Information Skills workshops at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences (GMW)

The GMW Library organizes around 180 instruction workshops in Dutch and English every year. In 2012, these workshops were attended by 3,573 students and members of staff. This instruction programme is structured according to a learning method based on the information skills theories of Boekhorst et al. (2004). Bachelor’s degree programmes at GMW implement this method as follows:

• first year: becoming aware of information needs and formulating information requests
• second year: acquiring knowledge of information sources and IT
• third year: selecting, processing, recording and disseminating information

After completing a first-year workshop, students are able to:

• independently search for information in the library and on the internet
• assess whether this information is academic in nature or not

In their second year, students become familiar with:

• the most important bibliographical databases in their field
• how to save search actions

Central themes of the final year include:

• formulating a research question for their Bachelor’s thesis
• learning how to search for literature associated with this research question
• learning how to cite and incorporate these citations and literature references into their thesis with the help of RefWorks

All information skills workshops are part of the course units of the GMW curriculum. In the first two years, the specialization assignments of these workshops are closely linked to the course unit content and count towards the final mark. This embedding motivates students and helps them adopt an active attitude. A further focus on student motivation plays a central role in the implementation of the ‘GMW Library Information Skills Programme 2013’.