Community of Online Research Assignments

Research Wizards

The most powerful wizards have gathered to battle one another.  Only one will win.  Wizards must use reliable sources to research incantations for the battle, or their spells will fizzle.  Truly wise wizards must learn to tell the difference. 

Annotated Bibliographies: Shining a Light on Source Evaluation with the BEAM Method

Annotated bibliographies have become a popular assignment in college courses and a way to scaffold research papers. Gathering a bibliography before turning in a completed research project allows students to focus on searching strategically and get feedback on the sources they obtained. Annotating that bibliography requires them to think critically about the sources they choose and their relationship to the research at hand.

Cast Your Students as Scholars

This is a participatory, variable lesson frame ready for you to modify to suit your instruction needs. This lesson and it's variations focuses on encouraging students to see themselves as information creators and part of the scholarly conversation and can also variously include conversations about about the scholarly information cycle and/or authority depending on instruction constraints and configuration.

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.

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.

Subject-Specific ICT Literacy

This website provides several subject-specific guides to ICT literacy resources (bibliographies, websites, articles, learning activity ideas) to help faculty incorporate ICT literacy into their curriculum. Each subject guide can be accessed as an independent website. “ICT proficiency is the ability to use digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks appropriately to solve information problems in order to function in an information society.

Scholarly Article Autopsy

This lesson is intended as a single session within a major’s research methods course. Rather than using a shorter “scholarly vs. non-scholarly” comparison worksheet, this activity asks students to work in groups to systematically examine a scholarly article in depth, identify and evaluate its various components visually and in writing, and then compare it to a non-scholarly article on the same topic. Groups then report back to the entire class.

Scholarly Articles: Reading for Understanding

This activity/assignment was designed for a first year composition course in collaboration with an English/Writing instructor. It could be used in an information literacy credit course, First Year Experience course, or in another discipline-specific context. The purpose of the lesson is to lay the foundation for students to be able to read scholarly work more effectively and critically.

Simply Map: Visualizing Census and Survey Data

This instructional session coincided with a project comparing data from two cities for an Urban Studies 1000 level (Freshmen) course. The session provided a basic overview of Simply Map as a web-based application, described the data available within and its origins (Census, American Community Survey, etc.), two activities for creating and visualizing the data, and supporting materials for understanding the data including a libguide and deliverable handout.

BEN Portal

The BEN Portal provides access to education resources from BEN Collaborators and is managed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Over 20,601 reviewed resources covering 77 biological sciences topics are available. BEN resources can help you engage student interest, shorten lesson preparation time, provide concept updates, and develop curricula that are in line with national standards for content, use of animals and humans, and student safety.