Students have trouble separating fact from fiction when doing research on the Web, and they are unable to identify bias. Students do not know to dig deeper and investigate claims or sources of information. Unless, that is, you teach them how to. Read this summary of a 2016 report from the Stanford History Education Group to get an idea of the level and experience of freshmen.
These pages are created by librarians here on campus. They include guidance on how to teach information literacy skills in the form of lessons and in class or out of class activities. Elise Nacca, Head of Information Literacy Services at UT Libraries can be contacted at any time if you need support.
Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t know. Read about how librarians talk about this topic here.
Information literacy is the ability to:
Information literacy bumps up against media literacy (sometimes news literacy), which, in addition to the skills needed to access, evaluate and analyze, asks students to understand the role of media in our society and become responsible media creators on their own.
Digital literacy is typically defined as the ability to learn and effectively use digital tools in pursuit of the above skills.
Use the links at left to navigate to pages that cover specific topic areas.
Want to teach your students about plagiarism? We have a tutorial with quiz (for Canvas) to help students avoid plagiarism. If you want your students to watch the tutorial with no quiz, that lives here.
Appropriation and Attribution from Ethics Unwrapped (McCombs School of Business). This 9 min video gives an overview of these concepts situated within considerations for a digital environment. Discussion questions are included.
The RHE 306/309 Students page is designed for your students as a research guide for the course and you are encouraged to share the link with them. The page covers resources (primarily, but not exclusively, library databases) helpful to your students and tips for using these resources.
Please don't hesitate to contact your librarian, Elise Nacca. You may also connect students directly to me for research help.
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