Webbook for engineers: An interactive information skills programme

Abstract

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

Courseware in academic library user education: A literature review from the GAELS Joint Electronic Library Project

“…A typical pattern emerges. A package is created to support a subject-specific class (Orians and Sabol, 1996); or alternatively, a course in communications, professional or study skills provides a curriculum context for the library skills training (Parise, 1998;Cribb and Woodall, 1997). The academic level is undergraduate not research.…”

Understanding Undergraduate Engineering Student Information Access and Needs: Results from a Scoping Review

“…( Figure 1, Table 1). Of the 44 papers included quantitative [12], [20], [25], [30], [40]- [42], [46], [49], [50], [52], [54], [56]- [58], [63]; 14 qualitative [27]- [29], [33], [36], [37], [44], [45], [51], [53], [59], [61], [62], [65]; 11 mixed methods studies [18], [26], [31], [32], [38], [39], [43], [47], [48], [60], [66]; two literature reviews [34], [35]; and one instrument development paper [55]. The included studies were published between 1991 and 2018, having a median age of 5.5 years, and with five of the studies [28], [31], [36], [41],…”

“…The median sample size was 64 students. Several studies included students across different engineering disciplines, with breakdowns as follows: mechanical engineering undergraduates were the most frequently studied group (n=13) [12], [18], [30], [38], [41], [44], [45], [51], [53], [54], [57], [63], [66]; followed by first-year undergraduate engineers (n=10) [26]- [29], [32], [33], [36], [42], [47], [52], [59]- [62], [65]; civil (n=9) [12], [18], [37], [41], [49], [51], [57], [66]; electrical (n=6) [18], [41], [44], [51], [57], [66], computer (n=5) [20], [41], [50], [51], [66]. Limited demographic information was reported on the subjects; 12 studies reported the gender of participants [27], [28],…”