Normalizing the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL) for Academic Community in Iran

This article reports a research that surveyed the information literacy status of post-graduate students, and compared it against four national development documents. The research community included post-graduate students from four Iranian universities: Ferdowsi, Tehran, Shiraz, and Chamran. The needed data gathered through a self-reporting questionnaire from a sample of 650, 316 of whom responded to the questionnaire. In content analysis section, topics related to information literacy were extracted from the four national development documents (Iran 20-year Outlook Document, 4th Socio-economic Development Plan, Strategic Document for "National Scientific Development System", and "Research and Technology Development Plan") and tested as well. Results indicated that although the resulted scores were nearly acceptable (with average above 3/7), there was a significant difference between the students of Humanities and non-Humanities disciplines, between the students from different educational regions, between male and female students, and between doctoral and master students. The scores for the students of humanities disciplines, female students, and doctoral students were higher than those of their counterparts. Content analysis of the National Development Documents also showed that these document's strong emphasis on the role of information and knowledge in economic, social and cultural development, necessitates to plan for development and promotion of information literacy programs and models, particularly for higher education students.