Information Literacy at Tertiary Level of Education

Runita Marwah

Information skills and academic IT skills are imperative to higher education but ignored by most pre-degree preparatory General Foundation Programmes (GFPs) in Oman. Therefore, a need of introducing, designing and implementing such a module was identified pertaining to the requirements and the importance of the information skills in this Digital Era, where students rely mostly of electronic information resources for academic researches, assignments and acquiring knowledge. After the successful implementation of the module at one of the most prestigious academic organisation in Oman, a post implementation Action Research was conducted to determine the efficacy of the module and to establish the requirement of integrating information skills in the curriculum in order to equip students with the necessary academic information skills to cope up with the pace and demands of the present information age. The main objective was to focus on the importance of information literacy in higher education and assess the efficacy of the implemented module through an active post implementation action research with the intention of improving the quality of the programme delivered at institutional level and to present the recommendations supported by the research outcomes to Oman Academic Accreditation Authority for incorporating the projection in their prescribed standards for GFPs in Oman. This will be perceived and presented as an initiative towards the up gradation of nationwide academic standards in terms of current information skills requirements in Higher Education. The data (N=232) was collected through a carefully devised comprehensive questionnaire, keeping the identified research variables in mind and was further validated trough the reliability tests. Later, the data was carefully analysed and interpreted through suitable statistical analysis to establish the hypothesis and plan a better future projection for learners as well as for educators and education providers.