Information Literacy: Information Literacy Framework: Home

What Is Information Literacy?

Information literacy involves understanding how information is created, shared, and used across different formats and platforms. It means being able to critically evaluate information, recognize its context and purpose, and engage ethically with others’ ideas when producing your own work.

In today’s fast-paced and constantly evolving information landscape, students are exposed to a wide range of sources every day. Our goal is to help them think critically about this environment and ask important questions, such as:

• How is authority established in different contexts?
• What does it mean to say that scholarship is a conversation?
• Whose voices are amplified, whose are marginalized, and how can we respond to these imbalances responsibly?
• How does information literacy connect to active, informed participation in a democratic society?

Our approach to information literacy is grounded in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which identifies six core concepts:

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

We also encourage exploring the work of Project Information Literacy (PIL), which conducts research on how young adults find, evaluate, and use information.