This worksheet accompanies the science information literacy activity "A new study says..."  by Megan Carlton and Lea Leininger.  The worksheet was created by Megan Carlton using Canva and exported as a pdf.

By the end of the #ForYou: Algorithms & the Attention Economy workshop, students will be able to:describe recommender system algorithms in order to examine how they shape individuals' online experiences through personalizationanalyze their online behaviors and subsequent ad profiles in order to reflect on how they influence how individuals encounter, perceive, & evaluate information, leading to echo chambers & political polarizationassess how their data is used to personalize their online experience in order to build algorithmic awareness & make informed, intentional choices about their information consumption**This is a standalone workshop but also scaffolds from the Penn State Berks Privacy Workshop which gives students some foundational understanding of personal data collection practices.

This workshop engages academic librarians and higher education professionals in considering the implications of Dx (digital transformation) for privacy, especially intellectual privacy, in higher education. The session is designed to reveal how student, faculty, and staff data and metadata are collected, along with the potential implications of such data collection. Participants assess how this data is used in order to make informed, intentional choices to safeguard student and employee privacy. The session includes a guided close-reading activity to critically examine educational technology and productivity software privacy policies and terms of service. This workshop session scaffolds from the Intellectual Privacy Workshop [Peer/Professional] and Privacy Workshop [Peer/Professional].

This workshop delivers an action-oriented introduction to personal data privacy for academic librarians and higher education professionals. The session is designed to reveal the professional and educational technology systems in place to collect and analyze online behavioral data, and to unveil the real-world consequences of online profiling in contexts like academic integrity surveillance, student surveillance, and public health (COVID-19). In lieu of a prescriptive approach, participants analyze case studies to observe how online behaviors impact real-world opportunities and reflect on the benefits and risks of technology use to develop purposeful online behaviors and habits that align with their individual values. Developing knowledge practices regarding privacy and the commodification of personal information and embodying the core library values of privacy and intellectual freedom, the workshop promotes a proactive rather than reactive approach and presents a spectrum of privacy preferences across a range of contexts in order to respect participants’ autonomy and agency in personal technology use. Adapted from the student-facing Privacy Workshop.

In this workshop, students learn about the driving forces behind fake news, reflect on how our opinions impact the way we evaluate information, and discuss and practice using criteria for evaluating news. The workshop includes a brief presentation on fake news and cognitive biases, reflection prompts for students to respond to, and an activity in which students work in groups to evaluate different news articles on a common topic.

The Penn State Berks Privacy Workshop Series focuses on privacy issues for students in the past, present, and future.  The Privacy Workshop spotlights privacy practices and concerns in the current moment; Digital Leadership explores future implications of past and current digital behaviors; Digital Shred provides tools to evaluate and mitigate the damage of past digital behaviors; and Digital Wellness focuses on privacy across the lifespan - bringing together the past, present, & future by finding a balance of technology & wellness, while aligning habits and goals.  Each workshop is grounded in theory – countering approaches that overpromise user control in the face of information asymmetries and the control paradox – and embrace students’ autonomy and agency by avoiding prescribed solutions, and instead encouraging decision-making frameworks.In the Digital Wellness Workshop, students will be able to:evaluate & articulate their digital wellness prioritiesrecognize that their relationship with technology can have real world impact on their personal wellbeing, including relationships, mental health, & professional aspirationsalign their online activity & habits within the context of their wellness goalsmodel constructive online and offline behaviors as individuals, student leaders, and future professionals

The goal of this in-class activity is to help students relate database searching to something they already have familiarity with. This is interdisciplinary and could be adapted for any subject or database. Students will explore a timely topic on Twitter using a hashtag and note bias, tone, authority, and related hashtags before conducting a similar search on a library database or discovery tool. Students and instructors then discuss similarities and differences between both searches and their results. 

The Penn State Berks Privacy Workshop Series focuses on privacy issues for students in the past, present, and future.  The Privacy Workshop spotlights privacy practices and concerns in the current moment; Digital Leadership explores future implications of past and current digital behaviors; Digital Shred provides tools to evaluate and mitigate the damage of past digital behaviors; and Digital Wellness focuses on privacy across the lifespan - bringing together the past, present, & future by finding a balance of technology & wellness, while aligning habits and goals.  Each workshop is grounded in theory – countering approaches that overpromise user control in the face of information asymmetries and the control paradox – and embrace students’ autonomy and agency by avoiding prescribed solutions, and instead encouraging decision-making frameworks.In the Digital Shred Workshop, students will be able to:Reflect on and describe their digital privacy priorities in order to articulate the benefits and risks of their digital dossierApply a growth mindset to critically examine their current data exhaust // digital footprint and recognize when change is neededDevelop a Personal Data Integrity Plan that makes routine the process of auditing and updating their digital dossier in alignment with their privacy valuesDescribe “digital shred” and its importance. 

Deciding who to vote for can be hard. On top of that, finding information about local elections can sometimes be difficult, as can be figuring out if you agree with a candidate on an issue that you don’t know too much about. This activity engages students in the civic process and in research. Students will use internet searching to find information about candidates, and database searching to find information out about an issue. 

A list of criteria to help students check if they followed all steps to create an optimized search strategy. We used it for searches in engineering database, but it can be used in all fields. For certain fields, it might need small modifications. Aussi disponible en français dans la "Sandbox".