Embedding information literacy skills as employability attributes

There is clear evidence that graduates, in general, lack the personal skills, attitudes and behaviors needed for success in the workplace. For university students, gaining employability skills such as information literacy, reflective thinking and writing skills throughout their education is now more important than ever. British Universities have been increasingly investing in various strategies to ensure that their graduates are fully equipped with knowledge and transferable skills and are able to respond to the changing needs of the job market.
With the heightened need for our graduates to be employable, the focus has grown from academic literacy to include 'workplace literacy'. However, these two should not be considered separate entities but rather a development from one to the other.
At Middlesex University an intra-university team has built a framework to target the development of academic and information literacy as well as graduate employability. The team comprises staff from the School of Engineering and Information Sciences (EIS), the Learner Development Unit (LDU) and Learning Resources (LR). This paper aims to share our experiences at Middlesex University in devising such a collaborative strategy. We will also discuss the results of our work so far, including the changes which have been made and the results of a survey to show the impact on the students’ progress.