Instruction Toolkit for
Textiles and Engineering Services
Information Competencies for Students
Freshmen
Information-oriented assignments given to freshmen should be highly structured, with expectations clearly stated. Assignments should help orient students to the NCSU Libraries’ information system.
By the end of their first year, students should:
- Be comfortable using the physical library to find needed resources and staff members
- Understand the importance of the catalog; what it contains and what it is used for
- Extract location and status information from a catalog record
- Possess a basic library/research vocabulary
- Be firmly grounded in the use of reference items.
Sophomores
Information-oriented assignments given to sophomores should be very structured, with expectations clearly stated. Assignments should reinforce and build on the information skills of the freshmen year.
By the end of their second year, students should:
- Be able to search the library catalog using the appropriate subject heading(s)
- Be able to formulate a keyword search in the library catalog or citation database
- Understand the difference between a popular, trade and scholarly journal
- Be able to evaluate and select the appropriate database
- Know the titles of some major journals in their field
- Have a broadened knowledge of available library services
Juniors
Information-oriented assignments for juniors should be less structured, with more open-ended expectations. They should build and expand on the information skills obtained during the freshman and sophomore years.
By the end of their junior year, students should:
- Be able to name a few of the major reference books, journals and databases in their field of study.
- Have a basic awareness of other types of information sources (standards, conference proceedings, patents).
- Have learned multidisciplinary ways of thinking.
- Be able to present a verbal or written strategy for solving an information problem.
- Be thoroughly comfortable with all major library services (checkout, return, online renewal, check borrowing record, MyLibrary, ILL, etc.)
Seniors
Information-oriented assignments for seniors should build advanced searching skills and a firm understanding of the "information universe." Seniors should graduate with information competencies sufficient for functioning in the working world or for beginning a graduate degree program.
Examples of such competencies include:
- Knowing what patents are and how to find them.
- Knowing what engineering technical standards are and how to find them.
- Being able to search for physical properties or data.
- Knowing the major professional associations in one's field.
- Being able to formulate a complex search statement.
- Being able to synthesize information from multiple sources regardless of format.
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