Information Literacy Learning Goal B:
Effectively find, evaluate, and use information sources.
Effectively find, evaluate, and use information sources.
B1. Test your topic to see if it's viable.
B2. Practice developing topic statements and choosing the keywords that best represent that topic.
B3. Design search strategies for different topics.
B4. Compare different search strategies in different databases.
B5. What efforts contribute to source reliability and quality?
B6. Understand the peer-review process and explore its effectiveness.
B7. Select credible sources for different research topics.
B8. How do experts select credible Google results?
B9. Choose the most appropriate and credible Google results.
B10. Under what circumstances are popular sources appropriate to consult?
B11. Know where to find information in your career job.
B12. Conduct a comprehensive search for information.
B13. Where and how do professionals search thoroughly for information?
B14. Compare search strategies for conducting a thorough search.
B15. Identify the elements of different citations and the sources they represent.
Adapt and/or simplify these assignments to better suit the needs of your students and course materials.
Feel free to mix different parts of different assignments together.
You'll need to work out the details for deploying the assignment as an individual or group assignment, or as a worksheet, quiz, reading, discussion, etc. You'll also need to work out details for grading the assignment.
We encourage you to consult with your subject librarian for advice on creating and tailoring information literacy assignments to your needs.
Coach your students on selecting an appropriate topic and/or have them refer to Lesson 5 of the Information Literacy Basics tutorial which provides tips on selecting appropriate topics.
Then, have your students work through the following:
State your topic as a research question or a hypothesis, so it is a full sentence.
What is the disciplinary area for your topic? (History, Nursing, Literature, Engineering…etc.) Does it span more than one discipline?
Pick three library databases to run searches on your topic. Describe your process for finding and choosing appropriate databases on the Cline Library website. Then, explain which databases you decided to search and why.
Search for sources using the fewest most essential keywords that represent your topic. Note the keywords you chose and explain why you chose those keywords.
After you've run your search, consider whether you need to find certain types of sources, or sources published within a certain date range. If so, look to see if the database has refinements you can set to match those parameters. Refinement options are usually to the left of your results. Describe any refinements you used and why.
Check to see how your results are sorted and make sure they are set to sort by relevance. Look through the first two pages of results for each of the three databases you searched. Do you see results that describe source relevant to your topic? Does it look like you'll find enough relevant sources to write about your topic?
Describe any concerns you have about your topic and what adaptations it might need, if any.
Give students several different scenarios where they need to research a topic and if possible, make them potential career scenarios. Then, have them do the following:
Have your students synthesize a research topic from the scenario, summing it up in one sentence; it could be a question or a statement. Then ask students to discuss which is the best topic sentence produced by their classmates and talk about what makes it good.
For each topic sentence, have students choose the fewest, most essential keywords to search on that topic. Discuss the consensus in class.
Provide students with three to five relevant databases to search on the topic (use library databases or any other databases or tools of your choice) and have them run searches on each topic with the objective of looking for additional keywords that could be promising to search. They should look at source titles in their database results, and when relevant, they may want to open the full database record and look at keywords that were assigned to the source. Have them note what they found and where they found it. Then come back together and discuss which additional keywords would be most promising to search.
Have a librarian come up with keywords and a search strategy for each topic, then come to your class and discuss their strategy and how it compares to the search strategies the students came up with.
Provide students with a variety of topics and have them design and refine search strategies for those topics. That way they can compare how they would approach different topics with different search strategies. Consider having them tackle the following questions for the topics you provide:
Where would you search for information on each topic and why? How would you go about choosing databases Cline Library has to offer and which would you choose? Where else would you search and why?
What keywords would you use to search each topic and why?
For each topic, try searches in some of the databases you have chosen. Note which databases you searched and the keywords you used. Look over your results and see if you come across other keywords that might be useful to try in your search. For example, if you were researching how peer pressure effects the behavior of teenagers, you might notice that some of your results use the word 'adolescent' instead of 'teenager.' This should be a signal to you that it might be useful to try your search again with the word 'adolescent.'
Try looking up some of your keywords in ChatGPT and ask it to offer synonyms. Would you search any of the synonyms it offers? If so, which ones?
Which databases and keywords provided the best results? Speculate on why!
Did some databases perform better for some topics than others? If so, why do you think that was the case?
Different databases offer different search refinements and features -- such as options to limit your search to publication years, document types, etc. or the ability to sort in a variety of ways. Would you use any of these features for any of the topics you were provided?
Did any of your databases offer especially relevant features for your particular topic? For example, PubMed is a database that offers cool features to refine results to particular types of research studies - such as randomized controlled clinical trials - which can be really useful when doing medical research. Did any of the databases you used offer features that could be especially helpful in this way?
You could modify this assignment so that students are researching topics that might come up in a career scenario after college, when they no longer have access to most Cline Library databases. That means they'll need to search for information in tools they'll likely have access to in their career. Consult your librarian for advice on what those tools might be (Google, Google Scholar, free databases like PubMed, ERIC, or other government databases, etc.) and adapt the questions above accordingly.
Give students a scenario where they need to research a topic and provide them with several search strategies for the topic. Then, provide them with a suitable database to search and explain why you chose that database. Have them enter the different search strategies into the database and assess their results. Which search strategy was most/least productive? Have them discuss why some search strategies worked better than others.
Then, have them enter the best search strategy in a couple of other databases and compare results with the first database. Have them reflect on the different results they got in different databases:
Did some databases provided better results than others?
Even if some databases provided fewer relevant results, were there still a few results that made the database worth searching?
Did they come across some of the same results in the different databases they searched?
Did they find at least some unique and relevant results in each database? What are the implications of that in situations where you need to search thoroughly?
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Have your students explore the processes that are (or aren't) in place to bolster the quality and reliability of different types of sources in your discipline – such as peer-review, editorial review, fact-checking, accreditation, standardization, formal reviews, user reviews, endorsements, etc.
Students could also work through some or all of the following questions:
For which types of sources is reliability and quality most important and why?
Which efforts to promote reliability and quality are most/least effective?
How do efforts to promote reliability and quality affect the credibility of different sources?
Can you envision improvements to these processes? How could we do a better job at ensuring sources are reliable?
What happens when a source is found to be unreliable and inaccurate? What are the repercussions for the author and/or the publisher (if any)? What are the repercussions for the user of the source, or for society?
Depending on your discipline, you might also want to investigate the replicability crisis, or websites like RetractionWatch and/or Data Colada. Or, you could explore current or historical scandals in information quality.
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
If you work in a discipline where peer-review is an important process, consider having your students learn about it in more detail so they fully understand how it works. Then, have them explore questions such as:
What is the history of peer-review? How did it start? How has it changed?
How well does peer-review work?
Is the peer-review process more rigorous than other types of vetting processes?
How can bias enter the peer-review process? What practices are in place to prevent bias?
What are the implications for peer-review when reviewers are not paid or credited for their efforts to review others' work?
Should the peer-review process be improved? Why?
How could the process be improved?
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Present your students with one or more research topics such as:
a scholarly research topic
a personal research topic (like personal healthcare, finance, etc.)
a potential career research topic
For each topic, provide students with a wide variety of sources to consult (10 to 15?) that provide information on that topic. Ensure they have a mix of credible sources, questionably credible sources, and some that are definitely not credible. Have them sort the sources into these three groups and then explain their thought process for each source. Finally, show them how YOU would sort the sources and why. That way they can see how an expert would make choices about which source to use.
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Present your students with one or more research topics such as:
a scholarly research topic
a personal research topic (like personal healthcare, finance, etc.)
a potential career research topic
Tell them to begin their search in Google to gain more background information on their topic and provide them with the keywords YOU would use to run the search in Google (and explain why you would use those keywords). and why. Have them run the searches using your keywords. Then, have them look through at the first page or two of results and identify which would be the most appropriate, credible results to click on first and why. Have them also explain what makes other results less appropriate/credible and why. Finally, show them how YOU would make choices about which results would be most promising to click on first in terms of their appropriateness and credibility and why. Discuss the discrepancies between students' choices and your choices and why those discrepancies exist.
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Have students pick a topic, or present them with one or more research topics such as:
a scholarly research topic
a personal research topic (like personal healthcare, finance, etc.)
a potential career research topic
Have them conduct Google searches to put together three to five of the best sources they found in their Google searches. Have them annotate the best choices by what makes them:
relevant
credible
useful
appropriate
Have them also note three to five sources they clicked on to explore, but ultimately rejected. Have them explain why they rejected these sources. Review their choices and let them know if any of the best sources they picked are inappropriate or questionable.
You could also give the entire class the same topic and see what sources students converge on as the best ones, and which they reject as worst, and discuss those that fall on the fence. Show them how YOU would assess the results compared to the strategies they are using.
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Supply students with a mix of imaginary scenarios (such as some plausible career scenarios) where they need to find information. Set up your scenarios so that for some, popular sources would be the best to consult, and for others scholarly sources would be the best to consult. Have students decide which type of source (popular or scholarly) would be most appropriate and why.
Then, encourage them to explore these questions:
Why are popular sources sometimes more appropriate to consult than scholarly sources?
In what circumstances would it be important to judge the credibility of popular sources?
Are there popular sources that you intuitively feel are credible? If so, why?
What types of popular sources would you be especially wary of quality and reliability? How would you handle that?
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Work with your librarian to develop a list of databases and other resources that students can leverage in their career when they need to seek information. Depending on the situation, these resources could include any of the following or more:
free databases like Google, Google Scholar, PubMed, ERIC, etc.
government databases
state library databases
public library databases
college and university library databases
special library databases
company databases
free web resources specific to a profession such as discussion forums, expert websites, society websites, etc.
Ask your librarian to show students where to find these databases and how to use them. Also have your librarian show strategies for obtaining the full-text of needed sources. Then, present students with one or more hypothetical employment scenarios that requires conducting a thorough search for information. Have them write up a strategy for where and how they would search to find the information they need.
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Supply students with imaginary scenarios where they need to conduct a thorough search for information. For example, provide them with a plausible future work scenario where they need to research and put together policy recommendations, or a set of best practices, or create informational materials for the general public, etc. Then, have them work through the following questions:
Why would it be important to do thoroughly research this topic and find as many relevant sources as possible?
What databases would you use to search for information on this topic?
What keywords would you use to ensure your search was comprehensive?
What actions would you take to feel confident you had not missed any relevant sources?
What might be the repercussions if you failed to find and incorporate some particularly important, relevant sources?
You might also ask students to find and compile a thorough list of relevant sources on the topic, and/or have them compare their search strategies with other students so they can learn from each other.
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Identify some professionals from your discipline who regularly need to search for information as part of their job. Invite one or more of them into your classroom to talk to students (in person or via Zoom) about how they solve information problems in their job. Have them describe where and how they seek information, and how they know when they have found enough information.
Then, present students with one or more hypothetical career scenarios where they need to come up with a strategy for finding information. Have them write up their strategy including where and how they would collect information. Ask them to follow their strategy, then document any problems with it. Have them also document new ideas for improving the strategy that they discover as they are searching.
Note: This assignment is applicable to Learning Goal B or C.
Run a search on a fairly narrow research topic and put together a bibliography of relevant results. Try to land on a topic for which there are 20-30 relevant results. (Ask your librarian for help if needed.) Note where you searched and how you searched.
Then, assign your students the same research topic. You could couch it as research that needs to be done for a hypothetical future work scenario, or to hypothetically write and publish a review article. Have them document where and how they searched, and have them put together a bibliography of the most relevant results they found, letting them know how many relevant articles you found, so they have an idea what to aim for. When they have turned in their work, use it to foster a discussion of their search strategies and what they found, and what they failed to find. Basically, the point is to compare how YOU did a comprehensive search, and how YOU chose the most relevant articles, compared to how they did it. This shows them how their novice skills differ from an expert's skills, and makes it clear how they fall short, and what they need to aspire to!
To help students get more familiar with citing and how to cite, provide them with a list of citations for a variety of different sources. Have them identify the components of the citation as well as the type of source the citation represents.
Provide students with the URLs for various types of sources available on the internet. Have them identify the type of source it is and construct an appropriate citation for it. Note where they are having difficulties and give them extra practice on the sources they are having problems with.
Select a Wikipedia article or have students select a Wikipedia article. Have them pick some text that has an in-text citation. Have them identify the components of the corresponding full citation and what type of source it represents. Then, ask them go to that original source and investigate what it says and whether the content from it is appropriately represented in the Wikipedia article. You could have them do this with several citations to get practice.
Or, have them do the same thing, but instead of investigating Wikipedia citations, have them exchange their research papers with each other and investigate whether their peers properly cited sources and properly represented the content of that source in their research paper.
Do you have existing assignments or other ideas for assignments that we could add to this list? If so, Cline Library's Research and Instruction Services team would love to hear about it. Contact us!