Argthtjtr

Information fluency is a term I’ve just come across. I prefer information literacy, but are they considered synonymous and is the former superseding the latter?

I often first consider the etymology of words when grasping their greater meaning.

• "Literacy" OED derives from Latin for "letter". In this case, a connotation could be exactness of one's relationship with information.




• "Fluency" OED derives from Latin for "flow". In this case, a connotation could be ease with which one accesses information.

Another consideration is popularity of each phrase.

• Google reports 1,100,000 results for "information literacy".




• Google reports 108,000 results for "information fluency";

And it's worth checking who uses which phrase.

• "Information literacy" is employed by the American Library Association, Wesleyan University, and Stanford. It seems to have gained much ground via its official usage by the US Presidential Committee on Information Literacy in 1989.




• "Information fluency" is instead more immediately employed by newer, slicker, but seemingly less official groups: Global Citizen, 21CIF, iTeachU.

Googling both phrases, it appears "information fluency" is the newer of the two, and it's commonly intended to be more holistic or primal than the older "information literacy".

• 
  21CIF:

We call it "fluency" rather than "literacy" to emphasize that the abilities involved are more than basic abilities.

• 
  University of Central Florida:

Information fluency may be envisioned as the nexus of information literacy, computer literacy, and critical thinking.

• 
  Macalester College:

Literacy is often associated with a set of basic skills, whereas the term fluency is associated with more advanced processes and a deeper understanding of information and knowledge in a subject area.

Google gives:

UCF [University of Central Florida] defined information fluency as “the ability to perform effectively in an information-rich and technology-intensive environment.” Simply put, information fluency is the ability to gather, evaluate, and use information in ethical and legal ways. Information fluency encompasses and integrates three important skills: information literacy, technology literacy, and critical thinking. These three skills are not mutually exclusive but overlap in many areas. Using these skills means having the ability to communicate information in appropriate and effective ways, which is an important measure of information fluency. [My bold]

The site however seems somewhat dead. http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~inform/print.php?title=Information+Fluency+Questions+and+Answers&content=ifaq.php. The cache can be found here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NrCotIpscS8J:pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~inform/print.php%3Ftitle%3DInformation%2BFluency%2BQuestions%2Band%2BAnswers%26content%3Difaq.php+&cd=21&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nl.