Community of Online Research Assignments

An open access resource for librarians and educators

Sphere of Discourse

This activity provides an interactive, student-centered, fun opportunity to explore skills of critical thinking and evaluation of resources. By allowing students to connect those things that they already know (even if they don’t know they know it) to larger concepts, we encourage them to trust themselves and to begin to develop their intuition as scholars, moving away from checklists and formulas for resource evaluation and toward a thoughtful critique of sources based on individual need and use.

Demonstrating the Distribution of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Using Patent Data and a Mapping Tool: GeoFRED® Marks the Spot

Students learn about innovation, the distribution of innovation across the country, and what can be patented. Working in groups, they examine patents and consider the changes the patents brought. They then use a mapping program and interpret data from that map to consider how local resources promote innovation.

Analyzing search engines: What narrative is told through the algorithm

This assignment was created for a credit bearing course for first year students. It's designed to help students take what they've learned about algorithmic bias from the course lectures and readings and apply it to their own search practices. They also critically analyze search results for advertisements and compare DuckDuckGo to Google. [You could also look at this assignment as an adaptation of Jacob Berg's wonderful, "Googling Google," assignment at https://www.projectcora.org/assignment/googling-google-search-engines-market-actors ]

Who’s an Authority? Recognizing Scholarly Sources in the Library

Are you finding reliable sources for your research papers and projects? Has your professor asked you to use scholarly sources? What is a scholarly source anyway? In this workshop, learn how to critically evaluate the information you find through books, articles, and websites. **This lesson plan was adapted from "Establishing and Applying Evaluation Criteria" p. 74 -78 in Teaching Information Literacy Threshold Concepts Lesson Plans for Librarians, edited by Bravender, McClure, and Schaub (2015).**

Business Task Cards Activity

The Business Task Cards is a 1-hour team-based activity. The activity was created for a business management course that needed to complete a business opportunity project. The activity requires students to complete four tasks: 1) Find company information, 2) Find a company's income statement, 3) Find articles on a company's management strategy, and 4) Find current industry trends that will impact the company. A print and online version of the activity is provided.

From newspaper article to research article: backtracking to find original research

In this assignment, students are given a range of newspaper article about science topics and work in pairs to find the original research article that the newspaper article is based on in the library databases. Students then assess when they might use an original research article vs when they might use a well-written newspaper article. After the activity, the librarian gave short lecture about online fact checking based on Mike Caulfield's excellent fast and frugal fact checking strategies. If time allows, students can do some of the activities that Caulfield lists in his textbook.

Student Applied Benchmark for Introduction to Business

The purpose of this Business Benchmark assignment is to professionally present (3-5 minutes) a new idea to improve and aspect of the college. This presentation has no mandated materials, students are however expected to provide an excellent, well explained, supported and presented new idea. Your goal is to inspire your audience to take a specific action or position.

Four Cases aligned to Course Student Outcomes

This project has four Business case elements. Each element is related to one of the student course outcomes. Each case will require students to complete the following: Read all elements of each case, including exhibits. Write a one page summary for each case answering the questions in each case, for a total of a 4 page report. The report should be submitted as one consolidated report addressing all four cases below.

Shark Tank

Ready to be an entrepreneur? Your final project is to create a business/product and sell it to your classmates, Shark Tank style! You will complete this assignment individually OR with a partner and your classmates will play the role of the Sharks! Your company can offer a physical product or a service, but it should not just be a copy of something already offered … BE CREATIVE! Think outside of the box …

MIT Clean Start Business Simulation

About: You are the Chief Executive Officer of an exciting start up Clean Energy Business. This is a web-based free simulation. Students play the role of the founder of a new start-up company in the exciting and competitive clean tech sector. Each quarter students must set prices, decide how many engineers and sales people to hire, and set compensation, including salary, stock, options and profit sharing.

Exploring Google Scholar with a Summer Bridge Program

This 30-minute activity demonstrates how to search in Google Scholar and explains how results are ranked. It requires students to explore Google Scholar and encourages students to reflect on potential biases this tool might have in regards to research. This lesson plan was Part 2 of an hour-long workshop that also included a 30 minute search engine algorithmic bias lesson. Please see Elisa Slater Acosta's page for part 1: https://www.projectcora.org/assignment/exploring-algorithmic-bias-summer-bridge-program

Exploring Algorithmic Bias with a Summer Bridge Program

This 30-minute activity was a quick introduction to algorithmic bias and the importance of critically evaluating search engine results. Algorithms increasingly shape modern life and can perpetuate bias and discrimination. In pairs, students analyzed the results from Google Image searches and Google Autocomplete suggestions. This activity was based on “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism,” by Safiya Umoja Noble. This lesson plan was Part 1 of an hour-long workshop that also included a 30 minute Google Scholar activity.

Open Access: Strategies and Tools for Life after College

The “Open Access: Strategies and Tools for Life after College” workshop was developed to give students the tools to continue academic research after graduation. Students may not recognize that the library provides many electronic resources for their research that is automatically given to them during their enrollment; by acknowledging their privileged access to information, they are prepared to be responsible researchers beyond campus. The workshop was requested by international students who were concerned about losing access to LMU resources when they returned home.

Scholarly character sheet / Feuille de personnage du jeune chercheur

A scholarly character sheet for self-assessment about information literacy skills - gamification around quantified self, badging and young researcher identity. Une feuille d'autoévaluation pour suivre les apprentissages en compétences informationnelles acquises sur le moyen ou le long terme. Elle est ludifiée avec des éléments de mesure de soi, de badge et d'identité de jeune chercheur.

Missionner les étudiants surmotivés sur des objectifs connexes / Self-driven side-quests with minimum mentoring

Comment envoyer une minorité d'étudiants surmotivés sur des objectifs pédagogiques intégrés et connexes dont le parcours est structuré ? 1) Faire une courte introduction engageante (15min.) 2) Identifier la minorité surmotivée et leur distribuer un parcours. 3) Assurer une supervision mininal avec un suivi distant et ponctuel au besoin. Avec 2 exemples de parcours: une auto-initiation en 5 niveaux pour contribuer à Wikipédia; et un programme de 12 semaines pour démarrer un blogue sur un sujet de recherche. How to get the few really motivated students involved?

Foutaisomètre / Bullshit-o-meter

Synthèse ludique des ateliers d'évaluation des sources. Peut être utilisé comme récompense : un exemplaire plastifié est offert à l'étudiant qui trouve l'erreur volontairement insérée dans la formation (les autres n'ont que la feuille en papier). Autre utilisation : trouver le document le plus faible parmi vos références, ou parmi les références du syllabus de tel cours. Gamified summary for the evaluation of sources activity.

ZotLog: Inspiring students to adopt structured methods in Zotero

The purpose of this activity is to inspire students to adopt structured methods when they explore and retrieve information. It is based on lab notebooking methods and on managing and documenting the flow of references in Zotero, a reference management software. The first principle is based on a tree of collections to manage the references arriving in the Zotero library. Some basic methods are suggested and the students are invited to create their own. The second principle is based on standalone notes to document all the research process through online database, libraries and experts.

Artist Statements: Context, Content & Conversations

Art and design students are almost always asked to write about their work, in the form of an artists’ statement, at some point in their academic career. This is a skill that is crucial as they move from student to professional or practicing artist because it gives them the opportunity to reflect on their work, share concepts and develop their authority in their field, and, very importantly, discuss how their work builds on the work of others who share similar themes and/or processes.
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