Educational Challenges of Higher Education: Validation of the Information Competence Scale for Future Teachers (ICS-FT)

The irruption of information and communication technologies has brought about an abrupt change in the demands placed on future professionals. In this sense, in recent years, information competencies have gained importance in university education from a cross-cutting perspective, which advocates as its main purpose the training of young people in information search, evaluation, processing and communication skills, especially through a digital network. Based on this idea, the present work aims to develop the Information Competence Scale for Future Teachers (ICS-FT), in order to measure the level of self-perceived skills in this area. For this purpose, a work design is presented below concerning an empirical validation, divided into different phases: the validation of content, construct and reliability, which has taken as a pilot sample a total of 259 university students studying the degree of Primary Education. The results of the validation determined the optimal conditions of content, construct and reliability that allowed the application of this scale as a generic approach to determine the level of competence in the information skills of future teachers.

Information Competencies and Information Seeking Behavior in Digital Paradigms: A Case of Urdu Literature

The study investigates the current state of information demands and the information-seeking behavior of Urdu literary students using digital technologies. Another purpose of the study was to determine the level of satisfaction with both the existing facilities and resources. A quantitative survey method of research is used to achieve the study’s objectives. Four major public universities of Lahore were the population. Containing the use of the convenience sample approach, data was obtained using a self-structured questionnaire with open-ended and closed-ended questions. Results show that Urdu literature students were not very familiar and comfortable with using research journals, research reports/theses, and reference works while finding information. There is a need to encourage students the use research journals, research reports/theses. The study focuses solely on Pakistani Urdu literature students. For generalizations, this survey should be reproduced on a larger scale. The findings of the research will contribute to knowledge about Urdu literature students’ information-seeking behavior at the university level in Pakistan, which may be beneficial to ultimately provide better services in the domain of Urdu literature. Universities and libraries need to provide more facilities and electronic resources for the Urdu language and literature students, keeping in mind their trends toward new technologies. University libraries should organize special training programs for literature students.

Opportunities for the Formation of Information and Digital Competencies of a HR Specialist Within the Framework of a Higher School

The article presents the results of the analysis of federal educational standards for personnel management at the undergraduate and graduate level, which showed that higher educational institutions can creatively approach the formation of information and digital competencies in students. It has been substantiated that the formation of digital competencies is based on information competencies and is associated with the ability to extract, process, store and transmit big data. For the formation of digital competencies among students studying in the field of "personnel management", it is proposed to introduce the study of the free software product KNIME distributed on the Internet in the work program of the discipline "Information technologies in personnel management", which allows working with big data at the level of large nodes without knowledge of programming languages. The article provides an example of a simple model created in KNIME to analyze the labor market of specialists required by an enterprise by extracting and processing data presented on the website hh.ru.

Formation of Digital Competences of University Library Users

The paper presents various approaches to defining the concepts of ‘information competencies’ and ‘digital competencies’. The point of view of scientists on the essence, structure and ways of developing digital competencies are considered, the concept of students’ digital competence in modern conditions is clarified. The influence of this process on the development of the university library is emphasized. Digital competence is defined as the student’s high-level ability to communicate in the digital space (highly mobile intelligent devices, smart technologies, network professional communities) with the goal of self-realization and continuous innovative development. Among new challenges for the university library in digital environment the main ones are considered to be the emergence of new social and technological tasks, the specifics of working with users of the university library, and changing access to electronic resources while maintaining the invariability of main functional purpose of university library. The integrity and systemic development of digital competence of students in the conditions of the university library is reflected. The purpose of this paper is to unlock the potential of the university library as a subject of digital competencies development of students who will work in the digital age. The experience of the Scientific Library of the Siberian Federal University on developing digital competence of students is presented. Profiles of digital competencies of library users are proposed, which include two areas of responsibility: 1) information competencies and 2) digital competencies. The results of the study were refined and summarized, the results of the study were systematized, methodological recommendations were prepared to increase the effectiveness of libraries

Strengthening students’ academic digital competencies through development of learning patterns

Today students are met with expectations of being able to navigate in a broad spectrum of digital challenges. The STAK project aims at developing specific digital didactic designs in the form of learning patterns that support and develop students' digital competencies, within areas such as digital sharing, open access, online collaboration and other emerging technological opportunities and challenges.The concept of “Learning Patterns” covers a method used to capture experience about best practice from educators and other experts, and disseminate these into concrete learning patterns and activities. These concrete learning patterns are then systematised and described in such a way that it is possible for others to understand them and reuse them. As a product, learning patterns can be described as a “how-to”-formula that you can transfer to your own teaching.The STAK project have developed more than 100 learning patterns within four categories: Digital information competencies, digital participatory competencies, digital production competencies, and digital responsibility-and security competencies. The concrete learning patterns are available on an OER (open educational resource), https://open-tdm.au.dk/blogs/stak/,along with models and templates for how to develop learning patterns. In the presentation, we focus on our work processes with developing learning patterns in the project and present a concrete learning pattern. We are also going to provide you with insight into how you can use this method to develop your own learning patterns. The STAK project (Studerendes Akademiske Digitale Kompetencer på videregående uddannelser) is a Danish national project where six education - and research libraries collaborate with CUDIM (Centre for Teaching Development and Digital Media) at Aarhus University on developing learning patterns to strengthen students’ digital competencies.

Would You Share This Video? Factors Influencing Willingness to Share Online Health Misinformation. (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The rapidly evolving digital environment of the social media era increases the reach of both quality health information and misinformation. Platforms such as YouTube enable easy sharing of attractive, if not always evidence-based, videos with large personal networks as well as the general public. While much research has focused on characterizing health misinformation online, it has not sufficiently focused on describing and measuring individuals’ information competencies that build resilience. OBJECTIVE This study 1) assesses individuals’ willingness to share a non-evidence-based YouTube video about strengthening the immune system, 2) describes types of evidence that individuals view as supportive of the claim by the video, and 3) relates information-sharing behavior to several information competencies: information literacy, science literacy, knowledge of the immune system, interpersonal trust, and trust in health authority. METHODS The study employs an online survey methodology with 150 individuals across the United States. Participants were asked to watch a YouTube excerpt from a morning TV show featuring a wellness pharmacy representative promoting an immunity-boosting dietary supplement produced by his company; answer questions about the video and say whether they would share it with a cousin who was frequently sick; and complete instruments pertaining to the information competencies outlined in the objectives. RESULTS Most participants (105 out of 150) said that they would share the video with their cousin. Their confidence in the supplement would be further boosted by a friend’s recommendations, positive reviews on a crowdsourcing website, and statements of uncited effectiveness studies on the producer’s website. While all information literacy competencies analyzed in this study had a statistically significant relationship with the outcome, each was also highly correlated with each other. Information literacy and interpersonal trust independently predicted the largest amount of variance in the intent to share the video (17% and 16%). Interpersonal trust was negatively related to the willingness to share the video. Science literacy explained 7% of the variance. CONCLUSIONS People are vulnerable to online misinformation and are likely to propagate it online. Information literacy and science literacy are associated with lesser vulnerability to misinformation and lesser propensity to spread it. Of the two, information literacy holds the greater promise as an intervention target. Understanding the role of different kinds of trust on information sharing merits further research.

‘Imprensa Jovem’: São Paulo city ́s MIL successful public policy for municipal basic education

In consonance to UNESCO Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Cities concept and recognizing the importance of initiatives that ensure that all citizens have access to media and information competencies for sus­ tainable development of MIL communities and informed citizenry, this article presents the successful Imprensa Jovem (Youth Press) Educa­ tional Municipal Programme of the city of São Paulo, Brazil: the most populous city of South America, with 12 million inhabitants, marked by high levels of social inequality. Imprensa Jovem was one of the winners of UNESCO MIL Alliance Awards 2020. In the two decades, more than 25.000 teachers and 60.000 students were trained in MIL by the mu­ nicipal education system of São Paulo. It addresses MIL in Basic For­ mal Education Curriculum by allowing teachers and students to acquire competencies of both (Media and Information) through participatory processes, approaching different media languages; critical reading of media, TICs, and SDGs within school news agencies.

Formation of information competencies when learning by pupils of desktop publishing systems in project activities in informatics

The article discusses the feasibility of the formation of information competencies of schoolchildren and the significance of the subject area of informatics for their formation. The necessity of project activities in informatics for the purposeful formation of information competencies is shown. The possibilities and advantages of the MS Publisher desktop publishing system as an information technology that allows the formation of information competencies of students in project activities in informatics are disclosed. The types of students' activities when using the desktop publishing system MS Publisher and information competencies formed in each type of activity are highlighted. The process of organizing project activities is described on the example of creating a school newspaper. In this process, students learn basic publishing concepts, master basic desktop publishing skills, plan project activities, create an information product, document project results, present and analyze work performed. Methodological recommendations are given, aimed at the purposeful formation of information competencies of schoolchildren.

INCREASING COMPETENCIES WITHIN INFORMATION STRUCTURAL COMPONENT OF THE INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES

The intensification of the introduction of information technologies in all areas of industrial production predetermines the relevance of this study. The formulation of the research problem is to identify the factors that ensure the adaptation of information technologies to the industry specificity of production. The purpose of this article is to determine the structure and composition of information competencies, as well as their detailing by categories to control the level of training of specialists and employees of enterprises. As a result of the study, the structure and composition of information competencies have been determined in the context of three categories: basic, professional and complementary. It is concluded that the specification of information competencies in the context of these categories will help to unify approaches to assessing the level of training of specialists and employees of industrial enterprises.