Student guide Faculty of Economics A.Y. 2008/09

Information Literacy 1
Lesson timetable, Notice board, Additional material
Aim of the course
Students will acquire the basic skills needed to effectively conducting specialist, bibliographic and factual searches in the fields of economics and management.
The most useful ways to obtain information for writing reports, projects, thesis and papers will be examined, with a focus on the search questions and desired objectives, and an illustration of the best sources.
Particular attention will be given to the retrieval and use of statistical data.
The course will include practical tutorial exercises.
Syllabus
1) Information and literature searches in the economics-management field.
2) Tools for conducting semantic searches in electronic archives of papers, articles, and books on economics and management: thesauruses, classifications, subjects
3) Company information: information about companies and from companies.
4) Searching for sources of information on business management.
5) Sources of statistical data.
6) Sector and market information.
7) Information for financial markets: documents and data.
8) Business and economic news: electronic news archives.
9) The Italian and international economy through the principal Italian and international public documents.
Examinations
There will be a written examination at the end of the course.
Reading list
Piero Cavaleri, Laura Ballestra, L’informazione economica e finanziaria, e L’informazione statistica in P. Cavaleri – F. Venturini, Documenti e dati pubblici sul web, Il mulino, 2004, pagine 211-281
Online lecture notes
Excerpts from:
Business information handbook, edited by David Mort, Munchen, Saur, 2003
The Economist guide to economic indicators : making sense of economics, 6th ed., Princeton, Bloomberg Press, c2007.
Enrico Giovannini, Le statistiche economiche, Bologna, Il mulino, 2006
Additional references will be given at the start of the course