What kind of consortium do we aim for?
We want to raise awareness of what is changing in daily literacy in the various areas of life and initiate communication about the consequences for how literacy needs to be developed, facilitated, and organized in educational and professional settings such as schools, universities, companies, and (non-) governmental organizations. For this we want to identify common knowledge, interests, and needs and utilize these toward literacy management. Based on a better understanding of what literacy consists of in different discourses and how it changes across cultures and times, we hope to pool resources with you and further define common goals. Since applied research, material development, and the training of experts seems crucial for adapting educational and work environments to the rapidly changing demands of the information society, the center piece of this consortium is a certificate program “Writing and reading for the international knowledge economy.”
Why do we need this consortium?
The rapid increase of information and growing diversity of communication and discourses including changing text types and formats require flexibility of institutional literacy practices: People need to be trained as competent writers and readers able to meet the new challenges just mentioned with specific regard to selecting, assessing, and processing data. Institutional structures and procedures need to be adjusted appropriately. Similar to the dramatic challenges during the so-called Industrial Revolution, both public and private sectors require assistance in restructuring the flow of information and communication when they want to participate actively in the so-called Information Age or Digital Revolution. Different from the challenges in the 18th/19th century, this time both data and communication streams are essential to function successfully in a global knowledge economy, to enable to bridge different languages, cultures, and literacy practices. The consortium we aim for will be an international forum to support people and institutions involved in this dramatic change that has started to unfold everywhere on this planet.
What is the scientific foundation of our work?
Literacy management as promoted by this consortium will be based on research on the processes of writing and reading, the development of readers and writers as learners, information and media literacy, inter- and cross-cultural communications, instructional design, change management, and institutional development. Through action-based research, especially in form of material development and institutional development, the consortium aims to make an active contribution to the scientific community.
Literacy Management 