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Information Literacy

This guide introduces resources and information related to Information Literacy.

Background information/Concepts/Definitions

"The Framework offered here is called a framework intentionally because it is based on a cluster of interconnected core concepts, with flexible options for implementation, rather than on a set of standards, learning outcomes, or any prescriptive enumeration of skills. At the heart of this Framework are conceptual understandings that organize many other concepts and ideas about information, research, and scholarship into a coherent whole."

The six concepts are presented alphabetically because the hirarchical view that informed the Standards no longer applies:

  1. Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
  2. Information Creation as a Process
  3. Information Has Value
  4. Research as Inquiry
  5. Scholarship as Conversation
  6. Searching as Strategic Exploration

"Two added elements illustrate important learning goals related to those concepts: knowledge practices, which are demonstrations of ways in which learners can increase their understanding of these information literacy concepts and dispositions, which describe ways in which to address the affective, attitudinal, or valuing dimension of learning."

"Because this Framework envisions information literacy as extending the arc of learning throughout students’ academic careers and as converging with other academic and social learning goals, an expanded definition of information literacy is offered here to emphasize dynamism, flexibility, individual growth, and community learning:

Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.

The Framework opens the way for librarians, faculty, and other institutional partners to redesign instruction sessions, assignments, courses, and even curricula; to connect information literacy with student success initiatives; to collaborate on pedagogical research and involve students themselves in that research; and to create wider conversations about student learning, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the assessment of learning on local campuses and beyond." (ACRL 2015)

Craig Gibson talk at Otterbein

Conversation with Craig Gibson, OSU, co-chair of the ACRL task-force that designed the Framework