Introduction

Information competencies are a key factor in lifelong learning. They are the first step in achieving educational goals. The development of such competencies should take place throughout an engineering student's life, especially during their educational years, where librarians, as a part of the learning community and, as experts in information management, have or should assume the key role of facilitating information literacy. Through the creation - collaboratively between librarians and the engineering lecturers, of information literacy curriculum-integrated programmes, librarians should actively contribute to the students’ learning processes in their search to enhance or develop the skills, knowledge and values needed to become lifelong learners.

A.1 Funding

Busitema University Library received funding from the Engineering Information Foundation (EiF) of the New York, United States. Chartered in the State of New York, United States in 1994 as an independent private foundation, the Engineering Information Foundation (EiF), through grant funding is helping to enhance communication and the use of information in Engineering education. The Engineering Information Foundation provided funding towards the development and implementation of the disciplinary-based curriculum that culminated into this policy and a workplan. The grant focuses on enhancing communication and the use of information in engineering. Thus, the goal of the project was to incorporate information seeking in the engineering curriculum as essential component in delivering engineering education at Busitema. This will be achieved through implementing a disciplinary-based information literacy e-curriculum for teaching engineering courses as a novel approach to online teaching and learning, where the responsibility for teaching engineering courses is shared between the lecturer and the librarian rather than being limited to the lecturers.

A.2 Compilation

The principles, procedures, recommendations, and concepts listed in this policy document are a compilation from different international documents related to information literacy. Most of the content is based on published experiences generated by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and national library associations, as follows:

  • Guidelines on information literacy for lifelong learning by Jesús Lau Chair, Information Literacy Section / IFLA, 2006;
  • The extensive work of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), for example Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology by the ALA/ ACRL/ STS Task Force on Information Literacy for Science and Technology;
  • The seminal and early contributions of the American Association of School Libraries (AASL);
  • The work done by the Big Blue project;
  • The information skills problem-solving models of the Big Six expounded by Eisenberg and Berkowitz (1997) - all from the United States;
  • The contribution of the Society of College, National, and University Libraries (SCONUL) from the United Kingdom;
  • The Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy; and
  • The contributions of the Mexican Information Literacy Forum. 

A.3 Use of the Policy Document

The policy provides a conceptual template to guide the development and implementation of the information literacy programme at Busitema University's Faculty of Engineering and Technology. The document provides information to frame the IL efforts of the lecturers, librarians and students at the Faculty of Engineering. The policy:

  • establishes a clear philosophy and set of overarching goals that will guide the entire curriculum review and implementation and the decisions that affect each aspect of the curriculum;
  • establishes sequences both within and between student academic levels and assures a coherent and articulated progression in grades;
  • outlines a basic framework for what to do, how to do it, when to do it and how to know if it has been achieved;
  • allows for flexibility and encourages experimentation and innovation;
  • promotes interdisciplinary approaches appropriately;
  • suggests methods of assessing the achievement of the curriculum's goals and objectives;
  • provides a means for its own ongoing revision and improvement; and
  • provides direction for human resources management, material and fiscal resources to implement the curriculum.

The policy serves as a checklist during the planning and implementation of an IL programme, or to reinforce previous information literacy work.

A.4 Arrangement of Policy Document

The policy document is divided into ten sections (A to J), with each having subsections that comprise of the organizational spectrum of information literacy work for teaching engineering courses. Key to this policy document is the narrative to each topic on how to implement the programme in a science public university - Busitema University; a list of key information literacy terms with their definitions, and a bibliography for further reading. In each case every topic is briefly introduced, followed by paragraphs with lists of bulleted points.

  • A. Introduction (A.1 to A.10)
  • B. Information Literacy Concepts (B.1 to B.10)
  • C. Theoretical Constructs to Information Literacy – Learning Theories (C.1 to C.6)
  • D. Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning (D.1 to D.4)
  • E. International Standards (E.1 to E.4)
  • F. Learning/ Instruction Management (F.1 to F.2)
  • G. Information Literacy Learning Menu (G.1 to G.6)
  • H. Personnel Development (H.1 to H.4)
  • I. Learning Assessment (I.1 to I.3)
  • J. References

A.5 University Mandate

The mandate of the University is to provide higher education through quality teaching, research and outreach.

A.6 Information Literacy Vision

A Center of Excellence for producing information literate Engineers

A.7 Information Literacy Mission

To promote excellence in engineering education and training at Busitema University through a clearly defined path of Information Literacy e-curriculum that meets the needs of our students and reflects current trends in the engineering profession - path to an information literate engineer

AND

To promote excellence in engineering education and training at Busitema University through a clearly defined path to an information literate engineer

A.8 Philosophy

We believe in helping our students recognize and articulate the need for relevant information, locate and access it, ethically use it to critique resources, facts and opinions, to generate new knowledge and solve societal problems.

We commit to:

  1. Help our students engage with information to solve engineering problems, thus create new understanding through active investigation and thought, instead of memorizing facts presented in-class lectures.
  2. Help our students acquire integrated skills to effectively participate in the generation and application of information for lifelong learning.
  3. Help our students to become pedagogically sophisticated through triangulated approaches, and enable them to become interdisciplinary researchers.
  4. Use multiple appropriate approaches to realize the intended learning outcomes, and enable students to do the assessment, and recognize as many learning styles and approaches as is realistically possible within the engineering discipline.
  5. Impart in students a set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how engineering information is produced and valued, and the use of engineering information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.
  6. Impart in students a set of applied skills for negotiating the huge amount of engineering information in the modern world and instilling in engineering students the practice of objectively examining competing versions of the truth and rejecting claims for which there is no evidence.

A.9 Justification

The engineering discipline poses unique challenges in identifying, evaluating, acquiring and using information. For instance, peer-reviewed articles are generally published in more costly journals and, therefore, not always available; gray literature requires knowledge of the agency/ organization publishing the information; much of engineering is now interdisciplinary and, therefore, requires knowledge of information resources in more than one discipline; and information can be in various formats (e.g., multimedia, database, website, data set, patent, Geographic Information System, 3-D technology, open file report, audio/visual, book, graph, map) and, therefore, may often require manipulation, working knowledge of specialized software, or/ and special information searching and use skills.

The need for engineering students to be information literate as a requirement for their success both academically and in their future professional pursuits is interminable. This need has only increased due to the changing engineering paradigm, COVID-19 induced challenges, and the increased demand to provide online instruction and courses for highly practical disciplines like engineering. To address these challenges, the library in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering and Technology is developing the first-ever disciplinary-based information literacy (IL) e-curriculum for teaching engineering courses at Busitema University. This will be known as the Engineering Information Literacy E-curriculum. This e-curriculum will assist engineering lecturers and librarians to ensure that the engineering subject matter is taught in line with the University Vision, Mission, and Values, the Busitema University Library Mission, the needs of engineering students and lecturers, and the developments seen in current research on IL skills development.

The e-curriculum will increase the variety and frequency of IL sessions to be delivered and the quality of that delivery. To inform our new IL policy and action plan, the library looks outward to the variety of library online resources subscribed to through the Consortium of Uganda University Libraries and development partners, increasing book budget, collections development policy, and library research support services.

 A.10 Goals/ Objectives

  1. Online Integration - To enhance engineering teaching and learning through the development of a series of online learning modules which will aid in the achievement of key IL competencies.
  2. Educational Role - With a focus on embedded librarianship, to increase collaboration between the librarians and the lecturers to incorporate resources and information literacy outcomes into an effective educational experience for students.
  3. Assessment - To develop a set of assessment tools that can be applied to select IL-related services, enabling us to evaluate the impact of IL programming.

Putting this policy in place, the library is affirming its strategic role in ensuring engineering students are able to develop the IL skills they require for success during their education at Busitema and future employment.

Developing the Engineering Information Literacy e-curriculum policy, Busitema University Library is demonstrating its commitment to excellence in its IL programming. There is always room to develop, change and achieve a higher level of success. In this policy and action plan, we build on what has been done over the past years and look towards our future progress.