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Online Faculty Development Course
Better Kinds of Sources
Better Kinds of Sources
The Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library at Canisius College can be just as helpful to students in online classes as it is to students on campus. Admittedly, the library's physical media, such as books, may not be available to online students if they do not live in Western New York. But the campus library has equally impressive digital resources, available to Canisius students around the world. These include digital (or e-)books, and online databases containing a wide variety of scholarly, journalistic and archival media. Although not open to the public, these are available via login to students off campus.
The library is available to the entire Canisius Community, wherever they may be.
The library's integrated catalog is great for searching across the variety of available resources.
Information Literacy
Information Literacy
In the past, professors assigned rather open research requirements, assuming diligent students would be compelled to use good resources in the campus library. Now, students have an entire internet full of good, bad, and in-between sources. We need to help students learn to identify good quality information in our respective disciplines. In each of our courses, students should learn something about:
separating signal from noise on the internet. What are signs that information on a website, or a website itself, is trustworthy?
what is information that is for general consumption, is tertiary, or summary? What information is for more in-depth or professional use?
what librarians and libraries provide, and how they are as relevant in 2019 as they were in 1919. (Maybe more so!)
This is called Information Literacy. With respect to our individual disciplines, it's helping students learn how to learn in our field or subject. If your course is not within their major field of study, it still helps them be informed citizens, who are savvier about where, how, and by whom knowledge is constructed in other fields.
Schedule an appointment with the library staff to discuss a more tailored plan for information literacy for your course.
On the Library's YouTube channel, you'll find a growing list of videos built to help students generally and in specific disciplines.
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