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Gauging Workplace Readiness: Information Behavior and Preparedness of Engineering Students in Cooperative Education Programs

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Conference

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Vancouver, BC

Publication Date

June 26, 2011

Start Date

June 26, 2011

End Date

June 29, 2011

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Information Literacy: Preparing Students for the Real World

Tagged Division

Engineering Libraries

Page Count

6

Page Numbers

22.736.1 - 22.736.6

DOI

10.18260/1-2--18017

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/18017

Download Count

409

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Paper Authors

author page

Jon N. Jeffryes University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

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Abstract

Gauging Workplace Readiness: Information Behavior and Preparedness of Engineering Students in Cooperative Education ProgramsIn Spring 2010 we surveyed undergraduate students from civil, electrical, and mechanicalengineering and computer science who were participating in the engineering cooperativeeducation program, a semester-long work placement for academic credit. We were interested incomparing the information-related skills they had acquired before their co-op semester with thetasks they were expected to perform while on their co-op assignment, as well as learning whatinformation resources and support were available to them on-site at their workplace assignment.Based on the similarities between new engineers’ and co-op students’ work environments, wehoped to extrapolate how ready the average engineering student is for the information-seekingtasks required in their first post-graduation job.We conducted the survey in order to improve our efforts as departmental liaisons on severalfronts. Our primary aim was to determine gaps in students’ preparedness and to work withfaculty in order to address them more strategically. Our findings will help guide us as we worktoward integrating information literacy into the curriculum by providing evidence to present toengineering faculty and instructors, a population that places a high value on data. Another majoruse for the survey results is to identify areas where there is a need for library workshops, bothonline and in person, and additional learning objects to support students. This paper willdiscuss how we have incorporated the research results into our liaison program.

Jeffryes, J. N. (2011, June), Gauging Workplace Readiness: Information Behavior and Preparedness of Engineering Students in Cooperative Education Programs Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--18017

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