Strategies for teaching social skills to information professionals

Abstract EN

Social skills are becoming increasingly important for effective delivery of information services in the emerging collaborative environment.

While need for such skills have been highlighted in the professional literature, strategies for imparting these skills to students in the field of information studies seem to be lacking.

This paper proposes an integrated approach of imparting social skills by increasing the proportion of group projects comprising team work and joint presentations in all modules.

Courses with flexible instructional approaches providing opportunity of working in independent work groups and teams are cited as successful strategies for effective training for social skills.