What is Information Literacy — Core?

Credo's Information Literacy – Core (InfoLit – Core) is a set of online videos, tutorials, and quizzes covering information literacy and critical thinking, as well as related topics and skills.

InfoLit – Core aims to help you learn how to:

• find relevant and reliable library and other research materials;
• formulate appropriate, workable research questions; and
• synthesize what you learn into a final product such as a research paper, including use of citations appropriate to your field of study.

How do I use this resource?

InfoLit – Core is for students who want to improve or refresh their knowledge of and skills in information literacy, critical thinking, and related areas. 

• View any of the online videos, complete the tutorials, and then take the quizzes to test your understanding.
• Complete an entire section if you need a refresher on a process (e.g., Evaluating Information) or concept (e.g., Copyright), or if the information is new to you.
• Have you been assigned InfoLit – Core content for class? Be sure to follow the direction from your instructor!

This guide is one access point to Credo's Information Literacy – Core. Use the tabs above or the links below to navigate this guide. Each tab or link leads to a page where you will find online videos, tutorials, and quizzes to learn about a topic or process. There is a pre-test and a post-test on this guide, too, linked in the box below, as well as instructor resources.

Definition

"Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning," according to the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Thus, information literacy provides a foundation for life-long learning, the ultimate goal of education, and is common to all disciplines, learning environments, and levels of education.

This often means the ability to begin with the requirements for an assignment and write a relevant research question; find materials in any medium that answer the question; analyze their accuracy, currency, and other criteria; and use the materials to create a paper that’s complete with citations and other scholarly requirements.

Benefits

A survey of 42,624 students in more than 1,725 first-year courses that included a library instruction component at 12 major research universities – reported in The Impact of Information Literacy Instruction on Student Success: A Multi-Institutional Investigation and Analysis – showed that:

• Retention rates were higher for students whose courses included information literacy (IL) instruction.
• Students whose courses included IL instruction reported higher average first-year GPAs than those whose courses did not.

In the Association of American Colleges & Universities' report College Learning for the New Global Century, information literacy is discussed as an essential learning outcome students need to prepare for twenty-first century challenges.