NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 43: The role of information resource training in aerospace education. Expanded version
Information resource instruction for undergraduate aerospace engineering students has traditionally been limited to an occasional part of the education process--a written paper required in the capstone design course or a library tour. Efforts to encourage the use of aerospace literature and information resources have been made in the past decade, with a recent push from information and, especially, networking technology. This paper presents data from a survey of U.S. aerospace engineering students regarding their instruction in the use of information resources. We find that more than 25 percent of the students surveyed had no instruction in technical communications skills or the use of information resources. We consider the need for instruction in the use of information resources and technical communications skills and the opportunities presented for improvement.