Metaliteracy is the ability to evaluate information for its bias, reliability, and credibility and apply them in the context of production and sharing of knowledge. It is especially useful in the context of the internet and social media. A formal concept of it was developed as an expanded information literacy framework by State University of New York academics Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi E. Jacobson. It has been used to prepare people to be informed consumers and responsible producers of information in a variety of social communities.
Definition and usage
Metaliteracy is a unified understanding of literacies to support the acquisition, production, and sharing of knowledge in collaborative online communities. Like the more skills-based approaches of information literacy, metaliteracy encourages the use of a variety of new and emerging technologies. It also incorporates related literacies such as visual literacy, digital literacy, media literacy, and transliteracy, and promotes metacognitive reflection as an empowering practice for learners. Metaliteracy supports effective participation in social media and online communities, with a comprehensive approach to learning that encourages the production and sharing of original and repurposed information in participatory environments.
Metaliteracy is intended to promote critical thinking and collaboration in the digital age and provide a comprehensive framework for effective participation in social media and online communities through acquisition, production and sharing of knowledge in collaborative online communities. While information literacy was focused on skills-based approaches and its standard definitions had been insufficient for the social technologies currently prevalent online, metaliteracy recognizes related literacy types and incorporates emerging technologies. As such metaliteracy is an overarching framework for integrating information literacy with other literacies such as media literacy, digital literacy, and visual literacy. It puts an emphasis on active production and sharing of new knowledge through technology.
Metaliteracy can be used in the practical world by helping learners with elusive topics throughout their learning and to understand the concepts better. It goes beyond information literacy and dives deep into enhancing the teaching- learning process by including the production aspect of accessible reference material which can be consumed by a wide audience over social media. Metaliteracy is particularly relevant to current literacy needs as it not only addresses the integration of information and technology, helping to optimize the use of available resources; but also introduces the use of collaborative learning to better produce and share information.
History
Metaliteracy developed out of scholarly work on the changing perceptions of information literacy resulting from technological changes in the creation of and access to information. Mackey and Jacobson argued in their 2011 paper, Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy, that it was necessary to create a new framework to withstand the challenge of rising social media networks and emerging technologies and therefore include Web 2.0 technologies and social media as these developments were not included in previous information literacy models created by the ALA in 1989, ACRL in 2000 and various SCONUL models. Donna Witek and Teresa Grettano further elaborated on the idea of metaliteracy in Teaching Metaliteracy: A New Paradigm in Action. Leona Ungerer discussed the importance of digital curation and metaliteracy in higher education in her 2016 paper Digital Curation as a Core Competency in Current Learning and Literacy: A Higher Education Perspective.
On January 11, 2016, the board of the Association of College and Research Libraries adopted the Framework for Information Literacy, which draws upon the concept of metaliteracy as inextricably linked to the domains of "behavioral, affective, cognitive, and metacognitive engagement with the information ecosystem."