Information literacy for UMUC graduates is the ability to use libraries and other information resources to locate, evaluate, and use needed information effectively.

The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed, accesses needed information effectively and efficiently, evaluates information and its sources critically, incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose, understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and access, and uses information ethically and legally.

• Determine the nature and extent of the information needed.
  • Identify concepts and terms to describe information need
  • Develop a thesis statement and formulate questions based on the information need
  • Construct and use effective search strategy
  • Identify the purpose and audience of sources (popular vs. scholarly, current vs. historical)
  • Differentiate between primary and secondary sources
  • Revise or refine research questions
• Access needed information effectively and efficiently.
  • Select efficient and effective approaches for accessing information
  • Develop appropriate research plan
  • Use various systems and formats to retrieve information
  • Identify gaps and refine search strategy if necessary
  • Create a system for organizing information and use various technologies to manage the selected information
• Evaluate information and its sources critically.
  • Restate concepts from information source into his or her own words and selects the appropriate data
  • Identify material to be quoted
  • Examine and compare information from a variety of sources in order to evaluate its reliability, accuracy, authority, currency, and point of view
• Incorporate selected information into his or her knowledge base.
  • Recognize interrelationships among concepts and combines them into primary statements with supporting evidence
  • Build on synthesized ideas to construct new hypotheses
  • Use technologies and software (e.g. spreadsheets, multimedia) to study interaction of ideas
  • Apply evaluation criteria, compares information identified from various sources for contradictions with prior knowledge
  • Draw conclusions based on collected information
• Individually, or as a member of a group, use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
  • Identify appropriate medium and format to communicate results of project
  • Use a range of technology applications in creating project
  • Clearly communicate to intended audience the purpose of the project
  • Maintain a log of activities related to project
  • Organize information to support purpose of project
• Understand many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and access and uses information ethically and legally.
  • Identify and discusses issues relating to privacy, security, censorship, intellectual property, academic integrity and access to information
  • Make consistent use of appropriate documentation styles for citing sources
  • Comply with university policies on access to information sources

This list of competencies is adapted from the American Library Association's Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2000).

The information literacy cross-curricular initiative begins with the general education requirement for the one-credit course LIBS 150 Information Literacy and Research Methods (see the Undergraduate Catalog). In addition, academic disciplines can incorporate class activities such as the following to support information literacy development in specific courses.

• Assign a research problem for students to solve and then have them explain their methodology for solving the problem to the class.
• Ask students to compare the difference between a popular and scholarly work in a specific discipline.
• Ask students to critique questionable sources of objective information, such as a tabloid news article or a biased Web site.
• Have students discuss the differences among various Web search engines (underlying structure of database, search interface, retrieval results).
• Have students compare using a resource in paper and then in electronic format. Students should discuss the pros and cons of using the resource in different formats. How were they similar? How did they differ?
• Have students examine a Web search using a search engine (such as Google) and a library database (such as ABI Inform) for information resources on a topic. Ask students to prepare a description of the resources available through the two tools, and discuss how the tools are similar and different.
• Ask students to identify a listserv and a professional conference in their area of interest.
• Ask students to prepare an annotated bibliography on an assigned topic. Entries should be properly cited, and students should explain how and where they obtained the information and evaluate its credibility and usefulness.
• Have students develop a logical plan to retrieve information in a variety of formats, then retrieve and evaluate the information, and present their findings to the class.
• Have students construct a timeline or map that illustrates the influence of a particular piece of published research and then summarize the relationship of the original research with what followed.
• Stage a debate with pro and con panels. Have students investigate an issue and obtain relevant materials to support their position on the issue.
• Assign an article that presents the results of research and includes statistical data. Ask students to discuss the research methodology used and evaluate the results as presented by the author(s).
• Review plagiarism cases in the news, such as popular historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose, or journalist Jayson Blair, and ask students to retrieve and summarize articles about the cases. Have them tell you whether or not they agree with any sanctions against the accused authors.

For additional assignment examples, see the Tutorial for Developing and Evaluating Information Literacy Assignments.