A 5-minute, method-first activity: students verify three references from their own draft bibliography before submitting - resolving DOIs and searching exact titles - then classify each as found-and-matches, found-but-differs, or not-found, and correct entries from the real record. Motivated by the rise of fabricated ("hallucinated") citations that look perfectly formatted yet point at nothing. Teaching point: "not found" does not automatically mean "fabricated".

The lesson plan template provides a detailed description on engaging students in a peer mind mapping activity that builds on their curiosities and critical thinking along with writing a provisional research question in a social science course. There is consideration for universal design, a library assignment, and reflective practice and writing. The learning outcomes are based on Research as Inquiry and Searching as Strategic Exploration. Attachments include worksheets.

Practical strategies for teaching AI-assisted lit reviews while keeping human analysis and critical thinking central.

This self-guided, active learning exercise for Zotero was originally created for a 1–1.5 hour standalone online workshop. Zotero is a free, open-source tool that helps users collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share references. It is easy enough for students to learn quickly, yet powerful enough to support dissertations, theses, and capstone projects. Zotero also provides a practical way to engage with the conceptual goals of the ACRL Framework, transforming abstract ideas such as “giving credit” and “joining a scholarly conversation” into concrete research practices.

The literature review design (LRD) tool helps design a traditional review nested in the dissertation or thesis. It was created based on the interactive Hopscotch research design framework (Jorrin-Abellan, 2020). 

This is part of an introductory first-year class to the university where students are introduced to the library and asked to think critically about how information is organized using the framework of critical cataloging. After watching a short video on the idea of classification and its problems with fixing identity categories, students analyze and categorize selected book from the collection, and then reflect on how knowledge is organized and their choices as authors.

This learning session, led by a librarian, is for first-year community college students in an academic library setting. The intention of this session is to scaffold onto existing research writing skills acquired in previous education, as well as use of popular video sharing platforms to obtain information, like TikTok. Informative videos produced by everyday people are a growing form of intellectual connection between all audiences and scholarly sources based on relatability, as well as visibility of marginalized issues larger news organizations do not address.

The SIFT* & PICK approach to evaluating sources adapts and builds on Mike Caulfield's SIFT method to help students select quality sources by practicing:

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.  

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.