1 Introduction

With the growth of information technology, the demand for talents with high information literacy is gradually increasing. College students shoulder an essential mission in socialist construction: to develop new learning thinking and improve their innovation ability and information literacy. There are many pieces of research on information literacy education for college students, and the literature and policy trend researches are pretty abundant^[1]. The Chinese government has promulgated a series of standardized regulations, policies, and rules. In Jan.1981, the Ministry of Education (MOE for short) promulgated the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on the Work of Libraries in Higher Education Institutions, which is China’s first official document on the work of university libraries. And it marks that university libraries in China began to enter a new stage with laws to comply with^[2]. In Feb.2002, MOE issued the General Provisions of the General Higher Education Library Regulations (Revised). It clearly states that one of the main tasks of university libraries is to carry out information literacy education, cultivate the information awareness of college students, and acquire literature information^[3]. In2012, MOE promulgated the Ten-Year Development Plan for Education Informatization (2010-2020), which clearly states that it is necessary to promote informatization, strengthen the deep integration of higher education and information technology, and establish high-quality education resources for sharing ^[4]. In2018, according to the Action Plan for Education Informatization2.0, MOE emphasized establishing a scientific, suitable, and highly operable evaluation index system and evaluation model for students’ information literacy^[5]. This policy marks the strategic deepening stage of information literacy education for college students in China.

The information literacy education policy is deepening, but the research of it is still few. At present, research on it mainly focuses on literature. This research cannot depict or describe the overall characteristics of the evolution of information literacy education. Based on the clustering results of high-frequency words, this paper constructs a comprehensive analysis framework of information literacy education policy for college students in China from three dimensions: policy themes, contents of information literacy education, and ways of information literacy education. The qualitative and quantitative analysis, objective and transparent description of various stages of information literacy education policy among college students, and exploration of policy goals^[6], priorities can clarify the scope of policy evolution and grasp the direction of its development.

2 Data Sources and Research Methods

2.1 Data Sources

This paper takes the policies of information literacy education for college students issued by the Central Government of China from1981 to2020 as the research object. The data used in this paper are selected from the websites of Chinese government departments, such as the MOE. This paper used this method-“Title” =（higher institution OR university OR university library）AND（information literacy）to search and collect the relevant policy texts. Finally,150 influential policy texts are selected, and a policy text database is established. See Fig.1.

2.2 Research Methods

As an important research method in bibliometrics, the co-word analysis takes the keywords of academic literature as the research object. In the past, when the government was developing policy literature, it is common to take the keywords that represent the core content of the document as the theme words^[7]. When the social network analysis is applied to policy text analysis, high-frequency keywords extracted from enterprises and government agencies related to a specific policy area can be analyzed by comparing the similarity of individual connection structures^[8]. Therefore, the terms used in this paper include the terms from the early literature and bibliometrics. The co-word and social network analysis have been used in this paper to obtain representative policy terms and then explore their evolutionary characteristics.

3 Data Analysis

3.1 From the initial exploration to the steady development stage (1981-2011)

This paper uses ROSTCM6 to build a co-word matrix and UCINET to make the co-word matrix into a network diagram and perform cluster analysis^[9]. It gives us a clear logic map between hot research issues and high-frequency keywords in information literacy policy for college students at this stage. See Fig.2.

From Fig.2, it can be seen as follows:

(1) Regarding policy themes, China has not yet developed a clear concept of “information literacy education” and an independent policy system at the first stage. Information literacy education is mainly carried out by literature retrieval. The growth of information literacy education is implemented primarily on the policy documents related to “higher education,” “library,” and “teaching,” and information literacy education is carried out toward informatization.

(2) Regarding the content of the information literacy education, the words “literature courses ” “literature retrieval” “library intelligence” “ideology and politics” are relatively centralized. At this stage, information literacy education is mainly about literature retrieval to improve students’ ability to use literature retrieval, teach students the knowledge and methods of literature, and carry out ideological and political education to enhance the overall capacity of college students.

(3) From the cultivation methods of information literacy education, it is mainly through teaching to improve the information quality of college students and serve as a bridge between higher education institutions and libraries. The high-frequency words show that the cultivation includes the offline training of literature retrieval courses and extends to the online digital library. Therefore, the cultivation of online query and retrieval is not limited by the access to information resources and indirectly promotes the information retrieval ability of college students.

3.2 From flourishing to strategic deepening stage (2012-2020)

These policy documents mark that the growth of information literacy education for Chinese college students has gone through preparation and theoretical advocacy, and has rapidly entered the critical development of information-based education. These stages of high-frequency words were compiled into a co-word matrix, and the ROSTCM6 was used to make a network graph of the co-word matrix and perform the corresponding cluster analysis^[9]. See Fig.4.

According to Fig.3, it can be seen as follows.

(1) From policy themes, “teaching” “informatization” and other related words appear more frequently in these stages, indicating that information literacy education still relies on information technology. With the growth of the Internet, various virtual technologies and software are applied in teaching, making the course more vivid and easy for students to understand ^[10]. At the same time, the words such as “innovation” “technology” “ability” have increased in the strategic deepening stage, indicating that information literacy growth has begun to focus on teaching and curriculum innovation. Cultivating college students’ information literacy is gradually changing from traditional literature retrieval to integrating information technology and education.

(2) From the content of information literacy education, the improvement of college students’ information ability lies in the deep integration of information technology and education, and the full use of the Internet, communication satellite, etc., to promote information literacy education towards digitalization, networking, and modernization. The growth of information technology has transformed the traditional teaching model and improved the practical ability of information retrieval of college students. Higher education institutions adopt ideological and political education and use Internet thinking to promote close integration of ideological and political work regarding information awareness.

(3) From the cultivation methods of information literacy education, the theme words appear more frequently in these two stages. It shows that the Chinese government is gradually building a robust platform of “Internet Plus Education.” Further promoting the deep integration of information technology and education, such as big data and AI, can encourage teaching and management transformation. At the same time, there is a significant increase in the theme terms, indicating that the main body of information literacy improvement is college students and teachers.

4 Conclusion

By analyzing the characteristics of different stages, this paper draws the following conclusions:

(1) As for policy, Chinese college students’ information literacy policy system has experienced four stages: exploration, steady development, vigorous growth, and strategic deepening. From the exploration stage, the concept of “information literacy” has not yet been formed in China, nor the independent policy system. At this time, the cultivation of information literacy is mainly realized by literature retrieval courses. During steady development, on the one hand, the government focuses on the construction of university libraries, public services, and other infrastructure; on the other hand, information literacy education has changed from literature retrieval ability to information consciousness and morality. In the booming stage, digital and online education promotes the deep integration of information technology and education. In the strategic deepening stage, the Chinese government encouraged teaching, curriculum innovation, promoting information literacy education, and the emergence of big data, artificial intelligence diversified teaching.

(2) As for the policy evolution law, the theme gradually changes from single to compound type, from the construction of college information infrastructure to deep integration of technology and education, and from deep promotion of information education to network literacy culture promotion. The content of information literacy education is improving from the traditional literature retrieval to information consciousness and immorality. The cultivation of information literacy has undergone a gradual transformation from literature retrieval courses, campus network construction, and information education, the combination of online and multimedia teaching to curriculum innovation. Regarding policy measures, it evolved from the construction of university libraries, the construction of diversified information resources, the reform of the information literacy curriculum, and the improvement of college students’ information literacy evaluation system.

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1. Author：Wei Liu（1994-），E-mail: liuwei@stu.cdut.edu.cn；↩︎
2. Corresponding author：Chunyan Liu（1996-），E-mail: cheyanne2819886258@163.com。↩︎