Teaching & Learning Department I Services I Instruction Materials
Information literacy involves using information critically in various contexts and for specific purposes. It includes but also extends beyond using library resources. While information literacy involves a complex range of interrelated abilities and dispositions, it may be broken into the following dimensions:
- Inquiry: Exploring and developing research questions; Identifying and evaluating information needs
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Evaluation: Assessing functions and uses of sources
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Knowledge creation: Using information to construct and communicate knowledge
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Conversation: Engaging in the exchange of ideas and knowledge
Dimensions of Information Literacy
- Identify potential research topics and questions.
- Identify starting points for pursuing a research topic.
- Develop effective research strategies for locating information relevant to a research question.
- Explore and refine research topics and questions in light of retrieved information.
- Evaluate the rhetorical functions and uses of potential sources (e.g. author, audience, purpose, point of view, bias)
- Determine the potential relevance of sources for the given information need.
- Revise search strategies when needed.
- Recognize common characteristics of a variety of information sources types (e.g. primary sources, scholarly journals, blogs, wikis).
- Identify connections and disconnections among multiple sources.
- Synthesize and analyze information from various sources in order to create new meanings and knowledge.
- Organize and present information clearly in order to achieve a defined purpose.
- Develop and articulate informed arguments, some of which may call to question other viewpoints.
- Recognize research and knowledge creation as dialogic processes that involve listening to, acknowledging, and responding to others’ related ideas.
- Communicate one’s own ideas through dialogic exchange and various modes of information sharing.
- Recognize shared information practices of relevant discourse communities.
- Provide clear documentation of information sources.
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