Digital libraries and information literacy issues within virtual learning environments: an e-learning impasse?

The DIDET digital library and VLE approach places much of the responsibility for managing the digital library work flow into the hands of students, as well as academics and librarians. Student responsibilities include the application of metadata, as well as conventional information literacy competencies such as ascertaining information resource provenance, investigating intellectual property rights and/or digital rights management implications, before depositing digital resources within the library. This has obviously laid bare numerous research issues relating to future digital library and VLE design, student information literacy, the use of ICT in education and design, and related pedagogical issues, all of which are worthy of further investigation within the UK HE community and will be elucidated in this paper. More importantly, this paper will argue that such a model signifies a definite impasse in the evolution of e-learning models and questions the degree to which current information literacy models are effective in specific e-learning contexts. The paper will conclude by further recognising that greater student information literacy skills are necessary to unlock the potential of such radical approaches to e-learning and digital library creation.