Tips and Advice on using ChatGPT effectively and ethically (English & Spanish)

Thinking Outside the Box is an in-class research exercise designed to facilitate students' evaluation of information found in subscription databases and obtained through generative artificial intelligence tools by providing a series of questions for them to answer. For this exercise, the applicable frames from the Framework for Information Literacy include: "authority is constructed and contextual," "information creation as process," and "searching as strategic exploration."

Easier access to research data is changing the research landscape. Investigate the data available for your research topic through the library’s catalog and open-access sources. 

This lesson plan introduces students to lateral reading techniques using the SIFT method. Designed and implemented for a political science introduction to international relations course, this can easily be adapted to other media literacy contexts. Students will practice lateral reading with sample news articles. Worksheets, slides, and sample articles are linked in the lesson plan. Alternative news articles can be substituted.

This handout on business resources was designed in collaboration with the Ciocca Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Although the quips aren't exactly witty, the aim of each remark is to answer the simple question: Why would I use this resource anyway? Even though the handout is created with a specific audience in mind, the quips could be used to highlight any of these resources, anywhere information is needed.

Beginning college students often make assumptions that scholarly sources are inherently bias-free. Students may also hold the belief that if they find a source through a library database, it is automatically a useful and neutral viewpoint on a topic. These mindsets can limit students’ motivation to apply evaluation strategies beyond establishing credibility based on the author’s credentials.This lesson plan introduces the concept of positionality statements to help students understand that scholars do not leave their identities and life experiences behind when they conduct research. Students practice a new way to evaluate and understand the perspective–and limitations–that scholars bring to their research.The lesson plan is designed for first-year composition courses in which students are asked to develop a research topic based on their interests or experiences. It could be adapted for upper-level undergraduate courses in the social sciences.

The goal of this activity is to help students develop a broader understanding how authority is determined and what types of sources are considered appropriate in different contexts. It is also intended to help address some of the misconceptions that students have related to the source evaluation process. 

This web resource provides a brief overview of the concept Authority is Constructed and Contextual. It includes a video, a concept description, and the related knowledge practices and dispositions. 

The goal of this activity is to help students start to think critically about the evaluation strategies that they have learned and whether they support the effective evaluation of information. Students will learn about the lateral reading strategy for evaluation and compare it to their existing evaluation process. 

Sample Excel sheet for recording multiple variables and characteristics when assessing student Annotated Bibliography assignments.