Towards Information Literacy Indicators

This paper provides a conceptual framework for the identification of indicators of information literacy and proposes a pathway for cost effective and timely development.

The Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Programme (IFAP) at its Fourth Session in March 2006 established a Working Group on “Measurement for Knowledge Societies”, with a special focus on IFAP’s three priority areas, namely information literacy, information preservation, and information ethics, all three of them with critical importance to the development of knowledge societies. Measurements in these areas focus more on people and government priorities than on the information itself or the information technologies. They focus more on the impact of information on societies than on access to information, for example.

One of these priority areas involves raising awareness of the importance of information literacy. The Alexandria Proclamation of 2005 recognizes information literacy as “a basic human right in the digital world” as it empowers individuals “in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goals”.

In a digital world, people require new skills and training in order to participate. The digital divide is much more than a ‘technology access’ divide; without the skills to use the technologies an even greater divide emerges – the information literacy divide. Interestingly this is not a “north-south, developed-developing” issue; it applies to all countries and is more a reflection on the extent to which education systems are – or are not – keeping up with the new information societies.

The full article: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001587/158723e.pdf