Background information, assignment, and reflection on analyzing information received from the news.

This video was put together to offer health sciences students a brief introduction to critically thinking about their resources in order to evaluate how appropriate they are for use in their work. It was important that the learners understand the complexities of using specific resources and why it is important to always critically evaluate materials. This includes a discussion of critiques of gatekeeping surrounding peer review, how damaging and discriminatory research can still get published, and how to ask crucial questions to subvert dominant narratives. The video primarily points to our research guide, which is linked below as well, in order to help plant the seeds of this conversation without overwhelming learners in the moment. You will find all materials for creation of the video as well as the closed caption script and the video itself here so that you can adapt it to your needs.

This assessment asks undergraduate engineering students to review, rate, and explain their decisions relating to the credibility of information resources and information containers. Students are asked to review various resources as well as containers. After reviewing, students assign each resource or container with one of three ratings: green (always credible), yellow (potentially credible with further investigation), or red (never credible). Last, students explain their decision in relation to each resource or container. Ideally this task is given twice during a semester, before and after information literacy instruction.

Developed in order to move students away from an outdated checklist approach to evaluating online content, we developed this tutorial to teach students how to read laterally and think critically. This tutorial consists of several small chunks of microlearning activities including an assignment. Students can complete as much or as little as they feel they need.

The assignment has students search the same topic in Google and the Web of Science or BIOSIS database. They are asked to pick one result from each search, identify its components (title, author, year) and identify the container of the information (journal, book, news, etc.). They are then asked to compare and reflect on the different results. 

How can we facilitate first-year student engagement with critical Framework concepts, especially in a one-shot class? This active learning activity is designed to teach source evaluation in a 50-minute class. The activity, which incorporates elements of problem-based learning and uses a flipped classroom approach, was added to our institution’s first-year experience course. Prompting students to consider a local issue, the activity requires students to evaluate sources represented as “source cards,” choose sources they would use in the context of the assignment, and justify their decisions. Motivated by the challenge and relevance of the activity, students work cooperatively to consider questions at the heart of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. 

This assignment introduces students to United States patents and to prior art searching using two free, online databases: Espacenet and Lens.org. Instructional videos are available at: http://guides.lib.campbell.edu/patents . 

This assignment is designed to be scalable so that it can be implemented at an introductory level in a first-year design course, and replicated in the senior design course. To scale the assignment, modify the number of resources students are required to analyze and intensify the synthesis/analysis components.

A primer on how to read academic articles by guiding the class through a series of questions. Give students 5-15 minutes per slide to answer the questions (individually or in groups) before talking about their answers to questions with the whole class.

This lesson on journal prestige could be taught by itself, as part of a series on scholarly communication, or as a small part of a larger lesson on information prestige.

This is an activity to get students to think critically about the sources and information presented in a Wikipedia article. Students are asked to look up an article on their own topic, or a topic related to the course, and examine the content and the “Talk” page to see what issues the article has related to Wikipedia’s 3 guiding principles for content: point of view (objectivity/bias), verifiability (quality of sources cited), and evidence of original research. NOTE: This activity works best for topics (people, events) that are current public debates and/or controversial.