Objective - This project sought to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses in locating, retrieving, and citing information in order to deliver information skills workshops more effectively. Methods - Bibliographies submitted from first-year engineering and second- and fourth-year chemical engineering students’ project reports were analysed for the number of items cited, the variety of items cited, and the correct use of citation style. The topics of the project reports were also reviewed to see the relationships between the topics and the items cited. Results - The results show that upper level students cited more items in total than did lower level students in their bibliographies. Second- and fourth-year engineering students cited more books and journal articles than first-year students cited. Web sites were used extensively by all three groups of students, and for some first-year students these were the most frequently used sources. Students from all three groups had difficulties with citation style. Conclusion - There was a clear difference in citation frequency between upper and lower level engineering students. Different strategies of information skills instruction are needed for different levels of students. Librarians and department faculty members need to include good quality Internet resources in their teaching and to change the emphasis from finding information to finding, interpreting, and citing accurately.
Summary The activity patterns of six species of captive elephant shrews {Elephantulus (four species), Macroscelides and Petrodromus) were monitored electronically for periods of 48 h. Individual animals showed some significant differences in activity from one day to the next but generally followed the same pattern of diel activity. Intraspecific differences were observed in eight Elephantulus edwardii and seven Elephantulus myurus but all had a similar overall pattern of activity apart from a possibly diseased E. edwardii and two E. myurus, which had previously been exposed to a high level of human disturbance, and which showed increased nocturnal activity. All species were active, to varying degrees, both day and night. Interspecific differences in activity exhibited a continuum, with different species showing differing periods of peak activity. Differences in the nocturnal/diurnal ratio may be related to the amount of cover in the habitat and the degree of aridity experienced by each species. Significant seasonal differences in activity were noted in two species where sample sizes were adequate to permit their detection. Résumé On a surveilléélectroniquement le schéma d'activité de six espéces de rats à trompe en captivité par tranche de 48 h. Individuellement, les animaux présentent quelques différences significatives d'un jour à l'autre mais suivent généralement le même schéma d'activité. Des différences intraspécifiques furent observées chez huit Elephantulus edwardii et sept E. myurus mais tous avaient un schéma d'activités globalement similaire, aF l'exception d'un E. edwardii, peut‐être malade, et de deux E. myurus qui avaient ete auparavant soumis à de grands dérangements, et qui montraient un accroissement de l'activité nocturne. Toutes les espèces étaient actives, à des degrés divers, jour et nuit. Les différences interspécifiques étaient permanentes, les espèces présentant des périodes d'activité maximales diffeareés. Les différences du rapport diurne/nocturne peuvent être mises en relation avec le degré de couvertre de l'habitat et le degré d'aridité aux quels est soumise chaque espèce. On a noté des différences d'activité saisonnières significatives chez deux espèces dont la taille de l'echantillon permettait de les détecter.
First-year engineering students at the University of Queensland used an interactive webbook to acquire information skills. These helped them search information resources for their projects, which they are required to undertake as part of the subject Introduction to professional engineering. The information skills exercise was an integral part of the project and worth 10% of the overall assessment. The exercises were only available on the Web, allowing the students to enter their answers from home or wherever they had access to the Internet. All answers were marked automatically using a database of all possible answers. Students were able to go back to check their answers. Students were assessed on both their responses to the exercises and also their final bibliography which largely reflected the impact of the webbook. The entire process was evaluated. This paper presents the process and the outcomes of the first-year engineering project involving use of WWW for information skills instruction. The webbooks can be found at http r//www.library .uq.edu.au/9elO5/ Introduction T he focus of this paper is on the development of an information skills programme for first-year engineering students on the Web. Information skills training involves more than teaching students how to use the library. Students need to learn how to do research, locate, find, use, analyse and evaluate information. There is an increasing number of examples, both on the Web and in print, on what the core information literacy skills are M . Essentially, information skills are transferable skills to enable students to define their topic or the problem, to formulate strategies to seek the information required, to locate and access, use, evaluate, organise, synthesise the information acquired and to communicate it using a variety of information technologies.Engineering students are generally highly computer-literate as there is heavy emphasis on computer skills in their courses. Computer literacy and information literacy are not synonymous, even though information skills training normally encourages computer skills The New Review of Information Networking 1997
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