An Open Letter Regarding the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

ACRLog welcomes a guest post from Heather Dalal, Assistant Professor I-Librarian at Rider University.

Some of the members of the ACRL-NJ/NJLA CUS User Education Committee and the VALE NJ Shared Information Literacy Committees have collaborated on an Open Letter Regarding the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. We are appreciative of the work of the Task Force who have developed the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. However, there are a number of concerns about this new document that have not been adequately addressed in revisions and that we would like the ACRL Board to take into consideration when the Task Force presents its final draft.

1. The current standards should not be discarded; they should be revised to be used in tandem with the Framework.  The task force has created a new document that establishes a theoretical basis for information literacy. This does not replace standards. In an early article about threshold concepts for information literacy, Townsend, Brunetti, and Hofer (2009) recommended threshold concepts as “ideas that would add new layers of meaning to the current standards and integrate those standards into a more coherent body of knowledge.” The standards could be updated to reflect the expanded concepts in the Framework. But we still need standards. Why?
   
   • “Standards” is a powerful and clear word. It sets uniform goals and acceptable levels of achievement.  We should claim our right to set such standards in our own knowledge domain (call it a discipline if you want).  We disagree with the notion that the concept of standards is outdated. AASL has standards to help support their professionals as “education leaders”. Other academic groups (such as the National Council of Teachers of English) have adopted standards for their programs (see Writing Across the Curriculum).  A conversation around “standards” is now also part of the national dialogue on improving education in the United States.  Many states are adopting “common core” standards for K-12.  Our president & our governors are initiating conversation about curriculum change around the “common core standards” and major media outlets are covering this issue in depth.  “Standards” are now part of the vernacular.
   • There are political implications of losing the standards when other non-library agencies – for example, Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), Association of American Colleges & Universities, NJ Council of County Colleges – have finally adopted them, which took years of engagement on the part of many librarians.  To say that “this is not an issue for the accrediting agencies and they will work with what we have” is naïve. MSCHE just dropped information literacy and libraries from their “Characteristics of Excellence” and librarians fought diligently to get it reinstated. This Task Force is not helping us make our case on the importance of information literacy.  They seem tone deaf to the politics of Higher Ed. Standards have easily been used to articulate active learning outcomes that everyone understands. They have practical applications that are universally understood. The theory outlined in the Framework is good and should be retained but supported with standards. There is room for both documents — the Threshold Concepts providing an overall theoretical structure and the IL Standards providing skills, learning objectives and suggested assessments. The power of the standards was that they were NOT local.  Are we going backwards to insist that each locality ‘interpret’ the Framework according to their own standard?  ACRL has other standards.  Why are we comfortable being prescriptive about library collections but not about instructional goals?
   • We disagree with the notion that standards are outdated as indicated in (a) above. National conversations about education are centered on the idea of standards. The concept of standards is widely understood as a level of quality to be attained.
   • The Standards are working well in New Jersey academic libraries.  It has taken many years for NJ librarians to communicate and integrate the Standards in their own institutions, and we have been rather successful.  We have seen wide adoption by individual institutions of the Standards and their integration into a variety of curricula for instruction and assessment.   We have also worked with K-12 colleagues to develop Information Literacy Progression Standards that articulate the skills that should be learned in the first two years of college. These standards are endorsed by NJ State College Council of Academic Vice Presidents and the Provosts at senior public colleges and universities. We planned to continue progression standards through the 3rd and 4th years and graduate school, but put those efforts on hold during this revision process.  In 2011, the New Jersey General Education Foundation was revised to reflect the difference between “technological competency” and “information literacy,” establishing IL as a general education integrated course goal – a skill that should be integrated in courses throughout a general education curriculum. Such work was made possible by the outcomes-based competencies defined in the Standards. There is no advantage to confusing our non-library colleagues with new jargon, when the core ideas and learning goals remain the same.
2. It is NOT counterproductive to map the IL Standards to the IL Framework. So many curriculum maps and programs have been designed with the IL Standards as the foundation. As stated above, the Standards do need revising, and in doing so can be mapped to the Framework to create cohesive documents that are used in tandem. The Framework as it is written can not be “implemented,” a fact that the task force has acknowledged in its declaration that the Framework is not prescriptive. Rather than recommending that ACRL form an “implementation task force,” the next task force should be dedicated to revising the standards in light of the Framework, and in a way that they are still useful for teaching and measuring information literacy skills.
3. The Framework is a theoretical document which makes it difficult to assess outcomes. Assessment continues to be an integral part of higher education. By relying solely on a theoretical framework that is not assessable, we are making information literacy irrelevant to the learning outcomes emphasis in higher education.
4. The entire framework is filled with jargon, especially the new definition of information literacy. It’s not even library jargon, it is educational jargon that does not resonate with librarians, the primary audience. Only faculty in a few disciplines (education, psychology, and writing) will relate to this document. We disagree with FAQ #8 that the Framework is designed to be shared with faculty, and the introductory statements for faculty and administrators are insufficient. In addition, the Framework can provide a catalyst for instruction programs to have a more cohesive approach to curriculum mapping or scaffolding yet, because of the jargon and the removal of the standards, it actually sets librarians back to square one where we will need to re-educate our faculty with new terminologies and thus lose the momentum that was gained with the standards.
5. The lack of parallel structure of the frames is grammatically jarring. Yes, this is discussed in the FAQ; however, the frames will eventually be reduced to their simple titles. We are academics and we should make the effort to use the English language as precisely as possible. There surely can be another way to maintain parallel structure and the meaning behind the current titles. In fact, the statement from the FAQ, “Information creation is indeed a process, but it is much more than that, and this Frame focuses on the one aspect of the creation process” does not seem to make sense. If the Frame focuses on creation, then stating “Information Creation is a Process” captures exactly what the Frame intends: the process of creating information, isolated from the many other things that information is. Also, consider “Inquiry is Essential to Research” as a concept that encapsulates what is intended by that Frame while keeping parallel structure. We urge the Task Force to make a greater effort to re-title the Frames.

Thank you for your attention.

Respectfully,

Cara Berg, William Paterson University, Reference Librarian/Co-Coordinator of User Education, Co-Chair of VALE Shared Information Literacy Committee
Leslin Charles, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Kilmer Library, Instructional Design/Education Librarian
Steve Chudnick, Brookdale Community College, Department Chair, Reference/Instruction Librarian
Heather Cook, Caldwell University, Learning Commons Librarian
Heather Dalal, Rider University; Co-Chair of ACRL-NJ/NJLA CUS User Education
Megan Dempsey,  Raritan Valley Community College, Instructional Services Librarian; Co-Chair of VALE Shared Information Literacy Committee
Eleonora Dubicki, Monmouth University, Reference/Instruction Librarian
Chris Herz, Rowan College at Gloucester County, Reference Librarian
Amanda Piekart, Berkeley College; Co-chair of ACRL-NJ/NJLA CUS User Education Committee
Lynee Richel, County College of Morris, Coordinator of Instructional Services
Davida Scharf, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Director of Reference & Instruction
Theodora Haynes, Rutgers University – Camden, Instruction Coordinator
Roberta Tipton, Rutgers University – Newark, Instruction Coordinator
Mina Ghajar, College of Saint Elizabeth, Assistant Director, Research & Access Services

If you would like to show your support for this letter, please add your name to the public signature page. You can also see the list of signatures already collected.