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.

This workshop engages participants in exploring corporate data collection, personal profiling, deceptive design, and data brokerage practices. Workshop content is contextualized with the theoretical frameworks of panoptic sort (Gandy), surveillance capitalism (Zuboff), and the four regulators (Lessig) and presented through a privacy and business ethics lens. Participants will learn how companies make money from data collection practices; explore how interface design can influence our choices and behaviors; and discuss business ethics regarding privacy and big data.The workshop is designed for 75-minute class sessions, but can be compressed into 60-minute sessions. Includes workshop guide, presentation slides, learning activities, and assessment instrument.

This is a good way to get students thinking about the conceptual differences between data, information and knowledge – which is an important first step to understanding how data, information and knowledge are created, disseminated and consumed. 

Learning Outcomes:Students will see best practices on citations for their poster session or honors paper, including key database and RaptorSearch examples.Students will receive a demonstration of the relationship between their reference list and their in-text citations.Students will see examples of how to better integrate citations into their writing, including examples of paraphrasing, summarizing, and incorporating multiple sources or switches among sources.

This activity is designed to help students understand the difference between background sources and scholarly sources. Students will read a quick overview of the key differences between these source types, and then they will be asked to classify five sample sources. For each source, they will make an initial judgment based on a screenshot and then take a closer look at the full source to see if their gut instinct was correct. Correct answers and explanations are provided for each source.This activity is suitable for in-person, synchronous online, and asynchronous online instruction. It is self-paced and takes most students between 10 and 15 minutes to complete. The activity is hosted on Microsoft Sway, and it can be completed on a computer, tablet, phone, or any device with an internet connection.

Goal: The primary goal of the activity or assignment is for students to develop an increased understanding of the peer review process and how it is connected to the authority or credibility of different information sources. Students will also be encouraged to consider some of the criticisms that have been raised about the process and consider alternatives for determining authoritative sources within a field or discipline.Learning Outcomes:Explain the basic process of scholarly peer reviewExplore how the peer review process is used to identify or establish authoritative or credible works within a fieldCritically examine the peer review process, considering it in connection with issues such as access and bias

In this assignment, students will consider how the format of the information product can impact what they are able to convey related to a topic and how their information may be received and valued. Students will investigate a topic or question and share their response in multiple formats. Formats could range from a more traditional research paper or poster to blogs, infographic, video, or even a series of Tweets. Students will be required to consider how the format(s) they have selected might impact what they can or should share and how their message may be received.

This activity is intended to help students understand the types of sources that are most commonly cited in research in a specific discipline or field. Students will review the citations from multiple relevant journal articles to identify the types of sources that are often cited. They will also be encouraged to consider why certain types of sources may be more cited than others, and what may be missing by relying primarily on certain types of sources. In addition, students will get practice in identifying the appropriate citation format for different types of sources.

These materials accompany the book chapter “Hot Topics Trade Publications Connect Research with Career Ambitions” from Teaching Business Information Literacy published by ACRL Press.

The purpose of this activity is to recognize how a quote can be taken out of context in subtle (and overt) ways. The goal is to locate a quote within a news article and trace it through multiple layers of context to discover how journalists’ interpretations of quotes impact our understanding of actual events and news.