How do you detmerine whether your research has had an impact? This lesson plan covers journal and author metrics such as Journal Impact Factors, H-index, citation counts, and altmetrics. After a mini-lecture of the definitions of these metrics and how to find them using Journal Citation Reports and Google Scholar Metrics, students create a researcher profile to position themselves as scholars. 

Supplies needed: Printed researcher profile handouts.

This activity takes approxiately 30 minutes.  

Directions: Identify a university or research center you’d want to be affiliated with, and make up a title of an article you’d be interested in writing. Then, find a real journal that would publish that article. Use Google Scholar to look up the journal’s h-index and Ulrich’s to determine if it’s open access. Make up a number for how many times you think the article would be cited!

This lesson actively engages learners in the process of evaluating an information source using the SIFT technique, designed by Mike Caufield. The approach uses lateral reading techniques and the lesson encourages learners to apply and reflect on the technique as it pertains to a specific information need.

To practice thinking about what sources work well together, instead of choosing sources, students will choose who to invite to a small dinner party. The goal is to put together a group of guests that will be able to find enough common ground to have interesting conversations.

In this scenario based activity, students are asked to help 4 of their classmates evaluate 3 sources they are considering using for their paper. Students can read the entirety of each source, then write a 2 to 3 sentence explanation of why their classmate should or shouldn’t use the source and why. Based on the concept of Calibrated Peer Review, there is one exemplar source, one substandard source and one bubble source.

Intended to provide a brief introduction to academic research. A video explains types of sources, a screencast tutorial demonstrates how to search Academic Search Complete, and students have the opportunity to practice search for an article related to their topic.

In this scenario based activity, students are asked to help 3 of their classmates narrow down their topics. By moving a series of sliders, students aim to develop a research question that is interesting, yet narrow enough to find scholarly sources.

Students are asked to help 3 of their classmates choose the best Boolean search commands for their searches. Venn Diagrams change color and the search statement is dynamically updated as students select the Boolean commands. Constructive feedback is given for each submission and students have an opportunity to construct their own search statement at the end of the tutorial.

Students are asked to identify necessary citation information, place the information in the correct citation order and then identify the source type. Students are first given a set of sources for practice that are not graded. The second series of sources is graded.

In this activity, students are asked to identify necessary citation information, place the information in the correct citation order and then identify the source type. To begin, the student is shown four sources on the topic of Mars exploration, these questions are for practice and are not graded. The second set of four sources on the topic of refugees is graded. (This module was partially adapted with permission from Grand Valley State University Libraries.)

Do students eyes glaze over when you begin to talk about citation formats? Show students the value of learning about citations by having them practice on real content! Students must identify the needed parts of 3 real publications and drag them to the appropriate category, i.e. Journal Title, Volume, Page Number. Upon completion of the activity, students are show the MLA citation for each publication.