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The purpose of this paper is to argue that e-learning can be a viable alternative teaching method for information literacy according to a comparison of librarian’s time spent on face-to-face teaching with tutoring the e-learning course, average time spent in a week on learning by the students, time flexibility of e-learning, students’ satisfaction with e-learning and students’ ability to gain practical skills and theoretical knowledge through e-learning.

Satisfaction of medical students with e-learning and their average weekly time spent learning were assessed through surveys designed in Google Documents. Weekly time spent by students learning in class and the number of the librarian's teaching hours were set by the university schedule, and time spent on tutoring e-learning was measured. Details of accesses to study materials and submission of tasks as well as exam results were collected from Masaryk University Learning Management System.

In 2011, 50 per cent less time was expended on tutoring e-learning than time spent with the same number of students in the previous three years in the classroom. One-third of the students learned for more hours a week through e-learning than students in class. No significant difference in gained theoretical knowledge between these students was found. On average, 90 per cent of tasks submitted to e-learning were correct the first time. e-learning was appreciated by the students for its time (93 per cent) and space (83 per cent) flexibility, the online materials (62 per cent) and self-managing learning time (55 per cent). Details of access to the study materials confirmed time flexibility.

Due to time saved and considering the lack of any significant difference in the knowledge gained by students, e-learning can be a viable alternative teaching method for information literacy.

The main purpose of this article is to describe and to evaluate the results of evaluation of the e‐learning course, Information Literacy, which is taught by the librarians at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University. In the article the results are discussed to inform about the librarians' experience with tutoring the course.

The survey covers the medical students who enrolled on the course between autumn 2008 and autumn 2010. The students were requested to fill the questionnaire designed in Google Documents and based on the quantitative method, including a five‐point Likert scale combined with closed and open ended questions.

Results show the medical students are satisfied with the e‐learning course, Information Literacy, because of time and space flexibility, studying at their own pace and online interactive tutorials. More than half the students found the gradual releasing of the study materials and the tasks as the main motivation for continous learning. Most of the students were satisfied with the taught topics like methodology of searching in the databases Web of Science, Scopus and medical databeses, using EndNoteWeb and citation style ISO 690. Most of the tasks like searching in the online databases, working with EndNoteWeb or finding the impact factor of a journal were evaluated as beneficial.

The results have suggested several important revisions to the e‐learning course, Information Literacy. The librarians have decided to create the interactive tutorials explaining the importance of the topics according to the students' needs in the future and writing a scientific paper and remove the parts of tutorials describing the library terminology and catalogues. Besides this decision, two new tasks – verifying online access to the full text of journals and finding signs of plagiarism in a short text – have been added since spring 2011. Finally the librarians will prepare some printed material supporting the course and improve the publicity of their e‐learning course among the teachers who can recommend the course to their students.

The article presents one of the first experiences with the e‐learning course Information Literacy for medical students in the Czech Republic. The results and its discussion can help other librarians who are going to prepare a similar e‐learning course in planning the conception of their course.