teaching and learning

Submitted by Lauren deLaubell on January 17th, 2025

Short Description:

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.

Research Wizards is an information literacy card game designed to teach students ages 12+ about source evaluation. Research Wizards corresponds to the Frame Authority Is Constructed and Contextual, from the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Players will discuss and challenge the relative value of various sources, each representing a different suit in the game. The game includes four major actions/phases: Parley, when players discuss and decide for themselves the relative value of each suit; Battle, which includes competition, player actions, and Challenges; Vengeance, for eliminated players to impact and speed up the remainder of the game; and Victory.

The Research Wizards website contains free game files, player directions, and printing tips for librarians and teachers who wish to use the game in their classrooms. The website includes an editable, Microsoft Publisher version of the game. Noncommercial use of the game is free for educational purposes with attribution to the author. Librarians and teachers are encouraged to adapt the game as needed for their subject areas, student needs, and as the sources in the game evolve over time. Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.

Players: 3-5 per deck

Play Time: 20-30 minutes, plus discussion

Research Wizards by Lauren deLaubell is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Player directionsdisplayed 1595 times	1.02 MB
Printing tipsdisplayed 1511 times	26.71 KB
Card deckdisplayed 1558 times	2.51 MB

Relevant links:

Research Wizards

Learning Outcomes:

- Wizards will define a variety of traditional and emerging information formats.
- Wizards will compare a variety of information formats and discuss their relative reliability.
- Wizards will explore the variation in quality found within specific categories of information (e.g., the wildcard of using resources located by or generated with artificial intelligence).

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Group

Ability Level:

Potential Pitfalls and Teaching Tips:

It is recommended to review directions out loud with students, with pauses for students to sort their decks and conduct the Parley phase of play. To contextualize and reinforce learning, it is recommended to conclude the game with discussion questions; sample questions are provided at the bottom of the player directions file but may be adjusted as needed.

Suggested Citation:

deLaubell, Lauren. "Research Wizards." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2025. https://projectcora.org/assignment/research-wizards.

Copyright icon to go along with copyright rules.

All assignments contributed to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike United States License

Submitted by Duke University Libraries RIS Team on December 4th, 2019

Short Description:

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.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Citations for Info Privilege Lessons Mediadisplayed 907 times	10.84 KB
Lesson Plandisplayed 1056 times	377.57 KB

Relevant links:

Scimago Data Visualization Tools Scimago About Us Scimago Shape of Science Visualization Journal of Universal Rejection NPR Article about the Journal of Universal Rejection Example PLOS Climate Change Article 1 Example PLOS Climate Change Article 2 Example PLOS Climate Change Article 3 Example PLOS Climate Change Article 4 Example PLOS Climate Change Article 5 Possible Student Reading 1 Possible Student Reading 2

Learning Outcomes:

Students will recognize the practices of scholarly publishers

Students will evaluate whether citation count is a good indicator of authority

Discipline:

Multidisciplinary

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Ability Level:

Potential Pitfalls and Teaching Tips:

This topic could fit well into instruction sessions that include significant treatment of source evaluation and is one potential approach as you move beyond simple categorization of sources as scholarly/non-scholarly or primary/secondary. It stops short of a critical examination of construction of authority but could be used to hint at greater subtlety and complexity. This topic has particular relevance for upper level undergraduates engaged in research, who may be starting to think about publication from an author’s perspective.

Suggested Citation:

RIS Team, Duke University Libraries. "Journal Prestige." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2019. https://projectcora.org/assignment/journal-prestige.

All assignments contributed to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike United States License

Submitted by Duke University Libraries RIS Team on November 26th, 2019

Short Description:

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.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Directions for Instructordisplayed 942 times	13.54 KB
Evaluating a Controversial Topic Activitydisplayed 1021 times	1.01 MB

Learning Outcomes:

Students will define Wikipedia’s guiding content principles

Students will evaluate a topic by investigating Wikipedia talk pages related to it

Discipline:

Multidisciplinary

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Ability Level:

Tags:

Course Context (e.g. how it was implemented or integrated):

Additional Instructor Resources (e.g. in-class activities, worksheets, scaffolding applications, supplemental modules, further readings, etc.):

Potential Pitfalls and Teaching Tips:

Suggested Citation:

RIS Team, Duke University Libraries. "Researching a Controversy." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2019. https://projectcora.org/assignment/researching-controversy.

All assignments contributed to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike United States License

Submitted by Duke University Libraries RIS Team on November 20th, 2019

Short Description:

This lesson on the nature and cost of scholarly publishing could be taught by
itself, or as part of a series on scholarly communication, or as a small part of a larger lesson on
information privilege.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Lesson Plandisplayed 854 times	269.69 KB
Citations for Info Privilege Lessons Mediadisplayed 932 times	10.84 KB

Relevant links:

Student Reading 1 Student Reading 2

Learning Outcomes:

Students will recognize the practices of scholarly publishers

Students will understand the cost of accessing scholarly research

Discipline:

Multidisciplinary

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Ability Level:

Potential Pitfalls and Teaching Tips:

Introducing this topic could be as simple as indicating the impressive number of scholarly articles published each year or size of library collections budgets or be part of a lengthier lesson on how academic publishing works. It could be included in searching or source evaluation exercises and may set the stage for understanding the fundamentals of scholarly communication.

Suggested Citation:

RIS Team, Duke University Libraries. "Scale of Scholarly Publishing." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2019. https://projectcora.org/assignment/scale-scholarly-publishing.

All assignments contributed to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike United States License

Submitted by Duke University Libraries RIS Team on November 6th, 2019

Short Description:

In post-session feedback, first-year students frequently express anxiety over how to physically navigate the library to find a book on the shelf. This is a simple, pre-session activity to help students try this out before class, so that they can discuss with their librarian any challenges they faced in attempting to complete the task. With the help of the course instructor, students are asked to find a book on their research topic (or course topic) and bring it to class.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Finding a Book Instructions.docxdisplayed 721 times	13.61 KB
Finding-a-Book-example.pdfdisplayed 855 times	340.67 KB
Finding-a-Book-template.pdf.docxdisplayed 732 times	93.98 KB

Relevant links:

Website detailing LoC call numbers

Learning Outcomes:

Utilize the libraries online catalog to find a book suitable to chosen topic
Locate the specific book identified in the search in the stacks

Discipline:

Multidisciplinary

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Individual

Ability Level:

Course Context (e.g. how it was implemented or integrated):

Additional Instructor Resources (e.g. in-class activities, worksheets, scaffolding applications, supplemental modules, further readings, etc.):

Potential Pitfalls and Teaching Tips:

Librarian will need to coordinate with instructor to ensure that the assignment is clearly communicated to students before class;
Participation, or assignment, credit helps as an incentive.

Suggested Citation:

RIS Team, Duke University Libraries. "Finding a Book." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2019. https://projectcora.org/assignment/finding-book.

All assignments contributed to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike United States License

Teaching Resource

Madeline Hunter's Mastery Teaching

This book presents 16 teaching techniques organized in lessons to be used by teachers.