A new information literacy test (ILT) for higher education was developed, tested, and validated. The ILT contains 40 multiple-choice questions (available in Appendix) with four possible answers and follows the recommendations of information literacy (IL) standards for higher education. It assesses different levels of thinking skills and is intended to be freely available to educators, librarians, and higher education managers, as well as being applicable internationally for study programs in all scientific disciplines. Testing of the ILT was performed on a group of 536 university students. The overall test analysis confirmed the ILT reliability and discrimination power as appropriate (Cronbach's alpha 0.74; Ferguson's delta 0.97). The students' average overall achievement was 66%, and IL increased with the year of study. The students were less successful in advanced databasesearch strategies, which require a combination of knowledge, comprehension, and logic, and in topics related to intellectual property and ethics. A group of 163 students who took a second ILT assessment after participating in an IL-specific study course achieved an average posttest score of 78.6%, implying an average IL increase of 13.1%, with most significant improvements in advanced search strategies (23.7%), and in intellectual property and ethics (12.8%).
COBISS.SI-ID: 1585756
This contribution summarizes the results of the evaluation of information literacy (IL) of 677 higher education students enrolled in study programs of life sciences, health, technologies, and social sciences at six Slovenian faculties. The information literacy test (ILT) that was developed, verified and validated by the authors in a previous work served as the IL measuring instrument. Statistical analyses of ILT responses were performed in SPSS. The results suggest that, on average, Slovenian students% IL is satisfactory and improves with years of education. On average, students know information sources and adequately evaluate the collected information. They possess skills to use the information in academic work and to synthesize data into knowledge. However, students are less proficient in advanced search strategies available in scientific and patent databases. The main deficit in students% knowledge is evident in topics related to intellectual property rights and in ethical issues related to acquisition and use of information. Students that participated in an IL-specific study course significantly improved their ILT achievement, most significantly in topics where their pre-knowledge was lower.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1251166
The contribution presents an example of transferring information literacy competencies from a Ph.D. academic environment into the industrial environment in the field of polymeric chemistry. In addition, the results of a study including research, collection, ranking, and testing of available tools for project management of projects in the field of injection molding will be presented with exploration of methods and techniques for problems solving from brainstorming to the TRIZ system. The experiences gained through leading of projects in an industrial environment with awareness of importance of information literacy will be presented and discussed, including some recommendations for project management: Project documentation should be transformed to the "knowledge database of the company"; Process of "the right" information transfer inside the project team needs to be controlled; Transition from "traditional" problem solving to inventive solving of problems; and, People competences should be constantly upgraded.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1253214