About Information Literacy
When the phrase Information Literacy is used, several subsidiary skills are implied. Competence in the basic literacies of reading, writing and numeracy is always assumed. A reasonable level of ability and confidence with IT is usually also expected. Thus, the essential underpinnings of information literacy, are reasonable levels of ability
with words – literacy ;
with numbers – numeracy ;
and, with technology - IT literacy.
A person with these skills has the basic tools necessary to begin developing information literacy. (For assistance with numeracy and literacy, you might like to try the courses available through the Virtual Learning Centre)
The term is used to encompass abilities in literacy and computing, together with a level of proficiency in identifying, retrieving, evaluating, sharing and applying “information” in a practical context. Information in this instance is intended to describe material which is available in any format : audio, visual, electronic, book, journal article or other written document, advice received from another person or, an exchange of views between two or more people.
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