In order to nurture your ability to participate in ever-changing information environments:
- Ask questions about authority and expertise:
- Who authored/created the information?
- How does knowing about the authors/creators impact how you understand the information and how you might use it?
- Why did the author create the information -- what is its purpose?
- In what areas do you, as a creator, have authority and expertise?
- Ask questions about format:
- What process does information go through in order to be created?
- What container is it presented in (for example, is it a YouTube video, news article, tweet, book, documentary, a peer-reviewed journal article?)
- How does understanding the process and format of a given piece of information impact how you understand the information and how you might use the information or create within that format?
- Ask questions about the value of information:
- How does this information have value?
- Is the value socioeconomic? Educational? Aesthetic? Political?
- What about commodification of personal information?
- What is intellectual property, public domain, copyright, fair use, and open access?
- How does understanding the value of information impact how you use and create information?
- Challenge yourself to be reflective of your own research process:
- How can you engage with information that already exists in order to produce new knowledge?
- How can you be sure to include an array of perspectives and ideas throughout the research process and in your final project?
- How to organize information in meaningful and ethical ways, and how to draw reasonable conclusions based on analysis?
- Understand how experts communicate and produce new knowledge:
- How do experts communicate with each other?
- How can you locate expert communications?
- How does a diverse array of perspectives and opinions within a scholarly community work to create new knowledge and understanding?
- See the importance of effective search strategies:
- How can you match your information need with appropriate tools, search terms, formats, and strategies?
- Do you understand how search results are generated and that searching for information often requires thoughtful planning and a willingness to change course with respect to search results?
- How are information systems organized?
- Are you aware of the lengthy process that is often required to find results that are relevant to your search needs?
