Evaluating Sources
This activity can be used for one-shot sessions or credit-bearing courses
Set-Up
For a credit-bearing course, a reading on evaluating sources that students complete before coming to class may be valuable in giving them a sense of how and why sources need to be evaluated.
If this activity is being done as part of a one-shot session, find out from the course instructor if he or she has gone over evaluating sources with the students at all beforehand. If not, you may want to do a mini-lecture at the beginning of the lesson that relates the activity clearly to the assignment the students will be completing.
When you are working with less experienced students, it may help to give them a framework or a set of criteria such as the CRAAP test to work with.
Significant Problem
Annotated bibliographies and variations thereof are common assignments for information literacy courses and non-information literacy courses alike. Even when annotations evaluating a source are not explicitly required, instructors may still want their students to know not just how to find and cite a source, but how to decide whether it's appropriate for a research project.
Same Problem
Specific Choice
Ask the groups to evaluate whether the source is appropriate for the given research topic. They should express their evaluation in terms of a "grade" where "A" means the source is very appropriate for the research topic and "F" means the source is very inappropriate. They can also choose any grade in between.
Tip #1: Ask the students to initially base their decisions only on the information in the printout rather than trying to look up additional information about the source on Google or Amazon.
Tip #2: The item in the printout should be one that an experienced researcher would give a "B" or a "C," such as a book that is outdated.
Note: A variation on this exercise if using the CRAAP test, as advised above for less experienced students, is to ask the students if the source given "passes" the CRAAP test and, if it does not, which specific criteria it fails on.
Simultaneous Reporting
Tip#3: If there are big differences between what the groups came up with, have the group that gave the highest grade explain their evaluation and the group that gave the lowest grade explain their evaluation.
Tip #4: If there is very little variation, ask each group for one factor that went into their decision and go around the room until the list has been exhausted.
Once the groups have discussed their evaluations, reveal the chosen source's imperfections and why this might take away from its value for research on the given topic.
Follow-Up
If there is time, ask the students to use the catalog or a given database to find a source that they think would be better for the given research topic.
Each group should find one source and be able to explain why they think this is a good source for the given topic.
After each group has found a source, clarify any issues they might have had with searching and then give them time to search for sources on the topic they will be working on for their assignment.
Set-Up
For a credit-bearing course, a reading on evaluating sources that students complete before coming to class may be valuable in giving them a sense of how and why sources need to be evaluated.
If this activity is being done as part of a one-shot session, find out from the course instructor if he or she has gone over evaluating sources with the students at all beforehand. If not, you may want to do a mini-lecture at the beginning of the lesson that relates the activity clearly to the assignment the students will be completing.
When you are working with less experienced students, it may help to give them a framework or a set of criteria such as the CRAAP test to work with.
Significant Problem
Annotated bibliographies and variations thereof are common assignments for information literacy courses and non-information literacy courses alike. Even when annotations evaluating a source are not explicitly required, instructors may still want their students to know not just how to find and cite a source, but how to decide whether it's appropriate for a research project.
Same Problem
- For this activity, find and print out the record for a book or article on an example research topic, depending on the requirements of the assignment.
- Make sure the printout includes information about the title, author, date of publication, content (such as a summary).
- Write the example research topic on top of the printout.
- Give one copy of the printout to each group. Give the same printout to all groups.
Specific Choice
Ask the groups to evaluate whether the source is appropriate for the given research topic. They should express their evaluation in terms of a "grade" where "A" means the source is very appropriate for the research topic and "F" means the source is very inappropriate. They can also choose any grade in between.
Tip #1: Ask the students to initially base their decisions only on the information in the printout rather than trying to look up additional information about the source on Google or Amazon.
Tip #2: The item in the printout should be one that an experienced researcher would give a "B" or a "C," such as a book that is outdated.
Note: A variation on this exercise if using the CRAAP test, as advised above for less experienced students, is to ask the students if the source given "passes" the CRAAP test and, if it does not, which specific criteria it fails on.
Simultaneous Reporting
- Each group should record the grade they chose on a mini marker board, a piece of scrap paper, or some other means.
- When the groups are done discussing, ask the groups to hold up their marker boards (or similar) at the same time.
- Do not give away what the grade should be just yet.
Tip#3: If there are big differences between what the groups came up with, have the group that gave the highest grade explain their evaluation and the group that gave the lowest grade explain their evaluation.
Tip #4: If there is very little variation, ask each group for one factor that went into their decision and go around the room until the list has been exhausted.
Once the groups have discussed their evaluations, reveal the chosen source's imperfections and why this might take away from its value for research on the given topic.
Follow-Up
If there is time, ask the students to use the catalog or a given database to find a source that they think would be better for the given research topic.
Each group should find one source and be able to explain why they think this is a good source for the given topic.
After each group has found a source, clarify any issues they might have had with searching and then give them time to search for sources on the topic they will be working on for their assignment.