Finding OERs by Discipline

Choosing & Using Sources presents a process for academic research and writing, from formulating your research question to selecting good information and using it effectively in your research assignments. Additional chapters cover understanding types of sources, searching for information, and avoiding plagiarism. Each chapter includes self-quizzes and activities to reinforce core concepts and help you apply them. There are also appendices for quick reference on search tools, copyright basics, and fair use.

Critical Thinking in Academic Research will introduce students to the techniques and principles of critical thinking. However, a commitment to lifelong learning is required for critical thinking, it takes more than a single course or reading a book. In order for students to develop their own arguments, they need to find supporting evidence. This text provides guidance on developing research questions and finding resources to answer the questions.

A modules-based approach to learning research skills that emphasizes the reflective nature of information discovery, the contextual basis for evaluating that information, and a recognition that information has value.

The intent of this OER is twofold: to offer a free or low cost quality text to our students in a one-unit information literacy course and to offer a starting place to anyone who wishes to develop their own class or OER. It is intentional that this text is not San Diego City College specific because the skills we teach in our LIBS 101, and are reflected in this OER, are transferable skills. This allows students to take what they learn here and apply it to any information need in any environment: academia, careers, life-long learning, bar bets, or what have you. It is not an attempt to be a comprehensive book on information literacy, but rather a brief overview in support of this one-unit class.

The content in these modules has been designed to give you a foundation in information literacy and critical thinking. Topics have been divided among nine sections; each includes videos, tutorials, and quizzes.

You will learn how scholarly information is produced, organized, and accessed; how to construct and use effective search strategies in a variety of web tools and scholarly databases; how to choose finding tools appropriate to the type of information you need; critical thinking skills in the evaluation of resources; and best practices in the ethical use of information.

This book acknowledges our changing information landscape, covering key concepts in information literacy to support a research process with intention. We start by critically examining the online environment many of us already engage with every day, looking at algorithms, the attention economy, information disorder and cynicism, information hygiene, and fact-checking. We then move into an exploration of information source types, meaningful research topics, keyword choices, effective search strategies, library resources, Web search considerations, the ethical use of information, and citation.

Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice introduces instructional strategies linked to the most current research-supported practices in the field of literacy. The book includes chapters related to scientifically-based literacy research, early literacy development, literacy assessment, digital age influences on children's literature, literacy development in underserved student groups, secondary literacy instructional strategies, literacy and modern language, and critical discourse analysis. Chapters are written by authors with expertise in both college teaching and the delivery of research-supported literacy practices in schools. The book features detailed explanations of a wide variety of literacy strategies that can be implemented by both beginning and expert practitioners.

What is information literacy and what does it mean to be information literate? The American Library Association defines information literacy as a set of abilities empowering individuals to recognize when information is needed and to be able to locate it, evaluate it, and use it effectively. While information literacy is often talked about on college campuses in terms of doing library research for papers and annotated bibliographies and other sorts of classroom assignments, we use and need information in every aspect of our lives.

This 10th anniversary report takes PIL into the age of algorithms. It summons educators and librarians to embrace the considerable challenge of understanding the technological and social forces shaping the circulation of news and information in contemporary society. It provides qualitative data that tell us how college students conceptualize and navigate a volatile and ever-changing information landscape. It explores what can be done to prepare students to deal with this new reality

This collection brings together scholarship and pedagogy from multiple perspectives and disciplines, offering nuanced and complex perspectives on Information Literacy in the second decade of the 21st century. Taking as a starting point the concerns that prompted the Association of Research Libraries (ACRL) to review the Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education and develop the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2015), the chapters in this collection consider six frameworks that place students in the role of both consumer and producer of information within today's collaborative information environments.

The Information Literacy User's Guide is based on two current models in information literacy: The 2011 version of The Seven Pillars Model, developed by the Society of College, National and University Libraries in the United Kingdom and the conception of information literacy as a metaliteracy, a model developed by one of this book's authors in conjunction with Thomas Mackey, Dean of the Center for Distance Learning at SUNY Empire State College.2 These core foundations ensure that the material will be relevant to today's students.

The web gives us many such strategies and tactics and tools, which, properly used, can get students closer to the truth of a statement or image within seconds. For some reason we have decided not to teach students these specific techniques. As many people have noted, the web is both the largest propaganda machine ever created and the most amazing fact-checking tool ever invented. But if we haven't taught our students those capabilities is it any surprise that propaganda is winning? This is an unabashedly practical guide for the student fact-checker. It supplements generic information literacy with the specific web-based techniques that can get you closer to the truth on the web more quickly.

This guide offers guidance and resources for citing sources in MLA and APA style. Links to web resources, books, and study materials are included.