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Information Literacy (IL) Outcomes

Goal: A student graduating from UC Merced is a credible consumer and creator of information who strategically navigates, critically evaluates, and ethically uses information to make decisions and solve problems in a changing and complex information environment.


Students will investigate complex problems through an iterative research process.
  1. Formulate research questions and revise to create an appropriate scope.
  2. Monitor research challenges and respond with appropriate research methods and strategies.
  3. Synthesize ideas from multiple sources including different perspectives.
  4. Analyze information to draw reasonable conclusions.

Students will develop and revise search strategies to locate relevant resources for a research need.
  1. Understand how information is structured and accessed.
  2. Identify information sources and producers that may meet an information need.
  3. Employ basic and advanced search techniques and approaches; revise in response to search results.
  4. Manage the research process and search results.

Students will critically examine the credibility of information sources to meet a specific information need.
  1. Recognize the benefits and limitations of source types based on knowledge of how a source is created.
  2. Analyze a source by asking questions about purpose, relevance, objectivity, verifiability, expertise and currency to determine authority.
  3. Blend critical examination of sources with fact checking and corroboration.
  4. Evaluate one’s information need and the level of authority required.

Students will make informed choices about personal information consumption and production based on their knowledge of information’s value and influence.
  1. Identify power structures and socioeconomic factors that impact information creation and dissemination.
  2. Recognize their own information privilege.
  3. Understand how information commodification impacts (personal) online interactions.
  4. Create and share information to minimize privacy risks and maximize access and re-use.

Students will ethically consume and produce scholarly communications with increasing expertise.
  1. Identify ethical practices for the use of other’s work recognizing that these practices may vary across communities and cultures.
  2. Give credit to the work of others through proper citation and attribution.
  3. Understand concepts of fair use, copyright, intellectual property, open access, public domain, and creative commons.
  4. Contribute to scholarly communications at an appropriate level.

Students will engage with librarians, information mentors and the larger academic community to increase their information literacy abilities and succeed academically.
  1. Recognize the library as a resource for developing researcher practices.
  2. Contact and communicate with librarians and other members of the campus community who have information expertise.
  3. Participate in programs and events to develop information literacy abilities.
  4. Demonstrate dispositions associated with researchers (productive persistence, mindful-self reflection, toleration for ambiguity, and responsibility to community).
Resources included the ACRL Framework, the TATIL test, and the work of academic libraries.