Unit 1: Information literacy and digital skills

 

 

Learning outcomes:

  • Use digital tools for information gathering

  • Evaluate information sources

  • Identify sources and licences that can be used when creating resources

Structure:

  • Introduction

  • Activities

  • Tools

  • Self assessment

 

Brief description of content

 

  • By the end of the unit you will be able to use digital tools for information gathering. The course will provide insight into searching for information other than a basic Google search.

  • By the end of the unit you will be able to evaluate information sources. The internet is full of less than credible information, and you will develop tools for evaluating whether sources can be trusted, and how to identify untrustworthy sources.

  • By the end of the unit you will be able to identify sources and licences that can be used when creating resources: because something exists online doesn’t mean that anyone can use it. Learning to cite sources or to find resources with, for example, creative commons licences are important.

  • All these skills will be important for completing Units 2 and 3 of this module.

 

  1. Introduction: This includes video examples of how ubiquitous ads and targeted content is online (for example, no matter what you look for in a Google search the top hits are likely to be ads).

 

  1. Activities: You will find examples of news stories and explain why you think they are real or fake.

 

  1. Tools: This will help you develop good search strategies, ways to structure searches, and ways to better focus your searches.

 

COURSE CONTENT: Text, images, video.

  • The importance of citing sources and adhering to copyright.

  • On copyright and CC licences.

 

1.1: Introduction of terms: In the simplest terms literacy refers to your ability to read and write something. As technology advances different types of literacy emerge. Digital literacy has existed as a concept since the 1990s at least, and has become increasingly more relevant with the rise of digital technologies. According to Eshet-Alkalai (2004) digital literacy is more than just your ability to use software or machinery, although there is no generally agreed definition of what is digital literacy.

 

Digital literacy is closely connected to information literacy and media literacy and it includes reading instructions, and being able to ascertain the validity and quality of the information you find online (Eshet-Alkalai, 2004). Media literacy means developing critical thinking skills around all kinds of media, and understanding how media messages shape our culture. Information literacy is often taught by librarians and is your ability to understand when information is needed, to know where to find information and how to evaluate it, and how to use it. As more information and knowledge moves to online media, digital and information literacy merge into one big literacy that is necessary to be able to avoid fake news and misleading information.

 

Bias: a tendency, inclination or prejudice towards or against something or someone. Biases are often based on stereotypes rather than actual knowledge. If you are a student of medicine a bias might be that good articles are published in The Lancet, and other journals are useless (this is a somewhat extreme example to make a point). Bias can be implicit or unconscious, you might not know you have it. If you see a poorly built website you might think the whole website is useless, but the information presented might still be correct and useful.

 

Here you can learn more by watching at least one of these short videos,

 

  • Information literacy video:

What is Information Literacy?

 

Task 1: Questions. Now think about:

  • Where do you search for the information you need for your daily life? (Deliver your answer here)

  • What about information for your school work or university life? (Deliver your answer here)

 

After you have done the above consider the following: Do you start from google or wikipedia to find information? Consider the following.

 

For research literature: Instead of Google try Google scholar, which searches for academic texts. It is by no means perfect, but it is often more reliable than many of the hits in regular Google. If you’re a university student, Google scholar often gives you access to research articles and peer-reviewed research through your institution’s library.

 

Can I use Wikipedia? Wikipedia is ubiquitous and massive. It is often among the first results when you search for something online. It is community run and anyone can write anything on Wikipedia. This doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it also means it’s not perfect.

Wikipedia is often a good jumping-off-point. If you find a Wikipedia-article with a robust bibliography you should probably not use the Wikipedia article, but the references used are often good and can be a good starting point. It’s also free, which is a massive plus when you compare it to something like Encyclopaedia Britannica for instance.

 

Academic databases

While Google Scholar is good for a cursory search of academic literature if you want curated academic literature an academic database is a better bet.

Academic databases are different depending on your area of study, or which subject you’re looking for. They are also usually not free. University libraries pay for subscriptions for academic databases, and often articles and books are not free to use. If you’re a student at a university you will probably have access. With the continued push for Open Access (REF) there is also an increasing number of articles and books that are open to all, regardless of a university affiliation.

 

Academic databases usually have articles and journals that have been subject to peer-review, which make them more trustworthy than random articles. This field is also subject to bad actors however. It usually costs money to publish scholarly articles under the current model and that means people try to take advantage of this.

 

1.2 Finding literature – search strategies

There are differences in searching functions in all databases, but there are also general strategies you can use to improve your searches to find the literature you need.

 

Some general tips,

  • Use synonyms to expand your search. Searching for just one version of the word will only yield so many results, using synonyms will produce more results.

  • Check the resources in your particular field, for the correct term for the word you’re searching for. There are often field specific terms for everyday words, e.g.,

    • While we use the word “cancer”, a medical database might use “neoplasm” which is a more medically accurate word.

    • Look into what these words are so you can find the most accurate search terms.

  • Use truncation to expand your search. Truncation means to shorten a word and searching for the stemmed word; by adding a symbol, usually a *, you open up for more search terms. “Computer” yields hits for computer. “Comput*” yields hits for computer, computers, computation, computes, etc.

 

  • Use Boolean operators to expand or limit your search. Boolean operators are simple words used to combine or exclude results, the common ones are AND, OR, NOT, e.g.,

    • Computer AND robot – AND forces the search results to contain both words. It narrows your search as it excludes results which only contain one of the words. It is a good way of limiting the result list if it becomes too overwhelming.

    • Computer OR robot – OR forces the search results to contain either word, or both words. This operator expands your search. It’s useful if you don’t get a lot of results and want more.

    • Computer NOT robot – NOT excludes hits with one of the words in them. This narrows your search, but might make you miss relevant documents. Therefore you should use it sparingly. It might still be useful if you are struggling to find relevant documents because one of the terms you’re using is more common than the other.

 

                                          

Illustration of Boolean operators: searching for Computer NOT Robot in the top left image, only the yellow results will be displayed. The image in the top right uses OR to expand the hit. The bottom illustration shows how AND works. Only the results in the green middle bit will be presented.

 

Task 2: Questions. Now think about,

  • Which strategies do you use to evaluate information you find? (Deliver your answer here)

  • We all have biases – no one is free from bias: which biases do you have? Are they based on how something looks? (If the website looks professional or new are you more likely to trust it?) (Deliver your answer here)

 

1.3 Evaluating information

 

Students (and researchers) are often taught check-lists to ascertain if something is credible or useful. This might work in certain instances, but they are not always enough. There are lists like RADCAB and CRAAP. RADCAB stands for Relevancy, Appropriateness, Detail, Currency, Authority, Bias. CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose. While these are often good to a certain extent, they aren’t the be-all and end-all. If you are going to write about something like social media then currency is important – how recent is the information? If it’s from 2007 it might give some insight into Facebook in 2006-2007, but give you nothing on what Facebook is like today.

 

Digital literacy is not a checklist of abstract skills. It also has to do with your actual literacy, your reading and writing comprehension. Anyone can build a website and make it look credible, that doesn’t mean it is. It also means you have to know things. You need a basic understanding of the world to know how to extract the correct information.

 

Strategies you can use

Google is ubiquitous, and because it is a company it is invested in selling ads. The way they do that is often to sell ads to companies whose products are then pushed higher up in the results. If you search for something as innocent as “shirt”, you’ll get several ads for shirts, and a link to a music video called Shirt, on YouTube (which is owned by Google).

 

 

This won’t happen with everything you search, but even if you search for open innovation you get an Ad from Nokia.

 

 

When a journalist, or fact checker looks into a case or a story, they don’t use tests like CRAAP or RADCAB. A well-known example in information literacy teaching is the Pacific NorthWest tree octopus. The site is kept up to date, thus it is current. It looks like it’s supported by a university, which is good, and it links to news, and Greenpeace. However, if you have a passing understanding of octopuses, you’ll know this is a hoax. Octopuses are marine animals; they can’t survive in trees!

 

The problem with check-lists is that they often base themselves on information you find on the web page you’re looking at. If you want to find out if the tree octopus is real, the first thing you should do is leave the website and search somewhere else. You might be directed to Snopes, which is a credible fact checking resource. Or you might find the Wikipedia article about these octopuses and read that it’s a hoax. Of course, you have to know about Snopes to know to check Snopes.

 

Learners often struggle with separating native adverts from articles. They also struggle to see possible bias in policy statements.

  • Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research.

  • Go upstream to the source of the claim: Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information.

  • Read laterally: Read laterally.[1] Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.). The truth is in the network. Don’t trust the website, google the claim, or check an academic database.

  • Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions (Caulfield, 2017).

Research literature

When it comes to research literature the checklists might be more helpful.

An example of a checklist is the CRAAP test, and while it might not be useful in all cases it can be helpful when reading research literature.

 

Currency: Depending on the subject you’re writing about, the currency of an article or book might be very important. If you’re writing about social media or COVID-19 information should be new enough so that you know it is current and correct. Make sure the information you’re reading hasn’t been revised or updated elsewhere since the text was published. If you’re writing about something older you look further back, but also make sure you’re using current information and updated terms.

 

Relevance: Does the information in this article answer the questions you have? Does it help you with your own work? Is it at a high enough level? If you’re writing for university, information meant for first graders is probably too basic. Have you looked at several sources before deciding on this one article?

 

Authority: Is the author someone with qualifications and credentials that make them qualified to write on this subject? Is it easy to find the author’s credentials? Can you verify this when you check out the institution’s website? People can claim to work wherever they want, but that doesn’t mean they do. Is it easy to contact the publisher of the work? Does the URL reveal anything about the source or the author? Hoax websites will often make their names look very similar to the real thing, make sure you’re

 

Accuracy: Has the data the text is based on been collected through reputable sources? Is it clear how experiments were conducted and how results were obtained? Was the article subject to peer review? Can you verify this information? If you read a similar article on the same subject, would the results look similar? If not, have the writers explained the difference? It might be newer equipment or the people they talked to might come from different backgrounds, or maybe some event happened in the meantime which changed all the results. Has this been properly explained?

 

Purpose: What’s the purpose of the information? Is this a research article in a reputable journal? If it’s sponsored by someone then the results may be biassed. If the tobacco industry pays for research into whether or not smoking causes cancer then it might not give you all the right information. Does there seem to be an objective and impartial point of view? Are there any biases you should be aware of (political, ideological, cultural, institutional)?

 

Citation

Citing sources is good scientific practice. It shows you’re not trying to take credit for other people’s work and it shows you’ve looked into the topic you’re writing about by reading other literature on the topic. It also puts your work into a greater scientific context. It is also important when the world, and information, becomes more polarised. Citing sources shows what your arguments are based on, and that you’ve not picked them out of thin air.

 

Citing is also good practice in other contexts, even if the requirements are not as strict as for a university paper, for example. One of the most important reasons is to make it easy for other people to find where you found the source you’re using. It is also important to recognize the work of others. To cite something on a personal website it might be enough to write, ‘Source: www.europeana.eu’. In an academic text there are stricter rules, and you’ll have to choose the correct style.

 

Copyright

Copyright is a complex and complicated issue and you should look at the suggestions for further information at the end of this unit. Here is a very simple explanation of the concept.

  • Copyright protects your right to a textual or artistic work where you are the creator [2]. Copyright is automatically awarded. It gives a creator the rights to control how their own work is disseminated, if it can be copied, adapted, and so on.

  • Copyright is also a legal right. That means, if you want to know about your home country’s particular copyright, or the country in which you’re disseminating your work, you should look up the law in that country.

  • Books, movies, songs, images all have copyright. It is important to note that the expression (i.e., writing, images etc.) is copyrighted, and not an idea. An idea without expression cannot be copyrighted.

  • There is no international copyright law, but most countries have their own version of similar laws. The US has a copyright law, as does the EU. 180 countries have also ratified the Berne convention, which sets a minimum set of standards for the protection of the rights of the creators of copyrighted works around the world.

 

Public domain

Public domain refers to works that are no longer protected by copyright law, if the copyright has expired; for example, if the author has been dead for over 70 years (duration might vary). It also refers to categories of works that were never protected by copyright.

 

Re-use

If you want to use something that has been copyrighted by someone else you might have to ask for permission. Images and songs you find online and want to use in your own work are most likely copyrighted, and there’s a good chance you’ll have to ask to reuse them. It is always better to ask one time too many before you use someone else’s work, rather than not ask at all. You can licence your work for reuse with something called Creative Commons.

 

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organisation that enables sharing and reuse of creative works. They have free legal tools to help people who want to encourage other people to reuse their works. Creative Commons are not against Copyright, rather they are based on copyright and depend on it. CC licences are tools to offer certain usage rights.

 

Several search engines have set up ways for you to filter out which images for example have a creative commons attached. If you need an image for something you can use the database flickr. A lot of photographers upload images here with licences, and you can filter so you only get the CC-licenced images.

 

 

If I wanted to use this image I found on Flickr I would need to attribute it like I have done underneath the image.

 

Robot holding a black screw on blue background by Marco Verch under Creative Commons BY 2.0

 

 

Self-assessment

 

Now find out what you have learned by doing this short quiz. Check back in the module to see if you have the right answer.

 

 Task 3: Quiz:

 

 ACTIVITY: The final activity gives you the chance to apply what you have learned.

 

Task 4: Creating a presentation

 

  • Create a presentation about a CHO of your choosing. Create your presentation using Miro, PowerPoint or in any other way that is familiar to you.

 

  • Find accurate historical information, accurate new information, and find pictures and images you can use that are either in the public domain, or licensed for use through Creative commons.

 

  • Remember to properly cite the sources you’ve used.

 

 

Suggestions for Further Readings

 

https://creativecommons.org/

https://pressbooks.pub/webliteracy/front-matter/web-strategies-for-student-fact-checkers/

 

 

Footnotes:

  1. You can find more information on the subject of Bias here: Bias | Psychology Today