Required Skills

The following are the minimum information technology literacy skills required of MLIS students in the Information School.
 

Basic Knowledge of Computers and Standard Productivity Software: 

  • understand the concept and basic functions of an operating system
  • save to disks, find files, create directories, run/execute programs
  • copy and paste text, images, etc. from one software package to another
  • create, edit and save (in various formats) a document using word processing software
  • install and uninstall application programs
  • upload and download software and files
  • extract compressed files  

Basic Information Retrieval Skills:  

  • students must have a working knowledge of the World Wide Web and its functions including the use of a web browser, site navigation and search  

Electronic Communication Skills:  

  • use of electronic mail, including the ability to send and receive file attachments and the use of e-mail lists
  • familiarity with various asynchronous communication tools (ex. blogs, threaded discussion boards/forums)
  • familiarity with interactive electronic discussion systems (ex. MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, etc)
  • experience using streaming media players (ex. Windows Media Player or QuickTime)
  • proper "netiquette"

Recommended Skills

Basic competencies in the use of personal productivity software, information retrieval, and electronic communication, as described in the previous section, are assumed on the first day of class. The Information School also recommends that you have the following additional competencies:  
  • Basic HTML Markup: Knowledge of how to create and publish a simple web page either via pure HTML or a web authoring tool.
  • Productivity Software:
    • Spreadsheet software: Knowledge of how to design and implement a simple spreadsheet for the manipulation and analysis of data using software such as Microsoft Excel.
    • Presentation software: Knowledge of how to design and implement a simple computer-generated presentation of information using software such as Microsoft PowerPoint.
  • Foundations of programming: Knowledge of basic programming concepts – variables, conditionals, iteration, etc. – learned through any basic programming language (ex. Perl, JavaScript, Java, C#, Visual Basic, etc).

University of Washington Opportunities to Learn Minimal and Recommended Skills

Catalyst, part of the Computing & Communciations, offers computing workshops, taught by UW students, for UW students. Topics include:  
  • Computing Essentials Series
  • Desktop Publishing Series
  • Multimedia Series
  • Operating Systems & Networking Series
  • Web Publishing Series  
Workshops are offered quarterly and often contain both a face to face and online tutorial components.  You can check out various workshop topics as well as the current quarter walk-in workshop schedule here: http://catalyst.washington.edu/workshops/*
 
In addition to walk-in workshops, Catalyst also provides a series of how-to documents on various applications and tools: http://catalyst.washington.edu/help/*
 
The Information School also provides specific pointers to tutorials and instructions for commonly used Information and Communication Technology tools via the iPrep web site:  https://courses.washington.edu/mlisprep/virtualworkshops/*
 
Incoming students who are a part of our distance program or students who need time to acquire the required skills prior to the start of their first quarter should seek local opportunities in addition to the online tutorials and resources at the UW.
 
*Requires a UW NetID and password to access all or parts of the site.  See http://www.washington.edu/computing/uwnetid/ for full details on acquiring your id.