Competencia y comportamiento informacionales de estudiantes para el uso de las bibliotecas digitales universitarias

Abstract

The objective is to identify the necessary training requirements for students to effectively use the resources and services offered by university digital libraries. The study aims to provide an understanding of the practices and the informational competence level of students indifferent areas of knowledge. An ad hoc instrument to collect data from a sample of 746 university students from six Hispanic countries was used to conduct this exploratory study. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed on the collected data. The results reveal limited use of university digital libraries by young people in general, dissatisfaction with some of the services they provide, and a low level of informational literacy for effective searching, evaluating, and digital information management. Despite young individuals declare possessing skills for acquiring digital resources, the study evidences the need for teachers and librarians to design strategies that reinforce information literacy across its four dimensions: library resources, plagiarism and source citation, information retrieval, and information evaluation