Information Skills

Information Skills (257 - 14359)
Study: Bachelor in Biomedical Engineering
Semester 2/Spring Semester
1st Year Course/Lower Division

Please note: this course is cross-listed under the majority of engineering departments. You should select the course from the department that best fits your area of study.

Compentences and Skills that will be Acquired and Learning Results:

At the completion of this course, students will
1. Understand the importance of resource-based learning and research.
2. Recognize information problems and develop effective strategies to solve them.
3. Become familiar with general and specialized information sources, and be able to determine their appropriateness for the task at hand.
4. Determine the reliability and quality of information and its sources.
5. Develop their information retrieval skills, improving the precision and efficiency of their searches.
6. Use information ethically, avoiding plagiarism, and following academic conventions and professional requirements.

Description of Contents: Course Description

UNIT 1: WHERE TO FIND RELIABLE INFORMATION
- Data, information and knowledge.
- Competences in information.
- Sources of information: typology and location.
- Evaluation of information resources.

UNIT 2: ETHICAL USE OF INFORMATION: CITATION AND REFERENCES
- Ethics and intellectual property.
- The academic work without plagiarism.
- Create and manage in text citations and bibliographic references.
- Present and organize references.
- Software products for generating and managing citations and bibliographies.

UNIT 3. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL: GENERAL RESOURCES
- Basic concepts of Information Retrieval.
- Information search processes in electronic environments.
- Multidisciplinary databases.
- Internet search tools.

UNIT 4. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL: THEMATIC AND SPECIALIZED RESOURCES
- Portals and specialized databases.
- Selection of online resources.
- New spaces of knowledge interaction.

Learning Activities and Methodology:

Acquisition of theoretical knowledge (1 ECTS), through lectures, teaching materials prepared by the teacher, online tutorials, specialized reading, and the students' personal study, related to theoretical competences.

Acquisition of practical skills and abilities (2 ECTS), through case-studies oriented to information seeking in web sources, analysis of these sources, evaluation of results, presentation and citation of content.

Student assignments will be done partly in a computers classroom with direct supervision of the teacher; and partly out of the classroom with the support and subsequent control of the teacher. These assignments will be in particular oriented on the acquisition and development of practical skills.

Assessment System:

The course uses continuous assessment as the basis for determining the level of student performance, as well as class-based tests, according to the following parameters:

-Formative continuous assessment based on practical assignments, class-based tests and a group project: up to 60% of the final grade.

-Final theory and practice tests held on the last day of regular classes, during usual hours: up to 40% of the final grade.

Students who have participated in at least 30% of learning activities and ongoing evaluation and have not passed the subject, may recover it by the following compensatory activities:

- A practical project (50% of grade). The deadline for delivery of the work will be the date set for the retake test.

- Multiple choice test (50% of grade). This test will take place the day before the start of the extraordinary call. The teacher will notify in advance the classroom and time where the test will have place.

If the student satisfactorily completes the supplementary assessment, the record would be updated accordingly.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: As in all your work, no copying or plagiarism is allowed. If such is detected, no credit for the activity will be given.

Basic Bibliography:

BOBISH, Greg; JACOBSON, Trudi (eds.) . The Information Literacy User's Guide: An Open, Online Textbook.. Geneseo, NY: State University of New York at Geneseo, . 2014.
PACIOS LOZANO, Ana R. (coord.). Técnicas de Búsqueda y Uso de la Información.. Madrid: Ramón Areces,. 2013