Information literacy is a core instructional pedagogy in higher education. The Association of College and Research Libraries, the primary professional organization for academic librarians, first described information literacy in 1989. Numerous disciplinary and accrediting associations have also incorporated the Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education and/or information literacy language into their documents.

At CSUSM, all our librarian-provided research instruction is based on these five standards:

1. Can the student identify the information need?
2. Can the student find the information needed?
3. Can the student evaluate the information retrieved?
4. Can the student synthesize to create a new information product?
5. Does the student behave with an awareness of the ethical and legal issues regarding information use?

While these serve as guiding objectives, the instruction we provide is unique to the discipline, the course, the assignment, and the instructor's learning objectives for students. To be a truly educational experience, library instruction must be created in full collaboration with the course instructor.

For further discussion and examples see librarian/faculty collaboration.
For guidelines for effective assignments see effective assignments.