DEVELOPING A SELF-PACED COURSE MODULE IN INFORMATION-FINDING AND LITERACY SKILLS FOR COURSEBASED MASTERS' STUDENTS

Abstract

Academic librarians in Canada often teach information research skills and information literacy tostudents, including engineering students, via class presentations. These skills include knowledge of the diverse technical information sources available, the use of specialised databases and free search tools, and assessing and properly citing information; they are important in graduate studies and in engineering practise. Course-based masters’ students are a growing demographic in engineering, however their particular needs have not as often been targeted by librarians. In this project, we developed a graded asynchronous course module in these skills, for a new course in professional skills for M.Eng. students. It uses text, images, videos, short assignments and quizzes to follow thegeneral research and writing process for a technical report, marking a significant increase in the contact time for these skills. To date the unit has been taught twice, to over 200 students, with overall feedback being positive. We plan to continue its development and make it openlyavailable.