Information Literacy: An International State of the Art

Librarians cheered when the Information Literacy as a Liberal Art Enlightenment proposals for a new curriculum came out in an issue of Educom Review. Finally faculty members were joining the IL movement. (Shapiro & Hughes, 1996).

“Partnership” has become the catchword of the current decade. Many academic library IL programs partnered with faculty from Freshman Seminar or First Year Experience programs. Course integration was another model followed by many campuses.

Concurrent with the growth of IL programs was the growth of the assessment movement in higher education. “Student Outcomes” became the watchword by which programs were assessed and librarians focused their attention on identifying the impact of the various instruction programs on students.

National reports and studies focusing on the need for information and technology literate students abounded.
International efforts to expand the literacies to include technology and communication coalesced at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and resulted in the formation of the International ICT Literacy Panel, chaired by Dr. Barbara O’Connor, from CSU Sacramento. Their report, Digital transformation: A framework for ICT literacy (ICT Literacy Panel, 2001) and subsequent ETS report Succeeding in the 21st Century, What Higher Education Must Do to Address the Gap in Information and Communication Technology Proficiencies, (National Higher Education ICT Initiative, 2003) brought together educators, librarians, policy makers and with the Educational Testing Service united in their desire to teach and assess student learning related to both IL and IT skills.

This set the stage for them to partner with several large university systems to develop the National Higher Education ICT Initiative. These institutions were:

California Community College System

California State University

University of California, Los Angeles

University of Louisville

University of North Alabama

University of Texas System

University of Washington
As a result of this partnership, ETS developed a web-based assessment instrument that gives students various scenarios to solve which involved Information Literacy skills but also add the use of appropriate technologies. The test is the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment instrument (ETS/ICT). Initial Beta testing began in the spring and summer of 2004. In the spring of 2005 there was and intense effort mounted to provide ETS with enough data to validate the test.

CSU system alone committed 3,000 students to test the test.

For additional information about ETS’s ICT Literacy Assessment, please visit:

www.ets.org/ictliteracy.

Beginning in the 2006/2007 academic year, the ETS/ICT test was made available to institutions for purchase and administration to individual students to measure both information and technology skills. Participating universities are encouraged to determine how best to incorporate this online instrument into their planning and assessment of student skills a various levels or student progress, such as upon entering college in the first-year, upon transferring from a junior college or upon graduation.
National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL) announced in 2006 the formation of a policy council of education and business leaders whose goal is to determine national standards for information and communication technology (ICT) literacy. According to their web site:
The announcement comes on the heels of the first Information Literacy Summit, which drew over 100 attendees to Washington, D.C., on Oct. 16. Summit panelists shared their perspectives on Information Literacy and its impact on the global society, workforce readiness, and public policy in the United States. For the full press release, go to:

http://www.infolit.org/policycouncil.doc

School libraries have been more successful at measuring their impact on student outcomes than academic libraries. In the web publication School Libraries Work! the Scholastic Research Foundation has identified programs in a 16 states that actually show a correlation between school library programs and student achievement:

“A substantial body of research since 1990 shows a positive relationship between school libraries and student achievement. The research studies show that school libraries can have a positive impact on student achievement— whether such achievement is measured in terms of reading scores, literacy, or learning more generally. A school library program that is adequately staffed, resourced, and funded can lead to higher student achievement regardless of the socio-economic or educational levels of the community.”

http://librarypublishing.scholastic.com/content/stores/LibraryStore/pages/images/slw_06.pdf
With the publication of Teresa Neely’s book Information Literacy Assessment Standards-Based Tools and Assignments, (Neely, 2006) we now have a sourcebook for 70 Information Literacy survey instruments, and perhaps librarians can do a better job at quantifying and qualifying the impact of Information Literacy programs on student outcomes.

F. Conclusion
Librarians and educators have long championed the need for students to demonstrate critical thinking skills when using and evaluating information. They know that those who have the ability to locate, critically evaluate and then apply that information will do better academically as well as in their daily lives. After two decades of concerted effort, this truth is more broadly recognized.
Accrediting agencies recognize Information Literacy as a core learning ability and now require that educators demonstrate how students are expected to achieve these information competencies. In the wider world, business and government leaders are seeing how efforts at instilling Information Literacy can impact the broader society.
To be a truly educated person, one must learn how to learn so that when the world changes you can change with it. One of the goals of Higher Education is to produce an informed citizenry, those who have the capability for Lifelong Learning. Librarians who teach Information Literacies can have a significant impact to help achieve this goal. Randy Hensley’s states in his chapter in Student Engagement and Information Literacy:
Teaching research properly formulated and understood, to first-year undergraduate students can foster in them the desire to learn because research is an invitation to become someone most students want to be: thoughtful, aware, curious, effective and flexible. (Hensley, 2006).
Hannelore Rader states in the Foreword to Neely’s book that
Information Literacy has been an important factor in the development of librarian-faculty partnerships to improve students’ learning outcomes.
These relationships are the key to achieving success in implementing IL throughout the curriculum.
The current decade will be an exciting one for librarians committed to achieving Information Literacy goals and implementing IL standards. The heavens seem to have aligned correctly to bring many stake holders together to work to integrate IL into school and college curricula. Teachers, professors, administrators and public leaders are acknowledging the value of Information Literacy. Librarians are no longer alone.
The conclusion of the Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning Beacons of the Information Society, states:
We affirm that vigorous investment in Information Literacy and lifelong learning strategies creates public value and is essential to the development of the Information Society. http://www.ifla.org/III/wsis/BeaconInfSoc.html

G. Resource List – United States and Canada
1. Online learning tools (IL Products for Users)

2. Standards, Rubrics and Accreditation

3. Publications

4. Organizations, Associations

5. Training the Trainers (Professional Development)

6. Assessment Projects and Research Articles

7. Communication Listservs and Blogs

8. References

With 50 diverse United States and 10 Canadian provinces, it is not possible for this list to be comprehensive. According to the 2006/2007 edition of the American Library Directory there are 30,241 libraries in the United States and 3,736 libraries in Canada. Please submit any Information Literacy program or resource that is noteworthy to the International Information Literacy Resources Directory,

http://www.uv.mx/usbi_ver/unesco/.

The following resources have been identified as representative examples of the wide variety of Information Literacy /Competency resources and institutions in the United States and Canada. Descriptions in quotation are taken directly from the various website. These items will be described more fully in the International Information Literacy Resources Directory.