The role of information culture in the context of formation of future specialists’ professional competence

Formulation of the problem. The need to prepare an individual to live and work in conditions of information society imposes as one of the major problems, facing the education system, the task of laying the foundations of an individual's information culture. Society's need for skilled professionals who have the means and methods of Informatics becomes a leading factor in educational policy. Obviously, in this regard, future specialists should, first of all, have the appropriate level of information culture.

Accordingly, the informatization of education, and thus, indirectly, of society is impossible without existence in future specialists of relevant information culture, knowledge and motivation to the usage of informatization means. Hence the need appears to improve systems of future specialists' training - to adjust its methodical system of teaching and changing learning and education environment, which has traditionally set in the field of higher education [1, p. 41].

Analysis of recent researches and publications. General analysis of scientific publications in the field of information culture suggests that information culture of a member of modern information society is represented as a relatively coherent subsystem of an individual's vocational and general culture, associated with them by universal categories (culture of thinking, behavior, communication and activity).

The purpose of the article is to describe the role of information culture in the context of formation of future specialists' professional competence.

Presenting main material. Different content is put in the concept of information culture. It can be interpreted as the ability either to use information approach and the ability to effectively collaborate and share information, or to predict and control the effects of computerization and informatization [1, p. 36].

Now attraction of future specialists as individuals to the information-and-communication capabilities of modern technologies, mastering of real information culture, which opens the way for them to achieve one of the main goals of education: from dialogue of cultures and people through the identification and development of an individual's creative potential to reach enrichment and productive interaction between human communities is required for their development [4, p. 4].

In this paper, we understand information culture as widespread usage of information flows and their analysis, realization of forward and backward linkages in order to adapt them to the world, good language skills to communicate with a computer, understanding of its capabilities, its place and role in the intellectual environment [5, p. 5].

Therefore, the aim of study Informatics by students of Philological specialties in higher educational establishments is formation of their information culture, knowledge and skills to use information technologies in their daily work and their willingness to live and work in the information society. Professional skills are professionally developed business acumen, which not only affect success of mastering the profession, but also the results of work. For a specialist it is the ability to solve professional tasks of any difficulty in the environment of information technologies.

We state that the process of computerization of educational establishments is not static, irrespective of socio-economic reforms and difficulties caused by them. Development of the information society requires new approaches in training of specialists of all directions in higher educational establishments and, of course, it has not lost its relevance for specialists.

Distinguishing of three levels of involving people to the world of computer science and computer engineering is possible [3, p. 98]: 1) computer awareness (initial familiarity with computers); 2) computer literacy; 3) information culture.

Nowadays high school while training students often provides only their computer knowledge, at best - their computer literacy. As for formation of future specialists' information culture, this problem should be solved in a more purposeful and complex way [3, p. 99].

Formation of a specialist's information culture significantly contributes to the formation of his professional competence. Mastering of software products of special usage helps to analyze, predict and forecast different situations of usage whole arsenal of computers and software. With the help of building information models of production processes and their analysis makes it possible to achieve gradual formation of professional competence [2, p. 38].

Taking into account the principle of continuity of formation of an individual's information culture, initial familiarity with computer student must have before going to school. Learning the basics of Informatics and computer engineering should begin as soon as possible. In particular, students who enter a higher educational establishment after the school where course in Informatics was taught at a high level have great potential in studying information technologies, they easily adapt themselves in new for them environment of higher educational establishment.

In the result of analysis of scientific achievements in the field of information culture singling out of levels of future specialists' information culture on the basis of complex of their knowledge and skills is possible. In particular, future specialists who has information culture, should be able [2, p. 40-41]: a) to choose and formulate goals; b) to set tasks; c) to build information models of processes and phenomena under study, to understand the essence of information modelling; d) to analyze information models with the help of automated information systems; e) to organize, systematize, structure data and knowledge, to know ways of data presentation; f) to interpret achieved results; g) to decide to use this or that software, certain information technologies to improve the efficiency of their professional activities; h) to foresee the consequences of decisions and draw appropriate conclusions; i) to use databases, systems of artificial intelligence and other modern information technologies for the analysis of processes and phenomena under study; j) to use automated information systems - systems of collection, storage, processing, transmission and presentation of information, based on electronic technology and telecommunication systems; k) to successfully use such resources as international news network, a global data bank, to choose necessary database among all available and conduct their automated analysis; l) to use original sources, to know authors of the most significant for the field ideas, to have a certain list of their works (to know the name, the meaning and significance of basic research and applied works in the field, the author's conceptions, etc.), to know certain documents (manuals, regulatory documentation, new publications in the field, the major professional journals, etc.); m) to be able to handle them (to remember, to be able to refer to them, to appeal to their authority, etc.), to be able, using a variety of sources, to find information, to select, to analyze and to rationally use it in their activity for achieving a specific goal; n) to rationally use, maintain and develop regional information resources; o) to know the level of availability of these resources to the population of the region and content of interregional information links; p) to have the basics of algorithms: principles of building algorithms (method of step-by-step detailization "top down"), basic structures of algorithms with optional study of a procedure-oriented programming language; q) to have legal bases of information activity, to know laws and regulations that regulate this activity, to have reference-and-legal systems and systems of making decisions, to know the basics of information security; r) to know laws of functioning of information in society; s) to understand the essence of information transformations; t) to understand their place and their tasks in the information society.

For general (basic) level of an individual's information culture the main feature of set of knowledge, abilities and skills will be their interdisciplinary character, the possibility of its usage practically without any changes in various activities.

For professional level of an individual's information culture knowledge, abilities and skills are characterized by specificity, greater complexity, but at the same time, limited sphere of its usage. They will be linked to the professional activity of the person, and while learning at higher educational establishments they will be linked to disciplines that form its foundation. Many indicators of this level include, as a component, indicators of general (basic) level. It gives us grounds to consider professional level of information culture to be higher as compared with general (basic).

For higher (logical) level of information culture knowledge, abilities and skills also have interdisciplinary character. They differ from basic by the level of complexity and are conditioned by creative thinking, flexibility, possibility to perform analysis and synthesis, to combine previously obtained knowledge, abilities and skills to make decisions in unusual situations, to search for alternative ways and means of solving tasks. Knowledge, abilities and skills at this level include knowledge, abilities and skills of professional level of information culture. This approach to personal information culture is important in the system of higher vocational education [2, p. 44-45].

Conclusions. So, we come to the conclusion that acquisition of knowledge, abilities and skills while future specialists' training at higher educational establishments will form in them the foundation of modern information culture. As information is a major component in any kind of human activity, and the basis of its methodology is handling information, it is necessary to teach students to clearly imagine their professional capabilities and limitations, to find intellectual and psychological resources for working out solutions of various tasks.

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