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Students concentrate on the skills and concepts needed to find
information appropriate for their information needs and successfully use
the information for academic and lifelong learning.
1. Students will learn to determine the type and scope of the information
needed for a specific information need. The topics students use will
be from across the curriculum.
a. Recognize the need for information in academic, work and personal
pursuits.
b. Determine type of information needed e.g., overview, statistical,
current, historical, popular and scholarly.
c. State the scope of the information need ranging from brief
definition to topic overview to extensive research paper.
2. Students will examine and clearly state their information need.
Students will place the information need within a conceptual
framework of broad subject or discipline areas. Focusing skills for
beginning research projects will be emphasized.
a. State topic in a question or statement.
b. Identify major concepts and keywords for the topic.
c. Determine the subject/discipline perspective for the topic.
d. Broaden or narrow the topic to fit the scope of your research.
3. Students will explore a variety of information resources to determine
the most appropriate resource for their topic/assignment. Content of
selected resources will be evaluated.
a. Find and compare information in different types of resources
including dictionaries, encyclopedias, periodicals, books,
electronic information databases and Web sites.
b. Determine the information resource most appropriate for a
variety of specific topics.
4. Students will learn search methods and construct search strategies
appropriate to a variety of specific tools. They will retrieve
materials in a variety of formats. They will become aware of how to
access materials not available locally.
a. Write search statements appropriate to specific tools.
b. Use a variety of search features including truncation/wildcards,
Boolean operators, controlled vocabulary, keywords and search
limits.
c. Evaluate search success and modify search (broaden, narrow, etc.)
d. Retrieve books, articles and other materials in the library in a
variety of formats.
e. List options for getting materials not available in the campus
library.
5. Students will develop the ability to evaluate information based on
criteria of relevance, topic coverage, authority, currency, etc.
a. Evaluate articles, Web pages and other information using the
criteria of relevance, topic coverage, authority, currency, view,
or bias, etc.
b. Recognize appropriate quality information.
6. Students will recognize the ever-increasing availability of
information in its various formats. They will organize and sequence
information from a variety of formats as well as summarize
information.
a. Outline information from a variety of sources and formats.
b. Summarize information.
7. Students will identify permissible and non-permissible uses of
intellectual property. They will understand plagiarism and basic
principles of fair use. The use of standard techniques of
documentation will be practiced.
a. Differentiate between "fair use" and plagiarism.
b. Identify copyrighted information.
c. List materials from a variety of formats using standard
documentation.
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Required reading may consist of handouts and Web documents provided by
instructor. Sample text for required or recommended reading:
Quaratiello, Arlene Rodda. The College Student's Research Companion.
2nd edition. Neal Schuman Pub: NY, 2000.
