All you wanted to know about Chartership (and you never dared asking)
Hi everyone!
This week we are going to talk – well, write! - about Chartership. The three of us have recently undertaken the path leading to CILIP Chartered status (that’s our hope at least!) so we thought we would share our first impressions, what we know about Chartership, a bit about our plans and a few tips that we have gathered attending related events and chatting to professionals who have already Chartered. Let’s get started!
What is it?
Chartership is one of the levels of professional registration available to CILIP members. The other two levels are Certification and Fellowship, with Chartership being the middle step.
For more information, see here.
What does it require?
First of all, you need to be member of CILIP in order to register. Payment of an annual fee is also required.
Next step: choose a mentor. CILIP keeps a list of available mentors in the Chartership area of the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment).
The final submission will consist of an evaluative statement and a portfolio containing the evidence which you will have gathered along the way. With “evidence” they mean pieces of reflective writings in which you not only ‘describe’ the activities undertaken, but most importantly ‘evaluate’ the impact that those activities have had on your and your institution’s development.
What is between “choose a mentor” and “final submission” is very much up to you. There are three criteria on the basis of which the evaluative statement and the evidence included in the portfolio will be evaluated by the Professional Registration and Accreditation Board (those lovely people who will decide on the outcome of your submission). I am not sure I can delve in too many details here, but let’s say that the three criteria relate to personal performance, organisational context and the wider professional environment.
A faithful companion of your journey - key tool for the evaluation of your skills and knowledge along the way - is the Professional Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB), accessible via the CILIP VLE.
Why bother doing it?
Very important question you need to ask yourself before even thinking of starting.
I will be honest. When I found out about professional registration during the MSc in Information & Library Studies I thought:
“Wait a second. I was working as a Library Assistant and I decided to go back to University so that I could progress my career and become a qualified librarian and now you are telling me there is an extra step? This is neverending.”
I was not very happy. HOWEVER, things have changed when I started working on it. Also, talking to people who have obtained Chartership has helped quite a lot too. I now see the path towards Chartership (more than getting the title itself) as an opportunity to grow professionally and personally. All the activities that I have done and I will do to build my portfolio will bring me more skills, more knowledge and more experience, as well as an expanded network. It surely takes some hard work and good planning abilities, but I believe there is lots to gain.
Top Tips
Look for a mentor who works in a different area than yours. This will help your understanding of the wider professional context.
Be selective. A piece of evidence can be used for more than one criteria, if relevant
You can use evidence that dates back to 2-3 years ago. Even older, if linked to your CV
Be aware of legal issues (intellectual property, GDPR etc.)
Ensure you annotate your evidence, to explain why you have included it in your submission
Demonstrate your CPD as wide as you can: you can use a variety of sources for evidence
Although there is not one single prescribed way to arrange and display your portfolio, clarity is key! Make life easy for the assessors (remember they are volunteers)
Connect! Networking will create opportunities of gathering evidence.
Resources
There are some resources that can help you through the process:
CILIP/CILIPS events on Professional Registration and Portfolio Building
Facebook CILIP Chartership Group
CILIP Chartership Mailing list (Higher Education)
On Twitter, follow @uklibchat: it’s always a good way to broaden your knowledge in wider library service and enrich your network. And they do an interesting interactive chat on a Monday!
Following what Laura has already delineated as the meaning of undergoing the process of Chartership, that it is a way of developing professionally for Library and Information Professionals, I will go a bit more in detail with the technicalities of this process (boooooring). All this, considering that this is still a work-in-progress for the three of us, so we are only writing on what we are currently experiencing.
This whole procedure concretely consists in building up, and then submitting, a Portfolio. Where do you start? Well, there are many tools you can use that are going to help you in this process.
PKSB
First of all, you should make a self-assessment using the PKSB (Professional Knowledge and Skills Base): this is a very important tool which should be used to score your knowledge and skills on different areas relevant to the Library and Information Professions. This gives you the chance to analyse your skills and knowledge in these areas with a “Current Score” to an “Ideal Score”. The self-assessment that you are making should also say how you can get from the Current Score” to the “Ideal Score”. Taking an example from my PKSB, one of the areas I would like to gain more knowledge is the n. 10 “Strategy, Planning and Management”, more specifically 10.9 “Project management”: now, I have very little experience in defining, planning, managing and completing a time limited business task (project), within agreed parameters of cost/resources, timescales and quality, but I would like to know more about this and believe that it could come in handy for my profession. I put “Current Score” 1 (Basic) because in previous work experiences I helped colleagues and managers with their projects, as well as organising a couple of project in my University days. My “Ideal Score” here is 3 (Comprehensive): in order to achieve this, I believe a relevant course of action could be asking to shadow the Library Coordinators for the Library Service of my workplace and see how they “define, plan, manage and complete” projects within the Library Service. Another way to get a better understanding in this area would be to shadow my Community Librarian, for a focus on more local projects.
Now, there are many areas in PKSB in which you might like to gain some more experience and knowledge. However, you have to be realistic and select just some of them (not more than 12-15) because this is a work that is going to be (ideally) completed in 12 months time. And you have to work on it!.
Reflective writing
This part is called “reflective” for a reason: for all the activities connected to your profession you have done during these months, you should have kept notes to say what you have learned from that experience, if that experience has been indeed useful, if and how that experience is going to help you for your profession. (All these “experiences” constitute your Supporting evidence).
Have you been to a conference? Take notes of what you have learned.
Have you done some self-reading on a relevant topic? Write about it.
Have you done a course/training/webinar? You should have some records of them.
All this is going to aid you in writing your reflective piece. Remember, it is not a report, but a very personal and well-thought part of your portfolio. This will also help you in writing your…
Evaluative statement
This is a part of the Reflective writing that must be included in the Portfolio. But it is not only that. This is basically a condensation of the reflective writing with the evidence of the work you have done in these 12 (or more) months and explain how it meets the assessing criteria. And it cannot be more than 1000 words.
After all these technicalities, you can understand how this is a lot of work. It can be overwhelming. And it requires organisation, as well as passion. Also, you have to keep in mind that this is your path to professional development, so take it as a chance to learn as much as you can. Similarly to Laura, after the MSc in Information and Library Studies I thought “After this intense year, there is even more to do?!”. But again, like Laura, I am finding this extra work as something that can help me to get a better understanding of this profession.
I must say, this is the third month working towards my Chartership and I really can’t wait to keep going!
Gut feelings and hair whitening
What is important is not the destination, but the journey. And you are definitely in for a treat if you start the Chartership process. Let’s face it: it is going to be a challenging process! You will have to fight some of your (probably) well known monsters: procrastination in all its forms (never-ending to-do lists, split attention, social media networking, I-cannot-do-this feelings), motivation dwindling due to the slowness of the process or even a magnificent motivational peak in which you will commit to everything you can think of just to go through blood sweat and tears the second after.
And that is important. You will need to learn how to juggle among all your work and life things as well as doing your Chartership, therefore think well before you commit to it! I can give you some suggestions here, feel free to use them or ignore them: my colleagues have given you already everything you need to know, so you can skip this part if you found this post too long.
Trust your guts! If you think that in the long run that conference is really not worth going to for your development, because you are planning to move to a different sector, maybe going just because it fits perfectly to that PKSB chart you did 8 months ago is not a good reason. And I am sure you can invest your energies in a more relevant conference.
Your mentor is your friend! It is important to communicate with your mentor often. Check with them, even when it feels you are not doing much. They can help you seeing something you might be overlooking and also give you some more directions in how you could reflect better on your CPD.
Remember to find a social net that can help you when you feel overwhelmed: what I really found useful in this process, has been starting this Chartership with some of my uni colleague. Sometimes when I feel the blues, I know I can count on them for help and a good chat to talk about the hardships of the Chartership. And I always get back on track because they are the best motivational team I could ask for (wink-wink).
Remember your Chartership is a unique process. Your friend has so many pieces of evidence that makes you feel you haven’t done anything so far? Your mentor suggested you to review for the third time your PKSB while on facebook someone else said it has been a piece of cake for them to get it OKed? Well, I tell you, stop looking at those things and focus on yourself. It’s the best thing you can do. If you take some time, even ten minutes after your day at work, before leaving for home, to reflect on what you achieved that day, you can easily see that most of the things you are doing will fall in some of your PKSB improvement plan. So reflect on them and use them for your portfolio! It took me sometime to get my head around this, but I am the pessimist of the group, so...
I am sure you can do it if I can, my dear. So do not even think about stop trying. And if you need a hand, just leave a message down here in the comments, and look for us on our social media accounts! We are happy to help!
It’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock ‘n roll! (And I am positive it is going to be an enriching experience).
This week we are going to talk – well, write! - about Chartership. The three of us have recently undertaken the path leading to CILIP Chartered status (that’s our hope at least!) so we thought we would share our first impressions, what we know about Chartership, a bit about our plans and a few tips that we have gathered attending related events and chatting to professionals who have already Chartered. Let’s get started!
What is it?
Chartership is one of the levels of professional registration available to CILIP members. The other two levels are Certification and Fellowship, with Chartership being the middle step.
For more information, see here.
What does it require?
First of all, you need to be member of CILIP in order to register. Payment of an annual fee is also required.
Next step: choose a mentor. CILIP keeps a list of available mentors in the Chartership area of the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment).
The final submission will consist of an evaluative statement and a portfolio containing the evidence which you will have gathered along the way. With “evidence” they mean pieces of reflective writings in which you not only ‘describe’ the activities undertaken, but most importantly ‘evaluate’ the impact that those activities have had on your and your institution’s development.
What is between “choose a mentor” and “final submission” is very much up to you. There are three criteria on the basis of which the evaluative statement and the evidence included in the portfolio will be evaluated by the Professional Registration and Accreditation Board (those lovely people who will decide on the outcome of your submission). I am not sure I can delve in too many details here, but let’s say that the three criteria relate to personal performance, organisational context and the wider professional environment.
A faithful companion of your journey - key tool for the evaluation of your skills and knowledge along the way - is the Professional Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB), accessible via the CILIP VLE.
Why bother doing it?
Very important question you need to ask yourself before even thinking of starting.
I will be honest. When I found out about professional registration during the MSc in Information & Library Studies I thought:
“Wait a second. I was working as a Library Assistant and I decided to go back to University so that I could progress my career and become a qualified librarian and now you are telling me there is an extra step? This is neverending.”
I was not very happy. HOWEVER, things have changed when I started working on it. Also, talking to people who have obtained Chartership has helped quite a lot too. I now see the path towards Chartership (more than getting the title itself) as an opportunity to grow professionally and personally. All the activities that I have done and I will do to build my portfolio will bring me more skills, more knowledge and more experience, as well as an expanded network. It surely takes some hard work and good planning abilities, but I believe there is lots to gain.
Top Tips
Look for a mentor who works in a different area than yours. This will help your understanding of the wider professional context.
Be selective. A piece of evidence can be used for more than one criteria, if relevant
You can use evidence that dates back to 2-3 years ago. Even older, if linked to your CV
Be aware of legal issues (intellectual property, GDPR etc.)
Ensure you annotate your evidence, to explain why you have included it in your submission
Demonstrate your CPD as wide as you can: you can use a variety of sources for evidence
Although there is not one single prescribed way to arrange and display your portfolio, clarity is key! Make life easy for the assessors (remember they are volunteers)
Connect! Networking will create opportunities of gathering evidence.
Resources
There are some resources that can help you through the process:
CILIP/CILIPS events on Professional Registration and Portfolio Building
Facebook CILIP Chartership Group
CILIP Chartership Mailing list (Higher Education)
On Twitter, follow @uklibchat: it’s always a good way to broaden your knowledge in wider library service and enrich your network. And they do an interesting interactive chat on a Monday!
Following what Laura has already delineated as the meaning of undergoing the process of Chartership, that it is a way of developing professionally for Library and Information Professionals, I will go a bit more in detail with the technicalities of this process (boooooring). All this, considering that this is still a work-in-progress for the three of us, so we are only writing on what we are currently experiencing.
This whole procedure concretely consists in building up, and then submitting, a Portfolio. Where do you start? Well, there are many tools you can use that are going to help you in this process.
PKSB
First of all, you should make a self-assessment using the PKSB (Professional Knowledge and Skills Base): this is a very important tool which should be used to score your knowledge and skills on different areas relevant to the Library and Information Professions. This gives you the chance to analyse your skills and knowledge in these areas with a “Current Score” to an “Ideal Score”. The self-assessment that you are making should also say how you can get from the Current Score” to the “Ideal Score”. Taking an example from my PKSB, one of the areas I would like to gain more knowledge is the n. 10 “Strategy, Planning and Management”, more specifically 10.9 “Project management”: now, I have very little experience in defining, planning, managing and completing a time limited business task (project), within agreed parameters of cost/resources, timescales and quality, but I would like to know more about this and believe that it could come in handy for my profession. I put “Current Score” 1 (Basic) because in previous work experiences I helped colleagues and managers with their projects, as well as organising a couple of project in my University days. My “Ideal Score” here is 3 (Comprehensive): in order to achieve this, I believe a relevant course of action could be asking to shadow the Library Coordinators for the Library Service of my workplace and see how they “define, plan, manage and complete” projects within the Library Service. Another way to get a better understanding in this area would be to shadow my Community Librarian, for a focus on more local projects.
Now, there are many areas in PKSB in which you might like to gain some more experience and knowledge. However, you have to be realistic and select just some of them (not more than 12-15) because this is a work that is going to be (ideally) completed in 12 months time. And you have to work on it!.
Reflective writing
This part is called “reflective” for a reason: for all the activities connected to your profession you have done during these months, you should have kept notes to say what you have learned from that experience, if that experience has been indeed useful, if and how that experience is going to help you for your profession. (All these “experiences” constitute your Supporting evidence).
Have you been to a conference? Take notes of what you have learned.
Have you done some self-reading on a relevant topic? Write about it.
Have you done a course/training/webinar? You should have some records of them.
All this is going to aid you in writing your reflective piece. Remember, it is not a report, but a very personal and well-thought part of your portfolio. This will also help you in writing your…
Evaluative statement
This is a part of the Reflective writing that must be included in the Portfolio. But it is not only that. This is basically a condensation of the reflective writing with the evidence of the work you have done in these 12 (or more) months and explain how it meets the assessing criteria. And it cannot be more than 1000 words.
After all these technicalities, you can understand how this is a lot of work. It can be overwhelming. And it requires organisation, as well as passion. Also, you have to keep in mind that this is your path to professional development, so take it as a chance to learn as much as you can. Similarly to Laura, after the MSc in Information and Library Studies I thought “After this intense year, there is even more to do?!”. But again, like Laura, I am finding this extra work as something that can help me to get a better understanding of this profession.
I must say, this is the third month working towards my Chartership and I really can’t wait to keep going!
Gut feelings and hair whitening
What is important is not the destination, but the journey. And you are definitely in for a treat if you start the Chartership process. Let’s face it: it is going to be a challenging process! You will have to fight some of your (probably) well known monsters: procrastination in all its forms (never-ending to-do lists, split attention, social media networking, I-cannot-do-this feelings), motivation dwindling due to the slowness of the process or even a magnificent motivational peak in which you will commit to everything you can think of just to go through blood sweat and tears the second after.
And that is important. You will need to learn how to juggle among all your work and life things as well as doing your Chartership, therefore think well before you commit to it! I can give you some suggestions here, feel free to use them or ignore them: my colleagues have given you already everything you need to know, so you can skip this part if you found this post too long.
Trust your guts! If you think that in the long run that conference is really not worth going to for your development, because you are planning to move to a different sector, maybe going just because it fits perfectly to that PKSB chart you did 8 months ago is not a good reason. And I am sure you can invest your energies in a more relevant conference.
Your mentor is your friend! It is important to communicate with your mentor often. Check with them, even when it feels you are not doing much. They can help you seeing something you might be overlooking and also give you some more directions in how you could reflect better on your CPD.
Remember to find a social net that can help you when you feel overwhelmed: what I really found useful in this process, has been starting this Chartership with some of my uni colleague. Sometimes when I feel the blues, I know I can count on them for help and a good chat to talk about the hardships of the Chartership. And I always get back on track because they are the best motivational team I could ask for (wink-wink).
Remember your Chartership is a unique process. Your friend has so many pieces of evidence that makes you feel you haven’t done anything so far? Your mentor suggested you to review for the third time your PKSB while on facebook someone else said it has been a piece of cake for them to get it OKed? Well, I tell you, stop looking at those things and focus on yourself. It’s the best thing you can do. If you take some time, even ten minutes after your day at work, before leaving for home, to reflect on what you achieved that day, you can easily see that most of the things you are doing will fall in some of your PKSB improvement plan. So reflect on them and use them for your portfolio! It took me sometime to get my head around this, but I am the pessimist of the group, so...
I am sure you can do it if I can, my dear. So do not even think about stop trying. And if you need a hand, just leave a message down here in the comments, and look for us on our social media accounts! We are happy to help!
It’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock ‘n roll! (And I am positive it is going to be an enriching experience).
Comments
Post a Comment