Survey on Information Literacy Status of Faculty Members in Zabol University of Medical Sciences: 2009-2010

The impact of information technology on higher education in Iran caused the need for the development of information literacy skills among faculty members. As information literacy affect research and educational activities، this research aimed to survey information literacy skills of faculty members. This cross-sectional study is carried out in 2009-2010 at the Zabol University of medical sciences. The population of this study was 48 full time Faculty members who filled out the information literacy questionnaire. Content Reliability of questionnaire was verified by experts and we used test and re-test method to ensure validity that leads to 0. 85. SPSS 16 software was used for data analyzing، and we used descriptive statistics for presenting findings. 64. 6 percent of participants were men and others women. 77. 1 percents were instructors and 22. 9 percent were assistant professors. School of public health with 39. 6 percent and paramedical school with 4. 2 percent had the most and the least frequency of faculty members. The most faculty members with 77. 1 percent had Master of Science degree and 2. 1 percent were fellowships. Frequency distribution of PHD and medical specialist With 10. 4 were the same. The comparison of years of teaching and faculty ages showed that the least teaching year was 6 months and the most was 19 years. The youngest faculty was 27 and the oldest was 52 years old. The population of this study has moderate information literacy skills. As the average age of faculty members is young and they are in the first years of teaching، learning information literacy skills for using in education and research activities is very important for them. So organizing workshops to educate information literacy skills for faculty members of this university is necessary.