Challenge Three: Information Literacy
What it is:
The Information Literacy competency involves using critical thinking skills to assess the reliability of information from online sources. This includes evaluating the information to judge its accuracy and to determine whether the information comes from a reliable and trusted source (Critical Digital Literacy, University of Edinburgh). This is very important in our digital world, where anyone can publish any content online, making information so widespread and readily available.
Why it is important:
Since anyone can publish content online, increasingly we need to be critical of the information we interact with. The algorithms that are so deeply embedded in our online technologies compound the problem, influencing how the information we interact with is produced, prioritized, and presented. This can lead to the information being inaccurate, limited, or untrustworthy, or containing inherent biases because it is presented through a particular worldview and may not reflect other interpretations. So it’s crucial that we critically evaluate online information to assess its authority before interacting with it. Failing to do so runs the risk of spreading misinformation.
Examples:
- Explore how open pedagogy can facilitate the growth of critical information literacy skills in students with this article: Intersections of Open Pedagogy and Critical Information Literacy: A Case Study
Multimedia Activity
Read through the Explore section of The Digital Tattoo Project’s Algorithms and Your Data tutorial and then complete the quiz from the tutorial below:
Learning Activities
1. Learn it for yourself
Hopefully you’re now more familiar with what algorithms are, how they affect the information we interact with, and how they can be biased. They are an “integral part of our socio-digital eco-system” and strongly influence how online information is produced, prioritized, and presented to us (Marta Samokishyn, Educational Technology Users Group). So, as consumers of this information, how are you and your students vetting the online information you interact with? Concrete strategies are needed to help identify reputable sources and analyze the credibility and reliability of those sources.
Read and familiarize yourself with the following two models for evaluating the suitability of content that both you and your students can use:
- SIFT (Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context)
- CRAAP (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose)
Click on the image hotspots to see more information about the SIFT method. The image and text was adapted from Introduction to College Research by Walter D. Butler, Aloha Sargent, and Kelsey Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
These dialogue cards will give you a more in-depth look into the CRAAP method for evaluating sources. Click through each card to read more about each step. The information on these cards was adapted from Introduction to Professional Communications by Melissa Ashman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
2. Incorporate it into your teaching practice
Let’s put the CRAAP model to the test! Choose a new or existing resource that you want to include in your course for students to learn from. Apply the CRAAP model to the resource by using the questions listed under each of the letters to help you evaluate the suitability of the resource (Melissa Ashman, Introduction to Professional Communications). Then create a brief post that shares the outcome of applying the CRAAP test to the resource. Based on your evaluation:
- Would you deem the resource suitable to use in your course?
- Why or why not?
- What factors stood out that made the resource reliable or unreliable?
- What did you learn overall?
Think about how you can integrate the practice of evaluating content, using models like SIFT and CRAAP, explored above, into one of your course activities or assessments for your students to use. Here are some examples to consider:
- If students are using the internet to find information or perform research in your course, is there an opportunity to integrate an assignment that requires an annotated bibliography? Annotated bibliographies can help students methodically engage in the practice of evaluating resources and can be part of a larger research activity in your course. To model this for students, you might complete an annotated bibliography yourself. Then, when sharing it with students, walk them through your approach and thought process.
- If students are reading articles in your course, introducing them to the process of annotating resources can be beneficial for them. An example of a technology that can support this is Hypothes.is, which can be used both individually and collaboratively.
- Connect with your library or explore their LibGuides to see what support they can offer for you and your students. Can they visit your classroom for a presentation? Can you take your students to the library for a mini-lesson?
- Connect with your research office to see what support they can offer related to research and information literacy. Can they visit your classroom for a presentation?
Communicate to students the institutional supports (library, research office, writing centre, etc.) that are available to support them with their research and information literacy efforts. Include this information in places like your course outline, a “Student Supports” section in your course, and/or right in an assignment description when students may be looking for support in completing their assignment.
3. Teach it to students
- Revise the Annotated Bibliography lesson plan and customize it to include your institution’s specific resources. The assignment will help students locate sources relevant to a topic, summarize the main points or arguments in a scholarly article, and evaluate the authority of sources.
- Help students develop their algorithmic literacy so they understand how the information they are presented with was produced and prioritized. This will help them see why it’s essential that they evaluate the information they interact with on the internet. In Algorithmic Literacy: The Role of Academic Libraries in Creating Metaliterate Learners (presentation, 21 minutes), between 12:49 and 18:16, Marta Samokishyn shares some strategies for helping students develop algorithmic literacy.
- Algorithmic Awareness Toolkit: Teaching Algorithmic Literacy in Academic Libraries and Beyond features a variety of lessons related to algorithmic literacy. You might be particularly interested in:
Further Reading
- Hypothes.is is a free tool that allows you to mark up an article with notes as you’re reading and assessing its suitability for your purpose.
- Algorithms and information literacy are becoming inextricably linked in our digital world. Learn more about how algorithmic literacy intersects with information literacy, either in Algorithmic Literacy: The Role of Academic Libraries in Creating Metaliterate Learners (video, 20 minutes) or The Role of Algorithmic Literacy in Academia and Beyond: Some Considerations (article).
I think we can’t stress enough the importance to SIFT through CRAAP. I know I’m challenged sometime to recognize valid sources and not marketing material.
I also don’t want to limit my material to my own sphere of knowledge which is why it is so important to collaborate and share materials like all these good links! (thank you!)
I am familiar with annotated bibliography and CRAAP, however, seeing how to integrate them in the classroom was beneficial
I am really enjoying how this project is building on itself and look forward to the next several weeks of learning. The tools, and more importantly (for me at least) the ways they can be used are very helpful. As an ID who teaches other faculty as rather than students, I have already used some of the things I have learned in this project successfully, especially the SECTIONS model. While a great fan of Tony Bates, I was not familiar with this work of his.
Sift and CRAAP – excellent to address this in the Teach it to Students section this week. My fall 2024 course is really shaping up with these suggestions such as the Annotated Bib focus on university resources and I aim to share with our librarian. I was pleased to see the reference in the quiz to Cathy O’Neil’s great book – everyone should read this. I heard her speak a couple of years back, and Dr. Safiya Noble. Thank you for the examples here.
Hypothes.is – very cool tool. I am exploring how to use it in class on a team (public vs private settings).
I can see SIFT and CRAAP being useful. They’re simple and easy to remember and use. They encourage criticality and skepticism as well as awareness, thoroughness, and curiousity.
Perfect timing! I plan to share these resources with students in the Self-Directed Studies course that starts next week. Thanks.
SIFT and CRAAP are good tools to prove that our resources are of good quality.
I am one of those who always post references because I want to ensure that my students can keep up with their own research.
However, it seems a bit complicated when you are not an expert in what you want to share, so sometimes it is challenging to find the “correct” video/link/book to share with my students because I want to make sure what I am sharing is real and valid.
I think that references are always an important part of our resources, and the links provide to cite them are helpful for us and for the students.
These are excellent resources to share and discuss with students.
Thank you very much for third challenge. I was not particularly interested in algorithms and new to CIL but have a much greater appreciation for it now and understand how the information I presented was produced and prioritized. I Will think about how I can integrate the practice of evaluating content, using models like SIFT and CRAAP into one of my course activities or assessments for my students to use in the future.
On a more personal level, The google characteristic search was interesting everything was accurate but not children. Also very useful what AI uses to advertise ad my online presence so overall a very good experience.
SIFT and CRAAP
My students do a series of academic article analyses, part of which implement these practices, although I had not used these models explicitly. The main purpose of the assignments is to help students learn to read academic articles in a precise and accurate manner to get them beyond simple summarizing and enhance their understanding. A major section of assignment asks them to investigate the authors, institution, and verifiability of the research.
I have now made these two approaches explicit in the introduction to the assignment for my courses in the fall.
Algorithms
My Sociology of Popular Culture course includes a significant discussion of algorithms and the biases inherent within them. We look at Cathy O’Neil’s “Weapons of Math Destruction” to explore how biases are encoded in algorithms. We also discuss echo chambers and how these influence our viewpoints. I suggest they view the film “The Social Dilemma” to illustrate these points.
I will be adding the video from the beginning of this exercise to my course as a further illustration of these issues. Thanks for sharing it!