Inquiry-based learning in the first-year Information Management curriculum

This paper describes and evaluates Inquiry in Information Management, a first year undergraduate module designed on inquiry-based learning (IBL) principles at the University of Sheffield. In the module, students undertake a small scale, group research project, choosing a research question, conducting the research and reporting their results in poster form to invited staff and their peers, while also maintaining a group blog. The paper begins by explaining the context in which the module was developed and summarising the concept of IBL. It continues by describing the design of the module, highlighting some workshop activities designed to ‘scaffold’ students’ inquiries. The quality of student work was high, and there was an enthusiastic response to the freedom offered by IBL. Involving students in designing assessment criteria for the posters helped them understand the assessment better. Overall, students’ engagement with Information Management seemed to have deepened. Future developments are discussed and the authors reflect on the new demands IBL makes on both students and staff, and on how the application of IBL in this context is shaped by the fluidity of Information Management as a discipline and ambiguities regarding the place of research in this context.