Introduction

While information-related competencies (IRCs) are generally perceived as an essential set of competencies of the knowledge society, understood in its broader sense, they have made little progress educationally (Correia and Teixeira, 2003). Several studies and reports have shown that many students lack IRCs and have highlighted the importance of and need to develop these competencies (e.g. Oberman, 1991; Ray and Day, 1998; Stern, 2003; UNESCO, 2006). Johnston and Webber (2003, 338) note that even in the USA, ‘while much attention has been paid to information literacy by American policy-makers, librarians and academics, the results are still relatively narrow, giving a potentially superficial guide to the nature of a curriculum for information literacy in higher education’. Bruce and Lampson (2002) also argue that despite some progress over the past decade, library and information professionals still report that universal information literacy (IL) is a distant, if not a receding, goal.

This paper gives an overview and reports some of the selected findings of a research project on the development of IRCs within open and distance learning (ODL) universities in Europe. This research project grew out of the author's curiosity about why progress in developing IRCs has been so modest. It was believed that a better understanding of what academics, senior managers, librarians and students are thinking and doing would help better to engage them in effective development of IRCs. The paper is divided into four parts. The first provides a working definition of the concept of IRCs. The second describes the methodology of the study. The third presents the findings of the survey and the fourth reports findings of the case studies. Because of the space limits of this publication only selected findings are presented in this paper.

A working definition of information-related Competencies

Focusing on her research on the higher education (HE) sector in Europe, the author prefers to use the term ‘information-related competencies’ instead of IL in this study. The reasons for using the former term is the conviction that the concept of IL is very elusive, its essence is hard to grasp, and its meaning is not always clear in a European HE environment. It was believed that the concept of competencies is more familiar and better understood among academic staff, students and senior managers in European HE settings.