Abstract:

Currently, under the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the Bologna Process, Information Literacy Skills have become a fundamental topic on student’s competences, which include: the ability to identify specific information, posses and implement searching information strategies, manage in a efficient way the information, use and communicate the information and, finally, to be aware of the ethic and social uses of this information. The main objective of this paper, based on a survey carried out at the Balearic Islands University with a sample of 1.025 undergraduate students, is to present general results obtained in the research and to analyse in depth one of the most important competences on Information Literacy, specifically the one referred to the understanding of the legal and socially relevant use of the information, as well as the ethical utilisation of it (translated in the avoidance of dishonest academic practices, like plagiarism on academic essays). We present those results associated and correlated, trying to describe inter-groups differences, with the scientific area of the courses in which the students are enrolled (Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences and Health Sciences). In fact, on the results obtained we can remark, in general, lacks of information literacy skills in the undergraduate students and, in particular, we identify representative differences regarding academic plagiarism conception and avoidant practices by the diverse scientific areas; that it suggests, that some measures of prevention and treatment of the phenomenon requires the implementation of formative actions focused on concrete groups of students to provide them basic information literacy skills necessary among the university students.

Keywords:

Information Literacy, Plagiarism, High Education, Information Skills.