***DRAFT***

Information Competencies for Engineering

What skills and knowledge do we expect all engineering graduates to have? Students must be prepared to engage in life-long learning to keep abreast of changes in technology and new investigative tools for doing research. The processes of knowledge retrieval and expert decision-making are important to modern engineering problem-solving.

A vital component of the learning process is the ability to find information on a new topic or problem, analyze it, and integrate the new information with what is known. This ability comes from developing information competencies, or information "literacy". Awareness of the broad range of engineering information resources available and their relative value for particular needs, the knowledge of how to use them, and the motivation to use them routinely, will characterize the "information literate engineer", one prepared for life-long learning.

The Internet and the World Wide Web are research tools that have ushered in an era of easy access to information. Most of it is "unfiltered" as to quality and accuracy, unlike academic library resources, which are carefully reviewed before selection. Students need to develop methods for evaluating the reliability and bias of the information found on the web.

This document details the skills in which an information-literate engineering student should be proficient. Key areas are:

• problem definition,
• development of an efficient and systematic method of finding information,
• awareness of major information resources in engineering,
• critical analysis of information,
• accurate documentation of sources,
• presentation skills: organizing and communicating information to others
• awareness of the social, legal, and ethical uses of information (copyright, plagiarism)
  

Competencies

1. Students analyze and define their information need.
2. Students select and use appropriate information sources.
      Outcomes:
   1. Engineers should develop skills in identifying and using information resources such as conference papers, preprints, technical reports, patents, journals articles, standards and specifications, government information, maps, and books, in both print and electronic format.
   2. They should use reference tools such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and handbooks specific to engineering or to the discipline in which they are doing research.
   3. Engineers should know which is the appropriate resource to use for each problem-solving situation.
3. Students search library catalogs effectively, to determine book and periodical locations and to access electronic resources.
      Outcomes:
   1. Students can locate periodical titles and determine what is available at the library.
   2. Students can initiate document delivery/interlibrary loan requests to obtain items not held locally in print or electronic format.
4. Students can find information on the Internet and evaluate its reliability and authenticity.
5. Students understand citation searching and determine when it might be useful.
6. Students select appropriate information databases to find research or data on their chosen topic and find how to search the database in an effective way.
      Outcomes:
   1. Students develop effective search strategies and modify them as needed.
   2. Students chose appropriate subject categories and search terms.
   3. Students know how to broaden or narrow search results.
   4. Students evaluate references and select the most appropriate ones.
   5. Students recognize the type of resource cited and understand the components of a citation.
   6. Students understand the difference between scholarly and popular information sources and can determine this from a citation.
7. Students locate and retrieve cited sources.
      Outcomes:
   1. Students can determine how to obtain the items they retrieve in a search.
   2. Students can interpret standard library descriptions of holdings and can access electronic resources via the Internet.
8. Students analyze and evaluate information obtained.
      Outcomes:
   1. Students assess the authority, reliability and validity of information retrieved.
   2. Students use multiple information sources for problem-solving and decision-making.
   3. Student examine conflicting information from several sources and reconcile the differences.
   4. Students make decisions based on evidence, when available, rather than on opinion. Students recognize the difference between the two.
9. Students use current awareness services to keep abreast of research and emerging knowledge in respective subject areas.
10. Students understand the basic structure of a scientific paper: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, assignment of keywords or indexing terms.
11. Students use effective and appropriate tools for the presentation of information.
12. Students understand the global, ethical, legal, and socio-political issues of access, use, and management of information.
    

SUMMARY:

Electronic methods of information access are gradually predominating over traditional print formats. As more electronic resources are developed, students need a set of skills to select the most appropriate resources from among library and public web sites. In today's research-based environment, the ability to obtain, synthesize, and use information efficiently will be of crucial importance to both undergraduate and graduate students in engineering throughout their career. The development of information literacy skills should be integrated with academic courses and class assignments within each respective discipline. It is ideally based on close cooperation between faculty and librarians, so that basic through advanced skills can be taught at the appropriate time in the curriculum. When students graduate with a mental model of how to systematically find information in any field, they will be prepared for life-long learning.