visual literacy

Submitted by Alessandra Otero-Ramos on January 26th, 2024

Short Description:

This library class was designed for the courses Scene Design and Technical Theatre. However, it can be adapted and used for courses that make use of digital archives and other types of digital objects to support their arguments.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Visual Research Lesson Plan_SUNY Geneseo_Otero .pdfdisplayed 911 times	62.06 KB
Visual Research_Scene Design_Worksheet.pdfdisplayed 765 times	251.12 KB

Relevant links:

Browsing for Images? Search Filters Are Your Friend

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this class,

(1) Students will be able to find reliable and high-quality images of their chosen topic.
(2) Students will be able to critically evaluate the images for their visual research assignment.

Discipline:

Art History Theater Arts

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Group

Ability Level:

Undergraduate / Bachelors

Tags:

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

I taught this class for THEA 342: Scene Design. The students were asked to work on a visual research project consisting of a presentation based on their chosen architectural style (e.g. art deco, gothic) and its history. Following the presentation the students builded a model making project based on the visual research done for it.

Suggested Citation:

Otero-Ramos, Alessandra. "Pictorial Research: Finding and Choosing the Best Images for Your Project ." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2024. https://projectcora.org/assignment/pictorial-research-finding-and-choosing-best-images-your-project.

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 Amanda M. on May 11th, 2018

Short Description:

This lesson was developed for HIS484 (Topics in the History of Gender and
Sexuality/Pride in the time of HIV/AIDS) in the Spring of 2018. The students’ final assignment
culminated in a multimedia or digital research project on a topic of their choosing and heavily
relied on primary source and visual materials. This lesson focuses on how students, as content
curators and analysts, can engage in deeper analysis and contextualization of the sources they
present through their projects. Students collectively analyzed one example from a particular
resource that they are already acquainted with and considered the language used by both
systems of knowledge and the communities that they are studying, in order to help them form
thoughtful, critical, and reflective perspectives.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Lesson plan with links to google doc worksheet and google slidesdisplayed 1218 times	92.09 KB

Relevant links:

Visual Aids

Learning Outcomes:

Students will be able to analyze and contextualize primary source and visual materials related to HIV/AIDS.
Students will be able to articulate how knowledge is socially constructed and contested and how/why language evolves over time.
Students will engage with art as a primary source related to their research topics.

Discipline:

Art History Women's Studies

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Group

Ability Level:

Undergraduate / Bachelors

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.):

See full lesson plan/pdf

Potential Pitfalls and Teaching Tips:

This worked well with a small class, but may be more challenging with a larger class. I would likely have students work in groups to evaluate different works of art using the google worksheet instead of doing one for the whole class.

Suggested Citation:

M., Amanda. "Visual Aids and Descriptors in Primary Source Evaluation & Curation." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2018. https://projectcora.org/assignment/visual-aids-and-descriptors-primary-source-evaluation-curation.

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

Submitted by Amanda M. on March 14th, 2018

Short Description:

This lesson was developed for a Photography course on the theory and psychology of photography (non-majors and majors both take this course). This lesson is typically presented at the beginning of a course section on the aesthetics of photography. It was meant to challenge their assumptions about art, information (online) as a commodity, and copyright practices of artists. Students may be asked to look up Richard Prince before class or during, as the lesson suggests.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Richard Prince, Aesthetics, Value of Info.pdfdisplayed 1125 times	73.25 KB

Learning Outcomes:

Identify and discuss relevant issues related to the work of Richard Prince, including copyright, appropriation, and visual information as a commodity.
Consider the original context of the work of Richard Prince and critique whether these images, in this new context, take on a different meaning.
Discuss the choices that Richard Prince has made in the production of his work to influence interpretation and aesthetic value

Discipline:

Art

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Group

Ability Level:

Undergraduate / Bachelors

Tags:

Assessment or Criteria for Success

Assessment Short Description:

See lesson plan

Suggested Citation:

M., Amanda. "Richard Prince, Aesthetics, and the Value of Information." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2018. https://projectcora.org/assignment/richard-prince-aesthetics-and-value-information.

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

Submitted by Sarah Ralston on November 15th, 2017

Short Description:

This activity/assignment was designed for a first year composition course in collaboration with an English/Writing instructor. It could be used in an information literacy credit course, First Year Experience course, or in another discipline-specific context. The purpose of the lesson is to lay the foundation for students to be able to read scholarly work more effectively and critically.
Students are given instruction on reading a scholarly article and directed to look for key pieces of information such as research question or hypothesis, methods, participants or data sources, key findings, and limitations of the study. The instructor then shows an infographic (prepared in advance) showing those key pieces of information in a concise, visual format. Students are introduced to an online infographic maker such as easel.ly or piktochart, and directed to create their own infographic on the article as practice.
The graded assignment is for students to create an infographic on a scholarly article of their choosing, relevant to a larger research assignment in the composition (or other) course (e.g. an annotated bibliography).

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Lesson plan, background prep, and assignment instructionsdisplayed 1967 times	18.43 KB
"Parts of a Scholarly Article" Handout and Sample Infographicdisplayed 2754 times	703.54 KB
Handout&Sample.pptxdisplayed 1931 times	703.54 KB

Relevant links:

Easel.ly

Learning Outcomes:

1. Students will be able to identify the components of a scholarly journal article in order to become familiar with common structures of research articles.
2. Students will be able to locate the key pieces of information (hypothesis or research question, methodology, participants or data sources, findings, and limitations) in a scholarly journal article in order to read for understanding.
3. Students will be able to present the key pieces of information from a scholarly article in a visual format using infographic or other online creation tools.

Discipline:

Anthropology Biology Communication Studies Library and Information Science Multidisciplinary Psychology Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Sociology

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Ability Level:

Undergraduate / Bachelors

Tags:

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

This assignment was created for a first year composition course in collaboration with the instructor. She wanted to use infographics as a method for teaching multimodal writing, and I wanted a strategy for showing how to read scholarly articles. This activity was conducted on my second visit to class, so students already had instruction on source types and characteristics of scholarly articles. We'd also had a discussion about the concept Scholarship as a Conversation. I spent the class time following the lesson plan as written, and the following class day the students had time in the computer lab with their instructor to create their own infographics. The final essay for the class is an argumentative essay, requiring 5 sources, 2 of which must be scholarly. An infographic summarizing one of the scholarly articles is required as an attachment to the essay.

Suggested Citation:

Ralston, Sarah. "Scholarly Articles: Reading for Understanding." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2017. https://projectcora.org/assignment/scholarly-articles-reading-understanding.

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

Submitted by Ryne Leuzinger on March 13th, 2016

Short Description:

This workshop provides an introduction to creating infographics using Piktochart and includes advice on selecting a design, incorporating data, and structuring a story.

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
Infographics Workshop.docxdisplayed 919 times	325.84 KB

Learning Outcomes:

1. Participants will view and critique examples of infographics, in order to gain exposure to best practices in infographic design. 2. Participants will utilize the basic features of Piktochart, in order to gain experience employing best practices in infographic design.

Discipline:

Multidisciplinary

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Group

Ability Level:

Tags:

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

This workshop was created as an offering of the Savvy Researcher workshop series at the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/services/savvy_researcher.html]

Suggested Citation:

Leuzinger, Ryne. "Infographics Workshop." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2016. https://projectcora.org/assignment/infographics-workshop.

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

Submitted by Alexander Justice on June 11th, 2015

Short Description:

Introduces the ethical dimension of finding, using, and sharing images in the context of the undergraduate research assignment

Attachments:

Attachment	Size
images-copyright-final.docxdisplayed 1190 times	16.41 KB

Learning Outcomes:

Students will understand the ethical aspects of finding, using, and sharing images; will engage with copyright issues and concepts of intellectual property; and will find and analyze specific images as examples

Discipline:

Art Communication Studies Computer Science Film and TV Political Science Theology

Information Literacy concepts:

Individual or Group:

Ability Level:

Undergraduate / Bachelors

Tags:

Suggested Citation:

Justice, Alexander. " Using images : copyright and public domain." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2015. https://projectcora.org/assignment/using-images-copyright-and-public-domain.

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

Teaching Resource

Visual-Literacy.org

This e-learning site focuses on a critical, but often neglected skill for business, communication, and engineering students, namely visual literacy, or the ability to evaluate, apply, or create conceptual