Information Fluency: A Guide for Faculty

Adopted by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) in 2016, the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education serves as the theoretical underpinning for much of the work that librarians and teaching faculty across higher education have undertaken to help students develop their information skills, and to understand key concepts related to the current information ecosystem.

The Framework is organized around six interconnected core concepts, or frames, rather than as a set of specific prescriptive standards or learning outcomes. This structure gives librarians and teaching faculty the freedom to implement the framework as they see fit, and to develop their own related learning outcomes. The six frames are as follows:

• Authority is Constructed and Contextual
• Information Creation as a Process
• Information Has Value
• Research as Inquiry
• Scholarship as Conversation
• Searching as Strategic Exploration

The full framework document can be found using either of the following links:

The current ACRL Framework serves as a replacement for that organization's earlier Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education from 2000, which were rescinded in 2016 after the adoption of the Framework.  For reference, this earlier set of standards can be found at the following link: