ETP - The E-Library

Contact course instructors

Updated 24 March 2006

insight into electronic (mostly) library resources and services that can assist you in research and professional development.
insight into creating coursework that will lead your students to reliable, authoritative information - and to an understanding of what constitutes "good" information.

Don't send them to the library with no guidance (don't assume they will figure it out on their own)
Don't have them look up their birthday
Avoid picking a subject by student's first or last name
Don't assign projects just for the sake of having a project
In other words, avoid assignments that do not fit the course's subject agenda
No trick questions or intentional wrong citations for them to stumble over
Do not have library/research instruction without an accompanying assignment
Avoid scavenger hunts
Bottom line — avoid perception of "busy work"!

Add a research component to an existing assignment
Have students annotate their bibliographies with information on how they found each citation
Have students collect a thesaurus of search terms related to their research topic, then possibly rate them for usefulness (i.e. what works best in a general database, on Google, in a higher-level database?)
Split "library" assignments into a variety of tasks throughout the semester
Ramp up the skill level over the semester by requiring more intense research skills with each writing assignment
Highlight bad information for students to analyze
Have students contribute to a class-wide collection of course-related Web sites, articles
Ask students to create a set of standards for Web sites
Discuss research strategies, finding tools, and Web sites via a course bulletin board
Have students create a flow chart for researching a topic, including the steps and tools they would use for finding each type of information
Effective Research Assignments - Guidelines for Instructors