Information literacy is a set of skills that enables individuals to recognize a gap in their knowledge and actively seek to fill this gap by locating and accessing reliable information sources.
Information fluent individuals are capable of using their critical thinking skills to analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate new knowledge in their daily academic and professional tasks.
Our Information Fluency (IF) initiative aims at developing our students' research competencies, critical thinking skills, and metacognitive abilities by introducing them to the role and value of information in their daily academic and personal life.
Based on the latest framework for information literacy introduced by the American Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), there are six core concepts that students need to understand, develop, and use as they progress through their academic career. The following concepts, or frames, prepare students to become life-long learners who can use information efficiently to create new knowledge.
| Searching as Strategic Exploration | Recognize that searching for information is a nonlinear process that requires continuous refinement of search techniques and flexible application of a range of approaches and skills. |
| Research as Inquiry | Be able to deal with complex research and maintain an open mind and critical stance. See learning as an iterative, life-long process. |
| Information has Value | Understand the intellectual property and value the skills, time and effort needed to produce knowledge. Consider information to have value that may vary with context. |
| Information Creation as a Process | Understand that information creation and dissemination is a long process and have different purposes. Recognize that information creations are valued differently in different contexts, and be able to match information products with their information needs. |
| Authority is Constructed and Contextual | Critically evaluate the expertise and credibility of information creators. Keep an open-minded skepticism as to what constitutes "authority". |
| Scholarship as Conversation | Understand the different perspectives on a specific topic and see scholarship as an on-going conversation in which they are contributors, not merely consumers. |
ACRL. (2015). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. ACRL. Retrieved August 17, 2022
from https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
The next pages introduce the basic, intermediate, and advanced IF skills that are being integrated in our library teaching for premedical and medical students.
We also provide some useful resources that can assist our students in developing their research and critical thinking competencies, improving their metacognitive abilities, and acquiring lifelong learning skills.
