PROFESSORS

Informational skills

Why is it important to acquire informational skills?

Informational skills are the set of skills, abilities and knowledge that enable us to recognize when we need information, where to locate it, how to evaluate its suitability and use it properly according to a posed problem.

 

The Library, Publications and Archives Service (SBPA) of the UPC defines the informational competence as the acquisition of the abilities that allow to:

  • Find the pertinent information that is needed
  • Organize information efficiently
  • Communicate the information properly in an oral and written way

The acquisition of informational competencies is a task that has been developed in the syllabus adapted to the EHEA and in which the library staff can actively collaborate with the teaching and research staff. If you are interested, contact your library.

It is commonly detected that a large number of students:

  • do not know how to recognize or interpret the reference of a journal article and other types of documents.
  • do not know how to interrogate general or specialized databases (such as the catalog of a library, Compendex, IEEE, etc.). Normally, in addition, they do not know about their existence.
  • have difficulty identifying a need for information (What do I need? Where can I find it?).
  • adopt too basic search strategies that do not match results.
  • make a preponderant use of general search engines on the Internet at the expense of search tools that allow to retreive the sources.
  • are not able to recognize the criteria that allow to evaluate the quality of a website and can not find the websites of reference in a specialty.
  • do not know the ethical and legal aspects of the use of information and often fail in plagiarism.

Last update: 14 / 02 / 2019