Research On Information Literacy Competency Standards For Higher Education

With the development of the information society and Internet technology, the necessity ofinformation literacy for higher education has been widely recognized. In general, the instructionsof information literacy for higher education are implemented by academic libraries. Innetworking environment, information literacy education founds a new foothold and designates afurther development direction of academic libraries. Now information literacy is also a crucialresearch subject of library science. Information literacy competency standards are the objectiveof information literacy instruction, the basis of information literacy assessment, and thefoundation of the establishment of information literacy education system. The necessity andsignificance of developing the Chinese information literacy competency standards for highereducation are well recognized by library communities in China. But till now, there hasn't beenseen any completed research work on it. This research emphasizes on the topic of Chineseinformation literacy competency standards for higher education.Based on the survey and analysis of related literature, the development architecture ofinformation literacy for higher education is proposed, combined with our learning and practice ofinformation literacy for higher education. In terms of the development architecture, all possibleresearch sub-topics and existed outcomes in the field of information literacy for higher educationare marshaled and analyzed. The definitions of the information literacy and the existinginformation literacy competency standards for higher education in those developed countries arediscussed.At the primary stage of standards research, an elementary draft of information literacycompetency standards oriented Chinese conditions is established. It derives from many existingresearch works at home and abroad, including the definitions of the information literacy and theapplied Information literacy competency standards, as well as the related directives from Chinesegovernment, such as the Department of Chinese Education and the leading group of libraryassociation.The Delphi method is introduced at the next research stage. Dozens of the experts have beeninvited to participate the survey and offered their answers, suggestions and evaluations to thedraft during consensus building phase. Statistics methods are used to analyze the experts'suggestions. As a result, the consensus among these experts is built after two circles of survey.This consensus leads to a rational information literacy competency standards which includes 7standards, 19 performance indicators and 61 outcomes.The proposed Chinese information literacy competency standards can act as the basis ofinformation literacy instruction, the standard of information literacy assessment, and thereference of the establishment of information literacy education system.