The aim of this course is that students acquire basic skills in handling information that will be useful both for college and your future professional practice. Once the subject, students have the resources and skills necessary to develop autonomous learning throughout their lives, one of the basic ideas put forward by the European Higher Education Area. At the completion of this course, students will: 1. Understand the importance of resource-based learning and research. 2. Recognize information problems and develop effective strategies to solve them. 3. Become familiar with general and specialized information sources, and be able to determine their appropriateness for the task at hand. 4. Determine the reliability and quality of information and its sources. 5. Develop their information retrieval skills, improving the precision and efficiency of their searches. 6. Use information ethically, avoiding plagiarism, and following academic conventions and professional requirements.

The main goal of this course is helping students to develop key competencies on the management of information, which will be extremely useful not only for the good course of their studies but also for their future professional activity. After completing this course, students will have the resources and skills needed to develop their learning in an autonomous and lifelong manner, which is one of the main ideas underneath the European Space for Higher Education. This course comprises the following contents: UNIT 1. WHERE TO FIND RELIABLE INFORMATION - Data, information and knowledge - Information skills - Information sources: typology and searching - Information resources assessment UNIT 2. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS: GENERAL RESOURCES - Basic concepts - Search processes of digital information - Multidisicplinary databases - Internet search tools UNIT 3. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS: SPECIALIZED RESOURCES - Specialized portals and databases - Selecting information resources on the Web - New spaces for knowledge interaction UNIT 4. ETHICAL USE OF INFORMATION: CITATION AND BIBLIOGRAPHY - Ethics and intellectual property rights - The academic essay without plagiarism - Citing and referencing bibliographies - How to present and organize bibliographic references - Reference and bibliography management software

Acquisition of theoretical knowledge (1 ECTS credit) through theoretical classes, teaching materials developed by teachers, online tutorials, selected readings, as well as students¿ personal study. It is especially related with the theoretical competencies. Acquisition of skills (2 ECTS credits) through practical case studies that focus on searching information from information sources available on the Internet, analyzing such sources, evaluating their results, as well as presenting the obtained contents and citing their sources. Some of the activities will be done in a computer room with direct supervision from the teacher, and some other activities will be freely done by students, with subsequent supervision. They are especially related with practical competencies. The days and hours of tutorials will be available on the subject space for the Aula Global.