ICT Driving Licence at the University of Helsinki: Meeting the Needs of Diverse Study Fields

Since the fall 2005, the Information and Communication Technology Driving Licence (ICT Driving Licence) had been a compulsory course for all new students in all faculties at the University of Helsinki. The ICT Driving Licence is a curriculum integrated program which introduces the first-year-student the IT facilities, including electronic library, and teaches IT skills, including information retrieval. The aim is to guarantee all first-year-students equal basic skills in information and communication technology (ICT), because the ICT skills are regarded very important in the successful studying process.
The presentation will introduce the subject areas and success factors of the driving licence, concentrating on the subject areas for which the libraries are responsible. The cooperation between the various participants of this project is a key success factor:

a) cooperation between different universities: the University of Helsinki and Open University. Later other universities have purchased the material.

b) a university level cooperation in the project team: IT department, pedagogical units, libraries, IT teachers, IT pedagogical specialist from all faculties, student member

c) faculty level cooperation with IT teachers and librarians

d) cooperation between different libraries

e) course level cooperation with the subject teachers and librarians

Practical examples are presented how the information literacy teachers of the National Library of Health Sciences and Viikki Science Library  and the faculty teachers collaborate in the Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. Especially the hands-on sessions of the information retrieval module are tailored to meet the specific learning goals in the different fields of study.