Information Fluency
What does information fluency look like to you? How would you define it?
Pair
At your table, talk about your definitions. What similarities and differences are there? What connections did you make to the podcast for today’s class?
Share
As a large group, let's discuss what you come up with. Were there similarities with the way you were thinking about this topic? Any differences in your definitions?
What is it? Why does it matter?
Information fluency is both a core learning framework within the Honors Program, as well as a major element of what Milner Library teaches and supports at Illinois State University. In fact, the library runs an Information Fluency Program designed to enable students and other campus community members to:
- Identify diverse venues and formats of information sources in order to critically analyze information and its contexts
- Investigate differing viewpoints and engage in strategic exploration of ideas in order to contribute to local, national, and global discourse
- Synthesize information during the content creation process in order to generate and disseminate new knowledge and content
- Articulate the complexity of issues related to using information and intellectual property in order to use, share, and create knowledge in an ethical and legal manner
- Share ideas responsibly in a variety of formats and contexts in order to recognize themselves as knowledge creators
Milner's Definition
Information fluent individuals also demonstrate the following competencies:
1. Recognizing the need for information;
2. Formulating a plan to obtain the information including appropriate technologies to be used;
3. Discovering, identifying, and retrieving information from multiple venues and in multiple formats;
4. Evaluating and selecting relevant and credible information;
5. Synthesizing obtained information or creating new information using various technologies; and
6. Presenting or publishing an information product to an audience using an appropriate platform.
