Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Resource Evaluation

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is constantly adding resources to InformationLiteracy.gov to make sure the site effectively supports information literacy programming across the country. This includes collecting resources and evaluating them against an established set of criteria. 

Collecting Resources

The interagency Information Literacy Taskforce is a primary source of recommended resources. This Taskforce includes representatives from agencies across the Federal government who submit resources created by their agency, developed with funding from their agency, or sourced from their networks of organizations at all levels. 

IMLS also identifies potential resources by searching online and asking for recommendations from practitioners in their network, such as meeting or conference attendees. 

If you would like to recommend a resource to be evaluated for the website, please fill out a contact form. 

Evaluating Resources

IMLS uses these 5 criteria to ensure every resource posted on InformationLiteracy.gov meets high standards of quality and relevance:

  • Is the resource from a trustworthy source? 
    • Resources that meet this criterion are created by a government agency, with government funding, or by private sector organization that’s objective and transparent about how the resource was funded and developed. 
  • Is the resource relevant to information literacy? 
    • This criterion aims to ensure that resources are tailored to the unique skills needed to find, evaluate, and understand information — which are different from the skills needed to read (literacy) or use numbers (numeracy).
  • Is the resource based on objective evidence?
    • Objective evidence can include peer-reviewed research, frameworks, published data sources, and more.
  • Is the resource tailored to its intended audience?
    • This criterion aims to ensure that resources have the right foundation to build audiences’ information literacy skills. For example, resources created for children should use simple language and appropriate design elements, and resources created for Spanish speakers should be written in Spanish. 
  • Is the resource accessible?
    • Resources that meet this criterion are open-source, free, and include features that help make them accessible to people with disabilities, like videos with closed captions. 

All resources included on InformationLiteracy.gov satisfy at least 3 of these 5 criteria. Regardless of the number of criteria a resource meets, IMLS reviewers carefully consider each resource and make a decision based on the resource’s alignment with InformationLiteracy.gov’s overall purpose and whether the resource fills a clear gap in terms of practitioner needs, audience served, or topic addressed.

IMLS is committed to growing InformationLiteracy.gov to stay current with the rapidly evolving information literacy landscape. This includes not only adding resources to the site over time — but also regularly reviewing and updating the processes used to collect and evaluate those resources. 

Understand InformationLiteracy.gov’s external links policy. Although IMLS evaluates all linked resources, it can’t guarantee the quality, relevance, or accessibility of other websites. Explore what you can expect when you leave InformationLiteracy.gov.  

 

Return to top