As always, the librarians are available to work with your classes on information literacy and research skills! While we can't work with you face-to-face right now, we can collaborate on assignment design, create resources for your course, or work with your students via Zoom. This is new for us, too, so we look forward to hearing your ideas!
To get started:
To get started:
- Browse the resources (organized by very broad topic) in the lefthand menu and share anything you find useful with your students.
- To have a librarian work with your class, or if you have any questions, email miyagib@linnbenton.edu. You will be matched with a librarian to talk more about how to meet your course learning goals. Please make your requests at least two weeks in advance so the librarians can prepare.
Navigate to the sections in the lefthand menu to find not only videos and other resources, but also example learning goals/objectives and activities/assignments. Why include these in your course?
- Students will get more out of the experience if they know what skills they're learning and why they matter. Examples are derived from the Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education and the Oregon School Library Standards.
- Providing activities to reinforce skills and building library instruction around relevant assignments gives students a chance to practice and become confident.
Find more videos on the LBCC Library Youtube channel.
- Develop a researchable question which demonstrates curiosity about a topic.
- Determine an appropriate scope of investigation.
- Deal with complex research by breaking complex questions into simple ones, limiting the scope of investigations.
- Ask students to identify one topic they're interested in from the Topics list in Opposing Viewpoints or a site like The Conversation or Society for Science News.
- Have students submit a brainstorm (either paper and scanned, or using an online tool like Bubbl.us) of their topic and subtopics.
- Ask peers to provide feedback on potential topics using Moodle's discussion feature with guided questions:
- Would there be an overwhelming number of sources on this topic?
- Would there be too few sources on this topic?
- What questions do you have about this topic? What keywords stand out to you as being essential for this topic?
- What other suggestions do you have for your peer?
- Identify: Understand Your Research Need is a chapter from The Information Literacy User's Guide: An Open, Online Textbook. Includes exercises and graphics that you can remix and include in your course, since this is an OER.
- Asking Questions, Finding Answers, a chapter from the library ebook The Craft of Research, details one way to transition from topic to question to problem to sources. Most appropriate for research-intensive, upper-level classes.
- Match information needs and search strategies to appropriate search tools.
- Design and refine needs and search strategies as necessary, based on search results.
- Understand how information systems (such as library databases) are organized in order to access relevant information.
- Use different types of searching language (e.g., controlled vocabulary, keywords, natural language) appropriately.
- Have students keep a research log (example from UT Libraries).
- Ask students to compare search results of library database with Google/web search.
- Have students watch a database demo, try to find a relevant full text article themselves, and post a question/comment about the experience to a discussion board that includes a librarian.
- Analyze and evaluate information to make informed decisions.
- Define different types of authority, such as subject expertise (e.g., scholarship), societal position (e.g., public office or title), or special experience (e.g., participating in a historic event).
- Use research tools and indicators of authority (such as article citations and publisher) to determine the credibility of sources, understanding the elements that might temper this credibility.
- Understand that many disciplines have acknowledged authorities in the sense of well-known scholars and publications that are widely considered “standard."
- Understand how and why some individuals or groups of individuals may be underrepresented or systematically marginalized within the systems that produce and disseminate information.
- Ask students to create an annotated bibliography that explains, in one or two sentences, why they think each source should be included.
- Have students identify what might be the "most credible" and "least credible" source on their topic (for example, a professional cookbook would be a very credible source for making bread, while an anonymous recipe on the web with poor reviews would be a poor source).
- Give students two sites on the same topic and ask them to compare and determine which is more authoritative and explain why.
- Evaluate: Assessing Your Research Process and Findings is a chapter in The Information Literacy User's Guide: An Open, Online Textbook.
- Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers is an OER book. While there's enough content for an entire course (or two), you can copy (with attribution) or link to helpful extracts and activities.
- Give credit to the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation.
- Articulate the purpose and distinguishing characteristics of copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain.
- Decide where and how their information is published.
- Have students create a bibliography using a tool like ZoteroBib and correct any errors by comparing to examples in the resources below.
- Give students a picture without any information. Have them use Google Reverse Image Search to identify the source and copyright status. (Note: it's hard and sometimes impossible, which reinforces the importance of citing).
- Provide students with different Creative Commons scenarios and ask them to identify the best license.
- New! Citation Guide from LBCC Library (still in progress). Email willihm@linnbenton.edu with feedback and suggestions.
- Valencia College has many great examples by citation style.
- The Purdue OWL. Go-to guide for examples of citations and sample papers in APA, MLA, and Chicago.
- MLA Style: A Quick Guide. Simple examples from MLA.
- APA Style Blog. Search for answer to questions that aren't addressed in the publication manual.