Definition
Common architecture of literacy: A structural pattern of six dimensions shared across different literacy domains, including, for example, information, media, digital, data, and AI literacy. Despite disciplinary differences and varying emphases, these dimensions together constitute what it means to be literate in any domain.
The framework emerged from examining multiple literacy traditions and identifying their underlying commonalities. What changes across domains is the specific content—the technologies, sources, or media being engaged—not the structure of what it means to be literate.
The six dimensions
1. Access and recognition
The ability to identify when a technology, information source, or medium is present and relevant, and to locate or access what’s needed. This includes recognising different types and formats, understanding where they appear, and knowing how to engage with them.
2. Critical evaluation
The capacity to assess quality, reliability, accuracy, bias, and limitations. This involves questioning sources, understanding how systems work, recognising manipulation or error, and distinguishing high-quality from poor-quality outputs.
3. Functional application
The practical ability to use technologies or information effectively for specific purposes. This includes operational competence, understanding appropriate contexts for use, and deploying capabilities to achieve goals.
4. Creation and communication
The skill to generate new content, outputs, or solutions using the technology or medium, and to communicate effectively with or through it. This involves production, synthesis, and sharing of information or artefacts.
5. Ethical awareness and responsibility
Understanding the social, ethical, and civic implications of use. This includes recognising issues of privacy, equity, power, and impact on individuals and society, and making responsible choices that align with values.
6. Contextual judgement and metacognition
The development of taste, professional judgement, and self-awareness about one’s own practice. This involves knowing when and how to apply capabilities appropriately, reflecting on effectiveness, and adapting practice based on context and experience.
Related concepts
Information literacy: The oldest of the literacy traditions, focused on finding, evaluating, and using information effectively. Emphasises critical evaluation and ethical use.
Media literacy: Extends to understanding how media messages are constructed, their persuasive techniques, and their social effects. Strong emphasis on critical evaluation and creation.
Digital literacy: Encompasses functional competence with digital tools alongside critical understanding of digital environments. Often conflated with mere technical skill.
Data literacy: The ability to read, work with, analyse, and argue with data. Increasingly important as data-driven decision-making becomes ubiquitous.
Implications
This architecture reveals that literacy is not merely skill acquisition or knowledge accumulation. It is a multidimensional capability that integrates understanding, critical thinking, practical competence, creative application, ethical reasoning, and reflective judgement.
The six dimensions are not sequential stages to be mastered in order. They develop together, each informing and reinforcing the others. Critical evaluation deepens through functional application. Ethical awareness shapes contextual judgement. Creation requires access and recognition. The dimensions form an integrated whole.
Applications
This framework provides a foundation for developing new literacy curricula, including AI literacy. Rather than starting from scratch, we can apply the six dimensions to the specific context of AI systems:
- What does access and recognition mean for AI?
- How do we critically evaluate AI outputs?
- What functional application looks like with AI tools?
- How do we create with and communicate through AI?
- What ethical responsibilities accompany AI use?
- What contextual judgement and metacognition matter for AI?
My thinking
The sixth dimension—contextual judgement and metacognition—may be the most important for AI literacy specifically. As AI capabilities expand, the ability to know when and whether to use AI becomes more valuable than knowing how to use it. This connects to ideas about taste and judgement in human-AI systems.