Information Literacy Skills: The Ability to Communicate Knowledge

Information literacy skills is a set of
potentials and competencies of a person that makes him an efficient user of
information and a lifelong learner.

Many expressions have been used to describe our computer age that is characterized by technological advancement. One of which is information age reinforces information availability to our age as the name implies.

Other basic literacy skills as part of educational goals in relation to information literacy are crucial to the development of the concept. Some of which are computer literacy skills, media literacy skills and visual literacy skills.

Components of information literacy

1. Identification, access and creation of information

Individual and organizations should know where to get information, seek for, recognise and obtain needed and desired information. They can as well produce information for their and other’s use.

2. Information skills

Effective application of information and its resources is a feature of information literacy skills. Some of the features of the information literacy skills include the use of information technologies that enhances computer operation skills, software programming, e-mail and the Internet service skills, among others, in adherence to all ethic standards.

3. Information Evaluation

Assessment and judging applied information in learning areas to establish the extent to which the information used met the need is a vital objective of acquiring information literacy skills

How to acquire Information literacy skills

1. Studying information literacy courses in schools

Learning information literacy courses like Information Searching and Accessing, Information Sourcing, Information Communication, Information Management, Information Programming, among others, enhance information literacy skills and abilities in a student.

2. Personal experiences

Personal experience is gained through exposure and involvement to sources of information through interaction with its elements. It is being aware of or participation in knowledge communication.

The concept of experience is wholly refers to know-how or procedural knowledge. Source of information can be of primary or secondary source or combination of both. Primary source contain original information content which forms the basis of research or research work itself. Secondary source of information is the recorded or documented primary source of information or the person with situational direct knowledge.

Personal experience is constituted by the integration of action, emotion, cognition and communication aspects of experience built on three modes of skills development: conceiving, feeling and aesthetic value. These three skills development modes determine the degrees of interaction of the emotion, cognition and communication aspects of experience.

3. Interactions with information

Human information interaction (HII) is an emerging discipline that studies how people interact with information which is relevant to information systems design.

Interaction with humans as well as machines, software and intelligent devices are developed innovation technologies that enables humans acquire information literacy to solve his problems, from simple tasks (such as reading and writing) to complex tasks (such as online shopping, banking, manufacture of automated equipment, medical diagnosis, etc.

Why acquire information literacy skills

To maximize people’s contributions to socioeconomic welfare shaping our future for sustainable survival, information literacy is a needful.

As information technologies advance at increasing rate, information resources and outlets become more and more available to us, making it information sourcing and accessibility easier and quicker. Television, mobile phones, internet services and software packages, like word processor, spreadsheet, which were once revolutionary and astonishing, are now commonplace. Nevertheless, we need to be advanced and smarter too to identify true, worthwhile and high-quality information.

Do you ever think one can cope with emerging trends of our information age without possessing at least novel information knowledge and skills?

Our work is becoming complex and succeeding in workplaces demands possession of certain basic personal characteristics and job skills that match the era.

Today’s employers are seeking for persons who possess knowledge and skills and can adapt to the characteristics of the Information Age. Job seekers with strong analytical, critical thinking and problem-solving skills are valued and much more attractive job candidates and will have much to contribute to the progress of the enterprise.

Again, an information literate person applies communicated knowledge to school activities and to other academic problems–such as writing a book or research paper. Information literacy is also important to effective and enlightened the people of , and has implications that can impact the lives of many people around the globe.