Assessing Information Use and Literacy Competency: a Study Among Engineering Faculty Members in Karnataka State

Abstract

 Due to information explosion, the academic community faces abundant information choices. As more information is generated, the stakeholders need to know how to identify, acquire, evaluate and use the information. In this connection, the study is being conducted. A survey method was conducted among faculty members working in engineering colleges of Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka State, India. The study results revealed that majority of the faculty members were aware of all the electronic resources except the one net analytics. The faculty members were familiar with author, title, keyword and subject searchers, while, they were not familiar with other search options such as Boolean logic, truncation and phrase search. Lack of resources, lack of highend computers, and insufficient time slot for accessing the resources were the major challenges faced by them. The study highlighted some of the suggestions based on findings and frame user education module.