This lesson took place in a sociology research methods course (created with Mary-Michelle Moore). Students were familiar with basic database searching techniques and were getting ready to do their own literature reviews on a sociology topic of their choosing followed by some assignments using SPSS to analyze existing data sets.

After a quick review on finding peer-reviewed journal articles, the librarian asks students "Where does data come from?" to talk about data sources.
Then students split into small groups to explore an article and its accompanying data set in Google Forms. (We have access to ICPSR so the questions ask students about an article that uses a dataset from ICPSR but FigShare or freely available sources could also be used).
After students complete the Google form the librarian pulls the class back together to discuss the answers.
The librarian also pulls up the codebook, questionnaire, and talks about the ways different researchers approach the same data set to answer their research questions.

Students struggle most with "what makes a data set trustworthy." They tended to focus on external indicators such as it's used in peer-reviewed articles, funders, and who the authors are. We also tried to emphasize the quality of the data itself as an indicator (completeness, sample size, questions asked, documentation, etc.).

Then students search for data sets on their research topics as well as other peer-reviewed articles through citation chaining in ICPSR.

This was a session for the required First Year Experience .25 credit course. All students have majors declared in Business Administration (including Marketing and Finance), Economics, or Accounting

This lesson was designed for the Library 103: Information Literacy 3-unit credit course. It is designed as a major research project involving role-playing over multiple weeks in a semester long class. This is the second part of a three part series. In part one students are introduced to the project and the “All-But-The-Term-Paper” assignment. Part three groups or individual students give their presentations, there is a ruling on who wins the game, and a debrief of the game. With modifications the lesson can be adapted to single 90-minute session.

This was a new unit added to a series of 3 information literacy sessions that graduates students complete in their Research Seminar course. The intention is to extend a lesson plan on using the internet for research to have students consider "the social, political, economic, and corporate systems that have power and influence over information production, dissemination, access, and consumption." (Gregory, L. and Higgins, S. (Eds.) (2013). Information literacy and social justice: Radical professional praxis. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press.) .

Session integrated into the High Potential First Year Advising Cohort curriculum.

This is a required graduate level course for Associated Canadian Theological Schools of Trinity Western University. The course was implemented in 1987 and the online version has been operating without interruption since late 1999.

This activity was part of a larger class session focused on preparing students for their interdisciplinary research projects. At this point in the semester students did not yet have their own research topics. It also took place outside of a computer classroom where not all students had laptops. Students break up into groups of 3-4 students. You can make as many topics as you want. For a class of 25 I created 4 topic options. Each group receives 5-10 minutes to complete each segment. When the timer is up they switch with a group. No one should receive the paper they start with until the very end. At the end of the activity we come back as a class and discuss how it went and what strategies they might implement in their own research processes. (I first heard about the idea of passing a problem in an interactive way from Sarah Lucchesi and Jenn Sams from Michigan Tech at Lake Superior Libraries Symposium, this is inspired by their idea.)

This assignment is incorporated into an introductory nutrition course for health-related science majors and nonmajors. Most nutrition courses include a discussion on scientific research methods and sources of reliable nutrition information. This project has been integrated into the course as the follow-up assignment to the Scientific Method and Reliable Sources of Nutrition Information Unit. The assignment is designed to be completed by students partnered together in groups of two (three when there is an odd number of students in the class).

This would be greatly strengthened taught in a learning community. Could work well with English, History, Journalism, LGBT History, and more.

The course was taught over five evenings. The course material worked through the research process from topic identification to preparation for final writing. Course assignments provided opportunity for students to integrate instructional content with practice built around topics of their choice.