. Fortuitously, the strategic impetus has come at the same time as a major opportunity for course review. The academic year 2008/09 has seen the cyclical review and re-validation of the undergraduate law award. This has made it easier to have a radical rethink of the entire undergraduate course structure and development. As a consequence of these drivers and informed by the negative student feedback on the ELS3 module, the decision was taken to split the old 30 credit ELS3 module into two 15 credit modules each having a separate and distinct focus; the English Legal System module and the innovative Skills for Knowledge In Learning and Law (SKILLs) module.

SKILLS module

In the process of designing the new SKILLs module, it was decided that the recently revised learning outcome Enquiry with its sharp focus on information literacy would be used. This decision meant that the law school would be one of the first to adopt the university's new strategic approach to information literacy and test its practical integration into the curriculum. In January 2007 the university had approved an Information Literacy Statement of Good Practice and since September 2007 a specially revised learning outcome enquiry had been in place to underpin this.

To give some background and detail, Staffordshire University's undergraduate learning outcomes are as follows:

• • Knowledge and understanding

• • Learning

• • Enquiry

• • Analysis

• • Problem solving

• • Communication

• • Application

• • Reflection

In the course of work undertaken within my Learning and Teaching Fellowship the undergraduate level Enquiry learning outcome has been revised to include a specific statement about information literacy and the ethical use of information. The italics below represent the additional text which is now included in support of the strategic approach to information literacy.

Deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry and initiate and carry out projects within (the field of study). Evaluate use of information literacy, including the ethical use of information in (the field of study).”

The importance of linking information literacy to a single learning outcome cannot be over-stressed since it means that information literacy must now be included and assessed whenever this learning outcome is specifically linked to a module. In the new SKILLs module descriptor a learning outcome stipulates that students who have taken the course successfully must be able

Within their definition of an Information Literate University (ILU), Webber and Johnston (Reference Webber, Johnston, Walton and Pope2006) say that, information literacy should be regarded as a graduate attribute and assessed by credit bearing work. The SKILLs module assessment now responds to its stated learning outcome Enquiry and involves 4 tasks in a summatively assessed portfolio:

• • Preparing a PowerPoint presentation on a recent legal development

• • Producing an annotated bibliography of sources looking at the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. This must be evaluative and include both web-based and paper-based resources.

• • Preparing a CV

• • Creating a handout explaining the role of the judge in the criminal court to a defendant.

Clearly, information literacy is now being assessed quite rigorously in the context of this module.

Having ensured that information literacy was to be a credit-bearing element of the module, we then worked to ensure that the delivery would be timely and relevant. We began to create a list of topics to cover within the SKILLs module and tried to put these into an order which meant students would receive the workshops at meaningful times in the wider context of their Level 1 curriculum. This sounds easy but was a huge task since we needed to ensure that we were embedding both specific skills and specific subject topics at appropriate times in the timetable.

In order to make the SKILLs module hang together in a more cohesive way, we decided to divide the skills into three strands; learning, lawyering and personal enhancement and employability. Our concern then was to find a place to embed legal research. It seemed sensible to position legal research within the learning strand and so we developed four workshop topics: understanding primary sources, evaluating secondary sources, academic writing and, finally, referencing and plagiarism. Other workshops themes in the module include problem solving, interviewing, presentation skills, professional writing, group work, leadership and employability.

Timetabling of course

Much research has been done on the nature of different learning styles and this huge debate is not going to be examined here in any sort of detail. Pragmatically, it might be said that most students seem to be strategic learners, who give more focus and attention to material which is needed in other contexts, especially if those contexts include formative or summative assessment. Consequently, we decided to timetable workshop topics at particular times in the course when we might expect maximum attentiveness. In late September students would attend the understanding primary sources workshop when this was material was relevant across all core modules. A SKILLs workshop on evaluating secondary sources would then be scheduled for early October when students needed to read around the topics they were being asked to study for tutorials in all core modules. Academic writing would be looked at when students began work on a 2000 word formatively assessed essay set by the Constitutional and Administrative Law team in early November. To tie in with this, a SKILLs workshop in late November would focus on referencing and plagiarism and give time for students to assimilate this material in time for a mid-December hand-in date.

Timing is crucial. The idea of doing skills-based work at the right time and on exactly the right topic is borne out by research done by Bordinaro and Richardson (Reference Bordinaro and Richardson2004). Their studies have emphasised the importance of using what they call hot topics and reflective learning to get students to engage more deeply with information literacy work. It has been very important to us to try to place both subject topics and skills topics at times in the curriculum when they might echo activities and study in other Level 1 modules, so that the key inter-relationship between skills and subject study is underlined to students. The just-in-time research work of Walker and Engel (Reference Walker and Engel2003) also supports the idea that students will engage more with a topic which is being handled in a timely way and will remember and re-apply more of a topic which has been studied in an integrated way.

Integrating legal research into the curriculum

In attempting to embed and integrate legal research at the heart of the learning experience we hope that we have succeeded in getting students to see that it is an important and non-disposable part of their course. How then to try to persuade students that legal research is for life and not just for the duration of their undergraduate course?

Here we have taken a contextual approach. Legal research is taught when other career-focused lifelong skills are being learnt, for example client interviewing and leadership skills and so legal research should be perceived as being equally as important as these other professional lawyering skills. Importantly, legal research is given an equal part of the summative assessment portfolio. In addition, to underline the importance of the skills element within the curriculum, in Level 1 Welcome Week we designated an entire day as Skills Focus Day. Here we put forward the idea that the SKILLs module would help students get and keep a job. Indeed, the whole SKILLs module was set in the context of the UK Government's skills agenda and Higher Education's response to the Leitch Review (2007). The idea of linking information literacy in higher education to the current political and social agenda is discussed more fully in Pope and Walton (Reference Pope, Walton and Leaning2009).

Evaluation of changes

Of course we now need to evaluate our efforts and see if they are working. Informal contact with students suggests that they now better understand the importance of the skills we are highlighting but, at the time of writing, we have yet to fully analyse the end of year evaluation sheets for the new module. Attendance was good throughout the course and, anecdotally, research done for written work across Level 1 has improved. Some problems we have already encountered relate to timing. Unforeseen circumstances can mean that subject topics have not been covered in core modules by the time they we need to use them in the context of the SKILLs module and, as a result, workshops can lose some of their carefully planned impact and immediacy. Verbal student feedback also indicates that the referencing workshop came too late, so there is a need to rethink the positioning of this workshop for 2009/10. Clearly, some joint honours students can need the skills we teach sooner in the academic year, but it is very hard to know how this issue can be resolved without some major and migraine-inducing cross-university timetabling!

The next big step as regards the embedding of information literacy and skills within the undergraduate curriculum will be to integrate skills into core modules studied at Levels 2 and 3. An audit is currently being done to see how we can further extend the idea that skills, and by implication legal research, is something which continues throughout the undergraduate course and beyond. This is a significant project and one which is running in tandem with another initiative within the School. Alison Pope is working alongside Principal Lecturer, Keith Puttick, on a Research Informed Teaching (RiT) project called “Enquiring minds” which focuses upon research-led study for students at Level 3. This project is looking at new ways of encouraging third year students to engage in both independent and collaborative research. It is examining whether Level 3 students have sufficient opportunities to continue developing and deploying the skills that the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) stipulates graduates should have. It is considering what kinds of research task students should undertake if they are to satisfy the University's prescribed learning outcome for Enquiry at Level 3. It is especially focusing on what we can do to help students acquire the ability to deploy established techniques of analysis and enquiry and to complete projects within the field of study which require significant use of information literacy and the ethical use of information. The project team are examining the question: in the face of a daunting array of source materials accessed via the web, databases, and other sources, what strategies can lecturers and information specialists develop to try to ensure that student researchers access what is really required and do what is really needed in terms of properly evaluating and using resources? This extremely challenging project is still in progress and is due to report in 2009/10. Its findings will clearly impact on the future development of the Level 1 SKILLs course and any integrated skills work integrated and embedded at Levels 2 and 3.