INLS200: Retrieving and Analzying Information

Source evaluation matrix

We make evaluations on the information we process every day. Many of these decisions we make unconsciously--how do you decide which websites to trust? How do you decide which books to check out of the library? How do you select which songs to download onto your iPod? These questions all deal with critically evaluating the information and the sources of information for issues of authority, accuracy, currency, coverage, scope, etc. In addition, we make decisions about what we select based on our particular needs and the information we have previously selected.

For this assignment you will be asked to choose some information for a particular project and provide an evaluation of that information. The evaluation will be presented in the form of a matrix, with columns representng evaluation criteria and rows reprenting the information sources. Each cell will be a short summary of how the criteria applies to your information source. For your evaluation criteria, you must include at least these five (but you are welcome to include more):

1. 1. Authority: who wrote or published this work? Do you trust them?
2. 2. Scope: who is the audience for this work? How thorough is it? How current is it?
3. 3. Treatment: is this an unbiased information source? If it is biased, do you have other sources to counter-balance it?
4. 4. Accessibility: is this work accessible to a large number of people? Is there a cost associated with its use? Is this a unique item?
5. 5. Relationship: what is the relationship of this work to other works you have? Does it add something new or complement your other choices?

In terms of sources, I would like you to include at least ten sources comprised of at least three different formats (i.e., monograph, journal article, news article, music, video, blog, encyclopedia, etc.). The topic can be anything you choose--a topic you are researching for another class, a topic of your own personal interest, or your topic for your final project in this class. (NOTE: You must turn in an independent product for this assignment, even if you chose to do the final project topic.)

• Due date: October 20
• Points possible: 50 (1 point for each cell)
• Total value of final grade: 15%

In-class workshops

I expect that most of you have experienced searching for information and are fairly frequent users of search engines such as Google. However, part of the focus of this class is to help you move from being a normal consumer and user of these tools to an advanced searcher and critical consumer of information. You will use more sophisticated search techniques for the tools you may already know and will be introduced to a new set of tools that will help you be a more competitive searcher and consumer.

This assignment will be done entirely in class and will cover web searching, database searching, citation searching, and searching within the domain of ILS. Since we will be working through these assignments in class, you are expected to bring your laptop on days that we will be searching. If you know in advance that you will not be able to be in class for the day of the workshop, you must let me know at least 48 hours before the beginning of class to make alternate arrangements for the workshop. If you have something unexpected come up, you will be given one week to make-up the workshop for partial (3/5) credit.

• Workshop dates: September 10, September 17, September 22, October 6, October 15
• Points possible: 25 (5 points for each workshop)
• Total value of final grade: 25%

Current events posts

As we will discuss in class, information science is concerned with "the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, transmission, transformation, and utilization of information" (Borko, 1968) of all formats and across all fields. As you may guess, the advent of the "information age" puts information science at the heart of many contemporary debates and current issues.

For this assignment, you will be expected to find news that is related to the field of information science and post a commentary about the story to a Bb discussion forum. I also expect you to read the posts submitted by other students and post comments about these posts. You will be required to post at least four times by November 24th--two posts should be posts/links to news stories and two posts should be commentary on posts submitted by other students. (NOTE: Only the first person to submit a link to a particular story will be accepted. Subsequent posts can cover the same story, but must link to accounts from other sources.)

• Due date: November 24
• Points possible: 20 (7 points for each post, 3 points for each comment)
• Total value of final grade: 20%

Wikipedia article and presentation

Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based, free content encyclopedia project, written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world.

For this assignment, you will write a Wikipedia article on an information and library science topic of your choosing. You will work in groups of 2-3 on this project. Group composition and topic choice must be turned in by October 13. If you need help in choosing a group or topic, please come and see me. If you need additional assistance in selecting a topic, the following sources may be helpful:

1. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science
2. ASIS&T Thesaurus of Information Science, Technology, and Librarianship
3. Dictionary for Library and Information Science

You may also want to consult Wikipedia's requested article lists, particularly the lists for library sciences and computer science, computing, and Internet. You may also want to look through the topics on the schedule for this class and other classes within SILS.

You may choose a topic for which there is no current article in Wikipedia or one that only has a stub. If you choose a well-developed article, you should make substantial changes to that article, develop a currently undeveloped section of the article, or break off one section into a new article. Regardless of which you choose, your article should aspire to featured article status. The same criteria used for selecting for this status will be used in my final evaluation of your product.

Please look over the following Wikipedia resources for help in using Wikipedia and crafting your article:

1. Tutorial
2. Your first artice
3. Article development
4. Manual of style

Before you begin writing, every member of your group should create an account on Wikipedia. Then, when you are writing your article, make sure that you are logged in. When you submit your final product, I will want both a link to the article and the usernames for every member of your group. This will allow me to see all of your contributions to the article.

Each group will give a 15 minute presentation of their article to the class. In this presentation, I would like for you to give a brief overview of the content area of your article, but to focus mainly on the process of creating your product. What was it like to write in this space? What were the challenges? How did you choose resources for your article? What were the strengths and weaknesses of writing collaboratively (both collaborations within your group and collaborations with the world of Wikipedia users/editors)? Your final product will be "turned in" on December 8, giving you a chance to incorporate any feedback you may receive from your oral presentations. (This assignment description was taken in large part from Dr. Pomerantz.)

• Due dates: October 13 (group and topic choice), December 1 and 3 (presentations), December 8 (final product)
• Points possible: 100 (10 points for the presentation, 5 points for turning in the topic/group choice on time, 85 points for the final product)
• Total value of final grade: 30%