JWU Denver Library Knowledge Literacy Program: Knowledge Literacy

Knowledge Literacy...
is the ability to use critical thinking to understand what you don't know and how to acquire the basic knowledge of a subject.

Critical Thinking...
is a way of thinking about knowledge. Critical thinking is exploring all the facts and viewpoints of information. One needs to question knowledge and look at all sides of an argument before making a decision or forming an opintion. Once you understand how to think critically it will be eaiser to master information literacy.

Information Literacy...
is the understanding of how information is produced, valued, and accessed. It is also understanding of the use of information in creating new knowledge and using this information ethically and legally. IL encompasses other literacies such as:
1) Data Literacy, 2) Media Literacy, 3) Digital Literacy, and 4) Visual Literacy.

The JWU Denver Information Literacy Instruction is based on the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy (IL) Standards, Framework for IL in Higher Education (see Information Literacy Standards vs. Framework box on the right), Guidelines for Instruction Programs in Academic Libraries and the Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best practices: A Guideline.

In 2000, the American Association for Higher Education and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), JWU’s accrediting body, made information literacy an accreditation standard.

Since 2000, most academic libraries have been teaching the Information Literacy (IL) Competency Standards - https://alair.ala.org/handle/11213/7668.  However, the Framework for IL in Higher Education- http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework was introduced three years ago by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) to academic librarians on how to teach IL in a new way.  

According to the ACRL, "...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.
 

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
    
3. 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." 

(Source: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework#introduction)