Information Skills

A future Industrial Engineer needs to develop a critical attitude and be able to build an argument based on different perspectives. Therefore, he/she need to combine information from different sources. Finding and processing (scientific) information as a professional skill refers to the capacity to find efficiently, and evaluate, select, and use information ethically (in other words called ‘information skills’). Related to these information skills, students need to learn several aspects: (a) to identify a need for information; (b) to translate a need for information to an information demand; (c) to identify suitable information sources and comparing them to assess their value; (d) to apply necessary technology (searching available repositories); (e) to select, process, and integrate founded information with already existing knowledge; and (f) to constantly evaluate each step in the process. Then, every time it is determined what the next step can be, and – at the end of the found information – if it really leads to satisfying the information needs. Besides that, students need to learn using appropriate referencing standards.