Information literacy of doctoral students in engineering and the librarianʼs role

Koler-Povh, Teja (author), Turk, Žiga (author)

After a reform of the doctoral study programme at the authors% faculty in Slovenia, an introductory course on scientific research methods became mandatory. It includes the topic of information literacy and covers its five main elements according to ALA 2000 standards. A librarian/researcher runs the practical part. As this course has been running for seven years we were interested in its impacts: (1) what are students% subjective impressions about the course and (2) if and how such a systematic education on information literacy topics objectively impacts their publishing and citations. The paper first presents the results of the questionnaire among 120 PhD students (the response was 67.5%, i.e. 81 of them) conducted immediately after the completion of the information literacy course. Four indicators were measured to address Question 1. Question 2 was approached by examining students% citation practices in their own PhD theses and their publishing results. The hypothesis was that the information literacy course increased students% competence. It was tested using quantitative parameters, such as the number of references in PhD theses and the number of scientific publications written during the study and shortly after it, separately for reformed programme students who attended the information literacy course, and for pre-Bologna reform students who did not take this course. We found that although pre-reform students on average cited a few more references than their post-reform colleagues, there were smaller differences among post-reform than among pre-reform students. Also, the median/typical post-reform students cited more references, what can be attributed to the information literacy course.

• Language: English
• Keywords: academic libraries, PhD students, information literacy course, applied science, engineering, Slovenia
• Work type: Scientific work
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FGG - Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Author Accepted Manuscript
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Year: 2020
• Number of pages: Str. 27-39
• Numbering: letn. 52, št. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-113877
• UDC: 624:02
• ISSN on article: 0961-0006
• DOI: 10.1177/0961000618767726
• COBISS.SI-ID: 8367969
• Publication date in RUL: 13.02.2020

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of librarianship and information science
• Publisher: Bowker-Saur
• ISSN: 0961-0006
• COBISS.SI-ID: 29562881

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.
• Licensing start date: 11.02.2020

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: akademske knjižnice, informacijska pismenost, tehniške znanosti, inženirstvo