CSCU Information Literacy Toolkit

Submitted by:  Joy Hansen & Jillian Maynard, Central CT State University

Contact info: jhansen@ccsu.edu & j.maynard@ccsu.edu

Description: Used in our one-credit LSC150 Research in the Digital Age course but could be used as a writing prompt in any lesson on bias.

Skill Set:    Evaluating  

Resource type:    Discussion Board Prompt  

ACRL Frame:    Authority is Constructed and Contextual  

Audience:  Undergraduate 

Length of Lesson: < 5 minutes

Materials Used:  Pen and paper or online app such as Padlet

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion? No

Students have mentioned that one of their “muddiest points” has been in recognizing bias within information sources.  After all, bias is all around us. In your discussion posting this week, identify one or two reasons why bias might creep into an information source and, as a credible researcher, what are some ways you might recognize this bias?  Do you think you might still be able to use the source despite the bias? Why or why not? Providing a concrete example will illustrate your point.

Finally, review and comment on a classmate’s posting. Try to respond to a classmate that has no or few responses.

This discussion board prompt by J. Hansen and J. Maynard at Central CT State University is licensed under CC0.

Submitted by:  Jillian Maynard, Central CT State University

Contact info: j.maynard@ccsu.edu

Description: A visual timeline that helps students begin to understand the way information is created and how it evolves. Just because a new source of information becomes available does not mean the prior sources stop. For example, when books are published on a topic or event, there may/will still be social media posts, magazine articles, etc. published. Each block of time also explains how that source might be used in a scholarly research paper.

A possible accompanying activity is to have students look at four sources related to an event and decide the type of source and where each source fits on the timeline. There is a lot of nuance with this idea of the timeline and what is presented here is a simplified version for the sake of introduction. The activity opens up some potential for good conversation around the construction of info, what voices are heard, and what voices are left out.

Skill Set:    Basics       Evaluating  

Resource type:    Handouts & Instructional Materials  

ACRL Frame:    Information Creation as a Process       Information has Value  

Audience:  First Year

Length of Lesson: 5-15 minutes

Materials Used:  A way to project the image

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion? No

This instructional material by Jillian Maynard at Central CT State University is licensed under CC-BY.

Submitted by:  Joy Hansen, CCSU

Contact info:  jhansen@ccsu.edu

Description:    After instruction, provide practice time using worksheets. Using Libwizard or Google Docs, review submissions submitted to your email during class time so that you can clarify muddy points and highlight best practices.  (Best for two-shots)

Skill Set:   Researching        Evaluating    

Resource Type:    Activities and Lesson Plans 

ACRL Frame:    Research as Inquiry      Searching as Strategic Exploration    

Audience:   First Year, Second Year, Third Year, Fourth Year, Graduate

Length of Lesson:  15-30 mins

Materials Used:   Online form

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion? No

Submitted by:  Amy Jansen and Karla Jones

Contact info:  Amy Jansen (jansena2@southernct.edu); Karla Jones (jonesk1@southernct.edu)

Description: As part of the SCSU Office of Online Learning’s Fall programming, Amy Jansen (SCSU Business Research Librarian) and Karla Jones (SCSU Education Librarian) led a virtual workshop on Scopus, an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature made available through the CSCU system. This workshop addressed topics such as advanced searching, analyzing results, research metrics, managing your profile, connecting to ORCID, tracking authors in your area of research, and leveraging Scopus as a collaborative networking and research tool.

Skill Set:     Researching        Evaluating    

Resource Type:   Presentations     

ACRL Frame:    Research as Inquiry        Scholarship as Conversation        Searching as Strategic Exploration    

Audience:  Graduate, Faculty 

Length of Lesson: Longer than 60 minutes

Materials Used: Powerpoint presentations that have been converted to PDFs for easier access.  

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion?  No