Information Literacy

ReSearch on Information Literacy

Institutions and NGOs

• The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
• UNESCO Media and Information Literacy
• The International Alliance for Information Literacy (IAIL)
  • Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy (ANZIL) - http://www.anziil.org/
  • European Network on Information Literacy (EnIL) - http://www.ceris.cnr.it/Basili/EnIL/index.html
  • National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL) (Based in US) - http://www.infolit.org/
  • NORDINFOlit (based on Scandinavia)
  • SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries) Advisory Committee on Information Literacy (UK) - http://www.sconul.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy

Conferences on Information Literacy

• European Conference on Information Literacy: ECIL
  • held its first conference during October 2013 in Istanbul, Turkey.
• Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy
  • Annual conference on information literacy in Savannah, Georgia
  • P-20 librarians and faculty across the curriculum.
• IFLA World Library and Information Congress, Information Literacy Section
  • annual satellite conference associated with the IFLA World Library and Information Congress organised by the IFLA Information Literacy Section.
• Information Literacy Summit
  • held at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, IL.
• Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference LILAC (UK),
  • since 2005 , organised by an Information Literacy Group that is now a special interest group of CILIP
• LOEX conference:
  • founded in 1971 after the "First Annual Conference on Library Orientation" at Eastern Michigan University.
  • preeminent information literacy gathering in the United States.

Concepts on Information Literacy

What is Information Literacy?

• UNESCO: "Action to provide people with skills and abilities for critical reception, assessment and use of information and media in professional and personal lives"
• Life-long Learning Perspective/ Library and Information Studies: " to Recognise when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information"
• American Definitions
  • Ability to know when there is a need for information
  • To be able to identify, locate, evaluate and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand
  • Values may include skepticism, judgement, free thinking, questioning and understanding
  • Competencies that an informed citizen of an information society ought to possess to participate intelligently and actively in that society

Information Literacy as a Liberal Art (Defined by Shapiro and Hughes (1996))

• Holistic approach to information literacy education
  • Not merely addition of IT courses as adjunct to existing curricula
  • Radically new conceptualization of entire educational curriculum in terms of information
• Enlightenment Ideals
  • Based on Enlightenment Philosopher Condorcet
  • "Information Literacy is essential to the future of democracy, if citizens are to be intelligent shapers of the information society rather than its pawns, and to humanistic culture if information is to be part of a meaningful existence rather than a routine of production and consumption"
• Proposed Curriculum
  • Tool literacy
    • the ability to understand and use the practical and conceptual tools of current information technology relevant to education and the areas of work and professional life that the individual expects to inhabit.
  • Resource literacy
    • ability to understand the form, format, location and access methods of information resources, especially daily expanding networked information resources.
  • Social-structural literacy
    • understanding how information is socially situated and produced.
  • Research literacy
    • ability to understand and use the IT-based tools relevant to the work of today's researcher and scholar.
  • Publishing literacy
    • ability to format and publish research and ideas electronically, in textual and multimedia forms ... to introduce them into the electronic public realm and the electronic community of scholars.
  • Emerging technology literacy
    • ability to continuously adapt to, understand, evaluate and make use of the continually emerging innovations in information technology so as not to be a prisoner of prior tools and resources, and to make intelligent decisions about the adoption of new ones.
  • Critical literacy
    • ability to evaluate critically the intellectual, human and social strengths and weaknesses, potentials and limits, benefits and costs of information technologies
    • Ira Shor: "habits of thought, reading, writing and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional cliches, received wisdom, mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organisation, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass medium or discourse"

Big6 Skills by Mike Eisenbery and Bob Berkowitz

• Application of Information Literacy based on variety of needs
  • Example of Library of Dubai Women's College using Big6 Model in information literacy workshops
• Steps
  • Step 1 Ask Basic questions: Clarify and understand the requirements of the problem or task for which information is sought.
    • What is known about the topic?
    • What information is needed?
    • Where can the information be found?
  • Step 2 Locating: Identify sources of information and to find those resources. Depending upon the task, sources that will be helpful may vary. Sources may include books, encyclopedias, maps, almanacs, etc. Sources may be in electronic, print, social bookmarking tools, or other formats.
  • Step 3: Selecting/analyzing: examinie the resources that were found. The information must be determined to be useful or not useful in solving the problem. The useful resources are selected and the inappropriate resources are rejected.[28]
  • Step 4 Organizing/synthesizing: information which has been selected is organized and processed so that knowledge and solutions are developed. Examples of basic steps in this stage are:
    • Discriminating between fact and opinion
    • Basing comparisons on similar characteristics
    • Noticing various interpretations of data
    • Finding more information if needed
    • Organizing ideas and information logically
  • Step 5 Creating/presenting: Information or solution is presented to the appropriate audience in an appropriate format.
    • A paper is written. A presentation is made. Drawings, illustrations, and graphs are presented.
  • Step 6 Evaluating: The final step in the information literacy strategy involves the critical evaluation of the completion of the task or the new understanding of the concept.
    • Was the problem solved? Was new knowledge found? What could have been done differently? What was done well?

Information Literacy from a Library and Information Studies Perspective

• Rooted in concepts of library instruction and bibliographic instruction
  • Information applies more than just printed word
  • Visual Literacy
  • Media LIteracy
  • Computer literacy
  • network literacy
  • Basic literacy
• Based on Publication: Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning (AASL and AECT 1998) with 3 categories, 9 standards and 29 indicators
• Category 1: Information literacy Standards
  • The student who is information literate accesses information efficiently and effectively.
  • The student who is information literate evaluates information critically and competently.
  • The student who is information literate uses information accurately and creatively.
• Category 2: Independent learning Standards:
  • The student who is an independent learner is information literate and pursues information related to personal interests.
  • The student who is an independent learner is information literate and appreciates literature and other creative expressions of information.
  • The student who is an independent learner is information literate and strives for excellence in information seeking and knowledge generation.
• Category 3: Social responsibility Standards:
  • The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and recognizes the importance of information to a democratic society.
  • The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and practices ethical behavior in regard to information and information technology.
  • The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information

What are some Impacts of Information Literacy on Educational Methods and Practices?

Basis for Crucial Life skill and Lifelong Learning

• With increasing information-centric society, schools must facilitate and enhance a student's ability to harness the power of information
• To Develop Ability for Information Evaluation Process as crucial life skill and basis for lifelong Learning
  • Relavance
  • Authenticity
  • Modernity
• New Understanding of Literacy and teaching

New Skills required for Information Evaluation

• Metacognition
• Goals
• Personal Disposition
• Cognitive Development
• Deliberation
• Decision-making

Critical Thinking Outcome

• To Analyse and Critically Evaluate
• evidence, students must practice
  • formal argumentation
  • Debates
  • Formal Presentations

On Differentiating between Fact and Opinion

• Students must be trained to distinguish between fact and opinion
• Use cue words such as "I Think" and "I feel"
• Examine "causes" of behaviours, actions and events
• Application in familiar contexts

Increased Critical Analysis

• Based on Smith (2013), young people during formal education must be equiped with skills they need to understand the political system, their place within it and where necessary to challenge this.

Guides and Outlines on Information Literacy

Standards of Information Literacy

9 Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning (US)

Based on the American Association of School Librarians and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (1998)

• Standard One: The student who is information literate accesses information efficiently and effectively.
• Standard Two: The student who is information literate evaluates information critically and competently.
• Standard Three: The student who is information literate uses information accurately and creatively.
• Standard Four: The student who is an independent learner is information literate and pursues information related to personal interests.
• Standard Five: The student who is an independent learner is information literate and appreciates literature and other creative expressions of information.
• Standard Six: The student who is an independent learner is information literate and strives for excellence in information seeking and knowledge generation.
• Standard Seven: The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and recognizes the importance of information to a democratic society.
• Standard Eight: The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and practices ethical behavior in regard to information and information technology.
• Standard Nine: The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.[10]

5 Standards and Performance indicators for "The Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education"

by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA) in 2000

• Standard One: The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.
• Standard Two: The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently.
• Standard Three: The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.
• Standard Four: The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
• Standard Five: The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally

Standards for the 21st Century Learner

By AASL in 1007

• Literacies
  • Information Literacy
  • Technology Literacy
  • Visual Literacy
  • Textual Literacy
  • Digital Literacy
• 4 Goals that Learners Use of Skills, Resources and Tools
  • To Inquire, Think critically and gain knowledge
  • To draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations and Create new knowledge
  • To share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic Society
  • To purse personal and aesthetic growth

Blom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

• Lower Order: use an online catalog to find a book relevant to an information need in an academic library
• Higher Order: critically evaluating and synthesizing information from multiple sources into a coherent interpretation or arguement

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

By ACRL in 2016

• Core Ideas
  • Authority is Constructed and Contextual
  • Information Creation as a Process
  • Information Has Value
  • Research as Inquiry
  • Scholarship as Conversation
  • Searching as Strategic Exploration

How Information Literacy has led to Education Restructuring

• Curriculum Development
  • Collaborative Approach with Classroom Teachers, Librarians, Technology Teachers and other educators
  • Analyse Student needs
  • develop broad instruction plan
  • Set information literacy goals
  • Design Specific unit and lesson plans that inegrate information skills and classroom content
  • Teaching and Assessment Duties
• Resource-Based learning
  • Authentic Learning
  • Problem-based Learning
  • Work-based earning
• Higher Education
  • Stand-alone courses or classes
  • Online Tutorias
  • Workbooks
  • Course-related instruction
  • Course-integrated Instruction
• Distance Education

Information Literacy Assessment Tools

• iCritical Thinking
  • former variation known as iSkills, and before that ICT Literacy Assessment, from the Educational Testing Service (ETS)
• Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (Project SAILS)
  • developed and maintained at Kent State University in Ohio
• Information Literacy Test (ILT)
  • developed collaboratively by the James Madison Center for Assessment and Research Studies and JMU libraries
• Research Readiness Self-Assessment (RRSA)
  • from Central Michigan University originally designed by Lana V. Ivanitskaya, Ph.D. and Anne Marie Casey, A.M.L.S. and developed in collaboration with many of their colleagues.
• WASSAIL
  • an open-source assessment platform for storing questions and answers, producing tests, and generating reports.