Cross-Sectoral Collaboration in the Service of Information Literacy: An Example of a Training Program at the Université du Québec à Montréal’s School of Management
Academic librarians most deal with many imperatives to offer information literacy training. The purpose of this article is to share our experience of working as a cross-sectoral team composed of faculty members, librarians, and digital pedagogy and multimedia integration specialists. By using our diverse expertise, we co-created an information literacy training program for masters students in management. This innovative project developed at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) was officially launched in January 2022. Students accepted to the masters in management will be required to successfully complete this program, which will introduce them to digital and information literacies on the one hand, and to different principles related to scholarly communication and academic integrity on the other. The steps that led to the initiation of this project as well as challenges encountered until its completion will be detailed. This experience could inspire other educational institutions, but our main goal is to show the importance of cross-sectoral work in helping students achieve academic success. We are convinced that many of the concepts presented in the training program are cross-curricular, that they go beyond mastering strict technical competencies required for learning and that they lay the foundation for a better understanding of the digital world in which students evolve. Although not directly part of the Quebec Ministry of Education and Higher Education's Digital Action Plan (2018), initiatives such as the one led by the the team at UQAM are nonetheless consistent with several of its orientations, including the first, which is to support the development of digital skills in young people and adults so that they can be better informed citizens and professionals.