Impact of the digital divide on information literacy training in a higher education context

Abstract

This paper reports on a master's study undertaken to investigate the impact of the digital divide on information literacy (IL) training of Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) students at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). Since 1994 the demographics of higher education institutions in Introduction The digital divide refers to the gap that exists between those with ready access to information and communication technology (ICT) tools and those without such access or skills to enable access (Cullen 2001: 311). In South African higher education (HE) institutions students fall into both these categories. That is, there are some with no such access or skills while there are others who have had access and are skilled in the use of and have vast experience with information and communication technologies (ICTs). Today, learning environments are designed to include web-based technologies and thus the ease of use of these technologies is essential However, in a single IL classroom one may find students who have grown up with technology as well as those who have not used technology before and thus grapple with the use of the mouse, keyboard and other information technolog