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ACRL Framework for Information Literacy: Home

Information regarding the new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy.

Welcome!

This guide is designed to provide information on the new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. Currently, the new Framework does not replace the ACRL Information Literacy Standards. Both documents will work together to expand and teach information literacy skills and concepts. 

Credits

This guide was originally created by Heather Cook.

The ACRL Framework for Information Litearcy

The Framework is built on the 6 threshold concepts below:

  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

Each threshold concept is then broken down into knowledge practices and dispositions. The knowledge practices and dispositions will be expanded upon with in this guide.

Definitions for the Framework

Threshold Concepts:

Transformative- cause the learner to experience a shift in perspective
Integrative- bring together separate concepts (often identified as learning objectives or competencies) into a unified whole
Irreversible- once grasped cannot be un-grasped
Bounded- may help define the boundaries of a particular discipline
Troublesome- usually difficult or counterintuitive ideas that can cause students to hit a road black in their learning.

Jan H. F.Meyer and Ray Land as cited in Hofer, Townsed and Brunetti "Troublesome Concepts in Information Literacy." Portal: Libraries and the Academy. 12(4) 2012. p.388.

 

Knowledge Practices:

...the proficiencies or abilities that learners develop as a result of their comprehending a threshold concept.

 ACRL Framework for Information literacy. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework 

 

Dispositions:

A tendency to act or think in a particular way. More specifically, a disposition is a cluster of preferences, attitudes, and intentions, as well as a set of capabilities that allow the preferences to become realized in a particular way.

Gavriel Salomon. “To Be or Not to Be (Mindful).” Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Meetings, New Orleans, LA, 1994. As cited in ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

 

Metaliteracy:

It expands the scope of traditional information skills (i.e., determine, access, locate, understand, produce, and use information) to include the collaborative production and sharing of information in participatory digital environments (collaborate, produce, and share). This approach requires an ongoing adaptation to emerging technologies and an understanding of the critical thinking and reflection required to engage in these spaces as producers, collaborators, and distributors.

Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi E. Jacobson. Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners.(Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2014). As cited in ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework