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.

Research matrix: synthesizing search results

This assignment was created to help undergraduate students use research articles to help inform their argument about a "text."  This exercise has been used in library instruction sessions for art history, composition, english literature, women's studies, and history classes. After reflecting on what they know about a text (or image or multimedia), brainstorming search terms, and tracking relevant patterns in search results, students can synthesize information from a variety of sources in an organized, methodological fashion. 

Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons: An Active-Learning Exercise for Studio Art Students

This article describes an active-learning exercise intended to help teach copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons licenses. In the exercise students use a worksheet to draw original pictures, create derivative pictures on tracing paper, select Creative Commons licenses, and explore commercial usage, fair use, and copyright infringement. Librarian-instructors may find the completed worksheets to be useful aids to supplement copyright lectures; student perspectives will be integral because they are generating the examples used in discussion.

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon BINGO

Each year, I host an Art+Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon and I often get students who are new to Wikipedia editing, as well as students who show up for class credit. To help engage students in different activities on Wikipedia, I created the following BINGO cards. These can be used by instructors or event organizers in any way that fits your approach to edit-a-thons. I always provide instruction and an Art+Feminism research and event guide to help everyone get started editing. These BINGO cards are especially useful for new editors and content creators.

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?

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.

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.

Visual Aids and Descriptors in Primary Source Evaluation & Curation

This lesson was developed for HIS484 (Topics in the History of Gender and Sexuality/Pride in the time of HIV/AIDS) in the Spring of 2018. The students’ final assignment culminated in a multimedia or digital research project on a topic of their choosing and heavily relied on primary source and visual materials. This lesson focuses on how students, as content curators and analysts, can engage in deeper analysis and contextualization of the sources they present through their projects.

Richard Prince, Aesthetics, and the Value of Information

This lesson was developed for a Photography course on the theory and psychology of photography (non-majors and majors both take this course). This lesson is typically presented at the beginning of a course section on the aesthetics of photography. It was meant to challenge their assumptions about art, information (online) as a commodity, and copyright practices of artists. Students may be asked to look up Richard Prince before class or during, as the lesson suggests.

Pass the Problem

This group activity can be used in a variety of disciplines and contexts. Pass the Problem aims to have students provide feedback to other students on database and keyword selection. By having students critique each other it works to build critical self-reflection during the research process (it's also pretty fun!).

ACRL IS Information Literacy in the Disciplines

The Information Literacy in the Disciplines site is published by the Instruction Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. It is designed for instructors and librarians who are interested in incorporating information literacy skills into existing curriculum. Resources included on the site fall into two classes of materials:

1)  standards or guidelines from accrediting agencies and professional associations
2)  supplementary materials such as curricula, articles, and presentations

ABLConnect

ABLConnect is an online database of active learning efforts in post-secondary classrooms. It caters to faculty, graduate student teaching assistants, post-doctoral students and anybody else teaching undergraduate, graduate, or professional students across every discipline.  The site provides activities, lessons, and projects along with downloadable materials in a searchable online format.  It also has video tutorials, interviews with instructors, links to valuable technology resources, and academic research summaries to back up various active learning approaches.