General Education Program Learning Outcome II - Information Literacy

Standard One: The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.

Standard Two: The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently.

Standard Three: The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.

1. Ask students to choose a topic, develop key terms to search with, and use two different databases to locate information on their topic. Have them compare the results in terms of quantity, types of sources (e.g., government, educational, scholarly, commercial), order/sequence of results, and relevance. Pair students who used different databases with the same topics to compare results.
2. Ask students to write a critique of several databases in a particular discipline, including their coverage, design, and search interface. (Students need to be pointed to a list of databases.)
3. Assign students to identify and use subject headings after conducting a keyword search; after which they write a paragraph on the differences between subject and keyword searching.
4. Ask students to identify and record the terms used in different databases that cover the same topic. This assignment works well, for example, for historical and out-of-date terms for race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Recommended Tutorials: Information Literacy 

• Module 1: How Do I Search & Search Logic
• Module 3: How Do I Find Books
• Module 4: How Do I Find Articles

When searching for a newspaper article about a recent natural disaster in California, which search will give you relevant results?

• Searching a library biology database using the term “natural disaster”
• Searching a library biology database using the terms “natural disaster AND California”
• Searching a newspaper database with the term “natural disaster”
• Searching a newspaper database with the terms “natural disaster AND California”

How can you narrow your search (check all that apply):

• adding an additional keyword or concept
• using database suggestions of ways to narrow
• deleting a keyword
• starting your search over

When you are searching article databases, the words AND, OR, and NOT work as Boolean operators. If you search for "Food OR Diet" you will*:

• narrow your search
• retrieve records that include both terms
• retrieve records that include either term
• eliminate records containing the second term

If you search for "Food NOT Drink", you will:

• narrow your search
• retrieve records that include both terms
• retrieve records that include either term
• eliminate records containing the second term

 Which statement describes the best way to find books on careers in public health?

• careers AND public AND health
• careers NOT “public health”
• careers AND “public health”
• careers OR public OR health

 Source: University of Cincinnati