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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.  

The goal of this activity is to explore spaces, services, and information literacy (IL) concepts through problem-based scenarios, guided discovery, and peer teaching. Ideal for orientations for K-12, undergraduate, transfer, or graduate students, but can also be used for instruction requests with no clear research assignment or at the start of a research project. Students work in groups to find solutions to a scenario using guided directions and tools, and then teach the rest of the class based on their findings.

This concept map and activity explores how various sources of information are created, accessed, and shared. Students collaboratively define what makes a source traditional, emerging, public, or exclusive. Students are given a type of information source to map on the grid according to each axis, and provide a rationale for their placement.

Assignments Collaborated

A toolkit with various instructional materials to teach media and news literacy. Includes an online activity "Fairness and Blanace" where students watch a short video on journalistic standards and answer discussion questions. Then, students can take one or both interactive tutorials on "Lateral Reading" with a focus on fact-checking and/or "Evaluating Information" based on an information need.

This lesson is designed for lower-division composition undergraduate students to learn frameworks for evaluating the audience and purpose of various information sources. After analyzing an array of sources for audience and purpose students can dig in to a source in more detail looking for markers of authority and discussing strategies for verifying claims.

This activity is designed to support teaching at the intersections of scholarly communication and information literacy. The choose-your-own scenario activity, designed in LibWizard, can be used in a flipped classroom setting or in a traditional classroom. The choose-your-own scenario activity is inspired by and adapts questions from: Hare, S. & Evanson, C. (2018). Information privilege outreach for undergraduate students. College and Research Libraries.

Assignments Adapted

I adapted this activity for a 100 minute first-year composition session. I had previously worked with the class for a session on evaluating news articles and fact-checking claims, but we hadn't talked much about scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. I chose several new examples appropriate for an introductory audience, such as a diagram of the steps in the peer-review process, examples of reviewer comments, and a pay-walled article. The reflections and comments students made on the posters were really insightful, and in their post-session assessment a few students mentioned they better understood peer-review. I would definitely do this activity again. I find it really hard to elaborate on discussions of "what is peer-review" aside from standard definitions and limiters, so I found a lot of value in being able to look at and discuss examples that contextualize the process and show its limitations and biases, such as access, racism and sexism. You can find the full lesson plan, examples, and photos from there gallery walk here: https://goo.gl/ssyMvf.

I adapted this activity for a 100 minute first-year composition class. Students did not have their topics yet, which would have been more helpful, but some of them used topics from a previous assignment. I added a section at the beginning for students to write a research question and the first "pass" had students identify if the question was too broad, too narrow, or just right and ask additional questions. I also added a section at the end for students to reflect on their peers' suggestions, whether they would do something similar or different. Timing and planning is so essential for this activity. I used a timer on the screen and set 3 minutes for each section, but there were a few hiccups at the beginning that threw things off. In the post-session assessment, several students mentioned it was helpful to see different perspectives in searching and learn from their peers. I also had more students respond that they learned to effectively use keywords than I have in previous sessions. I will definitely try this activity again and smooth out my timing/directions! You can find the lesson plan and adapted worksheet here: https://goo.gl/ssyMvf.

I adapted this for a 50 minute, English class "Introduction to Textuality." The course theme was taboo topics in literature/popular culture such as racism, sexism, homophobia, stigma around mental illness, etc, and their assignment asked them to analyze one of the course themes in three texts, using two credible secondary sources. I simplified the worksheet to one page and rephrased "research questions" as questions you would ask each guest. The internet was down in the classroom that day so we did not get to look at finding credible sources; instead students thought about who the "experts" might be and what they could add to the conversation. At the end of the session, students responded to the prompt "How is scholarship a conversation?" Their responses were really insightful and emphasized multiple voices/perspectives, engaging in difficult conversations, and who might be excluded. You can view the lesson plan, slides, and handout here: https://goo.gl/qK8eJ8.

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Problem-based Scenarios for Library Instruction
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The Information Spectrum
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