Effectiveness of an Information Literacy Course to Promote Informational Skills in University

Efectividad de un curso de Gestión de la Información para promover alfabetización informativa en universidad

Abstract

The curriculum of the Digital Graphic Design Engineering career of a private university in Mexico, includes in the first semester the course of Information Management. This course seeks to develop skills and informational skills and has a strongly theoretical approach. In the second semester, the course of Oral and Written Communication in Spanish is offered, where they must apply what they have previously learned to prepare their own works of the subject. The problem that seeks to analyze in this work is to identify if students apply their knowledge about information literacy, particularly what is related to the ethical use of information, current and type of sources consulted. The data collection methods were three: (1) review of student´s works through a checklist and with bibliometric techniques, (2) group interview with the students who took both courses, and (3) interview with the teachers who taught each subject. Among the results it stands out that the students identify their informative needs, both for the subject of Communication and for their formational area; they have elements to evaluate the relevance of the information sources, as well as general notions about the style manual that they are asked to follow, and they use current and adequate sources according to the type of work requested. However, there is a need to make adjustments to the curricular design so that it has a more practical approach.