Recently, Prof. Aphra Kerr, Professor of Digital Media and Communication at University College Dublin, co-PI at the ADAPT Research Ireland Centre, gave an invited keynote address entitled “Expertise and Literacy in the AI Era: Insights from the ALGOWATCH project’’ at the annual Library Association of Ireland and CILIP Ireland Joint Annual Conference 2025 in Cork.
The talk focused on the opportunities and challenges that AI presents for information professionals and the role that a competency based approach can play in addressing the challenges. Drawing upon the European Digital Competency framework, and the state of the art in media and information literacy, Kerr outlined how a focus on the political economy of AI, skills for using and recognising AI, and awareness of how to use AI ethically are crucial to working with contemporary forms of AI. She also discussed ongoing projects in ADAPT and at UCD School of Information and Communication Studies.
The annual conference for public and academic librarians on the island of Ireland took place over two days and had over 100 attendees from all over the country. Kerr’s keynote took place on the second day and was chaired by Julie Reid, Chair of CILIP Ireland.
Photo: Prof. Kerr gave the keynote at the annual LAI/CILIP conference, Cork, Ireland. Photo: Courtesy of Lori Moriarty (used with permission).
In the afternoon Kerr and Ms. F. Rahiman from ADAPT ran a workshop using newly developed resources from the ALGOWATCH project with 22 librarians. The project is a Creative Europe part funded project which adopts a competency, co-creation and empowerment by design approach to algorithmic and AI literacy. The Irish team has been leading on the development of a digital game for young people to support awareness, knowledge and skills of how algorithms and AI work and how they can be used to spread mis and disinformation.
Photo: Ms Faebitha Rahiman (ADAPT) co-delivering the AI literacy workshop to librarians. Photo by Aphra Kerr.
The ALGOWATCH project has two objectives: 1) To raise awareness of algorithmic (and AI generated) disinformation as a threat to democratic societies and to a healthy inclusive online environment. And 2) To support media literacy professionals (e.g. teachers, librarians, youth workers, journalists) to adapt their practices and change their patterns of use of information and disinformation and those of people around them.
The ALGOWATCH consortium is led by Savoir Devenir (France) and includes Maynooth University (until Jan 2025) and University College Dublin (from Feb 2025), Association for Communication and Media Culture – DKMK (Croatia) and Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal). It was funded for two years and will end in September 2025.
Notes:
More information on Ireland’s library conference 2025:
https://conference.libraryassociation.ie/programme/
https://www.cilip.org.uk/members/group_content_view.asp?group=201287&id=690018
See https://algowatch.eu/
See European Digital Competency Framework updated for Algorithmic and AI literacy.
See https://culture.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe
