ACRL Framework for Information Literacy #medlibs chat
December 3, 2015
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific
Led by Molly Knapp (@dial_m)
In Febuary 2015 the ACRL introduced "The Framework" as a replacement for the ACRL Standards for information literacy which have been around for a over a decade. You can imagine the buns that have unraveled from this monumental change. But do #medlibs even care? Let's discuss.
Background:
This Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (Framework) grows out of a belief that information literacy as an educational reform movement will realize its potential only through a richer, more complex set of core ideas. During the fifteen years since the publication of the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education,1 academic librarians and their partners in higher education associations have developed learning outcomes, tools, and resources that some institutions have deployed to infuse information literacy concepts and skills into their curricula. However, the rapidly changing higher education environment, along with the dynamic and often uncertain information ecosystem in which all of us work and live, require new attention to be focused on foundational ideas about that ecosystem. Students have a greater role and responsibility in creating new knowledge, in understanding the contours and the changing dynamics of the world of information, and in using information, data, and scholarship ethically. Teaching faculty have a greater responsibility in designing curricula and assignments that foster enhanced engagement with the core ideas about information and scholarship within their disciplines. Librarians have a greater responsibility in identifying core ideas within their own knowledge domain that can extend learning for students, in creating a new cohesive curriculum for information literacy, and in collaborating more extensively with faculty.
The Framework offered here is called a framework intentionally because it is based on a cluster of interconnected core concepts, with flexible options for implementation, rather than on a set of standards or learning outcomes, or any prescriptive enumeration of skills. At the heart of this Framework are conceptual understandings that organize many other concepts and ideas about information, research, and scholarship into a coherent whole. These conceptual understandings are informed by the work of Wiggins and McTighe,2 which focuses on essential concepts and questions in developing curricula, and also by thresholdconcepts3 which are those ideas in any discipline that are passageways or portals to enlarged understanding or ways of thinking and practicing within that discipline. This Framework draws upon an ongoing Delphi Study that has identified several threshold concepts in information literacy,4 but the Framework has been molded using fresh ideas and emphases for the threshold concepts. Two added elements illustrate important learning goals related to those concepts: knowledge practices,5 which are demonstrations of ways in which learners can increase their understanding of these information literacy concepts, anddispositions,6 which describe ways in which to address the affective, attitudinal, or valuing dimension of learning. The Frameworkis organized into six frames, each consisting of a concept central to information literacy, a set of knowledge practices, and a set of dispositions. The six concepts that anchor the frames are presented alphabetically:
Drama #1: The Framework vs The Standards
Six broad “Frames” replace the five original information literacy learning objectives. This might be good because it allows more flexibility. But it might be bad because undergraduate libraries and accrediting agencies already have the old Standards in place as a basis for subject specific learning objectives.
Drama #2: Meta-literacy vs. Transliteracy vs. Information Literacy vs Literacy
So many definitions.
Drama #3: WHO CARES
For #medlibs in medical schools, hospitals or other organizations, new guidelines from ACRL may be a non-issue because of our specialization in the health sciences. Who is mapping educational endeavors to ACRL in the #medlibs community? Is it worth it to respond to new changes?
Links:
- Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education - official document from ACRL
- The ACRL framework for information literacy in higher education: implications for health sciences librarianship. - a column we wrote for MRSQ
- Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy - a College & Research libraries news (2011)
- What is Transliteracy
- Customizable Framework Posters - Bucknell University Libraries
Look here, we don’t need a new road. This is a community. We don’t bother the outside world, we don’t want it bothering us! link
About #medlibs
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