Information Literacy Rubric
This rubric is designed to evaluate the extent to which undergraduate students demonstrate the ability to identify, find, evaluate, interpret, manage, and responsibly use information to answer questions as well as develop new ones. Assessment results will be used for program improvement purposes only.
Download the Information Literacy Rubric (pdf)
| Component | Component Fully Met (Rating = 3) |
Component Met (Rating = 2) |
Component Partially Met (Rating = 1) | Component Not Met (Rating = 0) |
| Determine extent of information required and access it efficiently | Topic is focused, clear, and complete. Key concepts/terms are identified. Extensive sources are identified and accessed. Can articulate search strategy. | Topic is focused and clear. Concepts identified. Sufficient number of information sources are located with appropriate search strategy. | Topic is unfocused and unclear. Information gathered lacks relevance, quality, and/or balance. | Unable to effectively formulate topic and/or information needed. |
| Evaluate information and its sources critically | Examines information from multiple, diverse sources using criteria such as authority, credibility, relevance, timeliness, and accuracy. Makes judgments about what to keep/discard and can provide rationale for decisions. | Examines information using criteria such as authority, credibility, relevance, timeliness, and accuracy. Makes judgments about what to keep/discard. | Examines information using some criteria. Judgments about what to keep/discard could use improvement. | Unaware of criteria to judge information quality. Little effort made to examine information located. |
| Use information appropriately to accomplish a specific purpose | Aware of breadth/depth of topic, able to reflect on search strategy, synthesize/integrate information, draw appropriate conclusions, clearly communicate. | Uses appropriate information to solve problem/answer question.Adequately communicate. | Only partially aware of information necessary and types of data that would be useful in formulating a convincing argument. | Information is incomplete and/or does not support intended purpose. |
| Understand the economic, legal, ethical, and social issues surrounding use of information | Understand/recognize intellectual property concept, can adequately defend work, properly incorporates others’ work, can use criteria to discern facts. Understands free access to and expression of info. | Gives appropriate credit for others’ work. Ethical consumer and producer of information. Understands free access to and expression of info. | Inadequate/inconsistent credit of others’ work. Difficulty distinguishing between objective/biased information. Does not understand role of info. | Does not credit others for their work. Cannot distinguish between objective/biased information. |