What is the employers stand on information literacy – researching employers on expected generic outcomes of their future employees

Abstract

The concept of generic information competences is based on the fact that there is a heavy overlapping of the generic competences and information literacy competences identified in the body of literature and research. The individual researches, learns, solves problems, collaborates and makes decisions based on the information gathered from various sources. The key skills of 21 century workers include knowledge of different resources as well as the various ways to access them, setting up and applying efficient research strategies, interpreting found results, synthesizing new knowledge and present knowledge in an ethically correct way taking in the all aspects of the ease of use of digital information (in the sense of copy, transfer, ignoring copyright. Employment sector and workplace research show that there are different generic competences expected from the employees. By interviewing Croatian employers about the generic competences authors have identified generic competences required for the workplace environment which are than mapped with the information literacy competence in order to build a foundation for the development of the taxonomy of generic information competences.