Information Literacy in Open Courses

Open education is changing the landscape of higher education. There are many aspects to the open education movement and the authors of this paper focus on open courses. Librarians and educators who teach information literacy must adapt their instruction to courses that are open, instead of using the same strategies that are employed in traditional education or distance education settings. In this paper, the authors discuss the theories of connectivism and social learning theory and how the both theories apply to information literacy and its foray into open courses. Additionally, the concept of lifelong learning is crucial to open education and its close ties to information literacy are examined. The authors conclude by discussing the content of information literacy courses in an open environment.