acceptable sources for undergraduate research in new media fields
Hi all, I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated. Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and the *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals. TIA, Tery Griffin Associate Professor of Media Arts Wesley College Dover DE 19901
While I understand where you're coming from in not wanting freshmen to simply rattle off the top 5 google hits for their topic, I'm not sure that banning internet sources is going to accomplish the goal you're setting out to do. As you say, the more recent your topic, the more publication delay and other factors bite into your available sources on it. My suggestion (and one that has worked reasonably well for me) is to spend some time with them identifying what the difference between a credible/acceptable source and a non-credible source is, at least in terms of what you consider those things to be. The usual offender here for me is Wikipedia; while there is a time and a place for citing a Wikipedia article, for example, I've had students use it as the end-all-be-all of knowledge on any given subject. This usually leads to me walking them through a recently-vandalized Wikipedia page's history (my favorite was a page for the *Transformers* animated shows that replaced all the image captions with rap lyrics) and explaining the ups and downs of wikis as information sources. I think if you make it clear that "JOE BOB'S SUPER AWESOME GLEE BLOG!" is not a credible source, but the actual show website from Fox is, they'll get the drift. I just feel like, in banning Google as a research tool, you are inadvertently keeping good, useful sources out of the hands of your students in an attempt to get them not to use it poorly. If you spend the time to walk them through how to determine is information is reliable, credible, and substantiated instead, I think you will reap greater rewards in the long run. On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Tery G <teryg93@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated.
Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and the *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals.
TIA, Tery Griffin
Associate Professor of Media Arts Wesley College Dover DE 19901 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Todd Harper Postdoctoral Researcher, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab -- http://gambit.mit.edu laevantine@gmail.com
Let me second what Todd said ... ... and add one more wrinkle. I require students doing research projects in my classes to include a certain number of "qualifying sources" (one of the criteria being that the work in question has to be scholarly in nature) ... but anything above and beyond those qualifying sources is fair game. After all, I don't want them to *avoid* sources that might actually provide them with useful information. I simply want to make sure that they engage in a particular type of research as part of the overall process. cheers gil On 10/20/2010 10:34 AM, Todd Harper wrote:
While I understand where you're coming from in not wanting freshmen to simply rattle off the top 5 google hits for their topic, I'm not sure that banning internet sources is going to accomplish the goal you're setting out to do. As you say, the more recent your topic, the more publication delay and other factors bite into your available sources on it.
My suggestion (and one that has worked reasonably well for me) is to spend some time with them identifying what the difference between a credible/acceptable source and a non-credible source is, at least in terms of what you consider those things to be. The usual offender here for me is Wikipedia; while there is a time and a place for citing a Wikipedia article, for example, I've had students use it as the end-all-be-all of knowledge on any given subject. This usually leads to me walking them through a recently-vandalized Wikipedia page's history (my favorite was a page for the *Transformers* animated shows that replaced all the image captions with rap lyrics) and explaining the ups and downs of wikis as information sources.
I think if you make it clear that "JOE BOB'S SUPER AWESOME GLEE BLOG!" is not a credible source, but the actual show website from Fox is, they'll get the drift. I just feel like, in banning Google as a research tool, you are inadvertently keeping good, useful sources out of the hands of your students in an attempt to get them not to use it poorly. If you spend the time to walk them through how to determine is information is reliable, credible, and substantiated instead, I think you will reap greater rewards in the long run.
On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Tery G<teryg93@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated.
Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and the *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals.
TIA, Tery Griffin
Associate Professor of Media Arts Wesley College Dover DE 19901 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
On the subject, the Washington Post serves up a really striking object lesson in the perils of improper internet sourcing today: a 4th-grade history textbook's claim that "thousands" of blacks fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Rejected by most credible historians, this claim is espoused by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a revisionist organization whose work the author uncritically incorporated from the open web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907... ~DEEN On 10/20/10 8:46 AM, Gilbert B. Rodman wrote:
Let me second what Todd said ...
... and add one more wrinkle. I require students doing research projects in my classes to include a certain number of "qualifying sources" (one of the criteria being that the work in question has to be scholarly in nature) ... but anything above and beyond those qualifying sources is fair game. After all, I don't want them to *avoid* sources that might actually provide them with useful information. I simply want to make sure that they engage in a particular type of research as part of the overall process.
cheers gil
On 10/20/2010 10:34 AM, Todd Harper wrote:
While I understand where you're coming from in not wanting freshmen to simply rattle off the top 5 google hits for their topic, I'm not sure that banning internet sources is going to accomplish the goal you're setting out to do. As you say, the more recent your topic, the more publication delay and other factors bite into your available sources on it.
My suggestion (and one that has worked reasonably well for me) is to spend some time with them identifying what the difference between a credible/acceptable source and a non-credible source is, at least in terms of what you consider those things to be. The usual offender here for me is Wikipedia; while there is a time and a place for citing a Wikipedia article, for example, I've had students use it as the end-all-be-all of knowledge on any given subject. This usually leads to me walking them through a recently-vandalized Wikipedia page's history (my favorite was a page for the *Transformers* animated shows that replaced all the image captions with rap lyrics) and explaining the ups and downs of wikis as information sources.
I think if you make it clear that "JOE BOB'S SUPER AWESOME GLEE BLOG!" is not a credible source, but the actual show website from Fox is, they'll get the drift. I just feel like, in banning Google as a research tool, you are inadvertently keeping good, useful sources out of the hands of your students in an attempt to get them not to use it poorly. If you spend the time to walk them through how to determine is information is reliable, credible, and substantiated instead, I think you will reap greater rewards in the long run.
On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Tery G<teryg93@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated.
Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and the *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals.
TIA, Tery Griffin
Associate Professor of Media Arts Wesley College Dover DE 19901 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Communication University of Washington dfreelon@uw.edu http://dfreelon.org/
On the "Our Virginia" textbook issue, see also The Atlantic's web page, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/understanding-virginias-... Yes, Virginia, we really do call that education. . . in Virginia Christopher J. Richter Associate Professor, Communication Studies Hollins University 8015 Quadrangle Lane PO Box 9652 Roanoke, VA 24020-1652 Tel: 5403626358 Fax: 5403626286 crichter@hollins.edu www.hollins.edu -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Deen Freelon Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 1:34 PM To: Air-L Subject: Re: [Air-L] acceptable sources for undergraduate research in new media fields On the subject, the Washington Post serves up a really striking object lesson in the perils of improper internet sourcing today: a 4th-grade history textbook's claim that "thousands" of blacks fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Rejected by most credible historians, this claim is espoused by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a revisionist organization whose work the author uncritically incorporated from the open web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907... ~DEEN On 10/20/10 8:46 AM, Gilbert B. Rodman wrote:
Let me second what Todd said ...
... and add one more wrinkle. I require students doing research projects in my classes to include a certain number of "qualifying sources" (one of the criteria being that the work in question has to be scholarly in nature) ... but anything above and beyond those qualifying sources is fair game. After all, I don't want them to *avoid* sources that might actually provide them with useful information. I simply want to make sure that they engage in a particular type of research as part of the overall process.
cheers gil
On 10/20/2010 10:34 AM, Todd Harper wrote:
While I understand where you're coming from in not wanting freshmen to simply rattle off the top 5 google hits for their topic, I'm not sure that banning internet sources is going to accomplish the goal you're setting out to do. As you say, the more recent your topic, the more publication delay and other factors bite into your available sources on it.
My suggestion (and one that has worked reasonably well for me) is to spend some time with them identifying what the difference between a credible/acceptable source and a non-credible source is, at least in terms of what you consider those things to be. The usual offender here for me is Wikipedia; while there is a time and a place for citing a Wikipedia article, for example, I've had students use it as the end-all-be-all of knowledge on any given subject. This usually leads to me walking them through a recently-vandalized Wikipedia page's history (my favorite was a page for the *Transformers* animated shows that replaced all the image captions with rap lyrics) and explaining the ups and downs of wikis as information sources.
I think if you make it clear that "JOE BOB'S SUPER AWESOME GLEE BLOG!" is not a credible source, but the actual show website from Fox is, they'll get the drift. I just feel like, in banning Google as a research tool, you are inadvertently keeping good, useful sources out of the hands of your students in an attempt to get them not to use it poorly. If you spend the time to walk them through how to determine is information is reliable, credible, and substantiated instead, I think you will reap greater rewards in the long run.
On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Tery G<teryg93@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated.
Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and the *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals.
TIA, Tery Griffin
Associate Professor of Media Arts Wesley College Dover DE 19901 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Deen Freelon Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Communication University of Washington dfreelon@uw.edu http://dfreelon.org/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Hi Todd, I used to get Wikipedia a lot, but I've explained to them that encyclopedias in general are not college-level sources. I do tell them Wikipedia can be a good place to start, to see what it links to; sometimes they can find good sources that way. And I go through a writing exercise where they look up a topic on google that I know will turn up bad results near the top. I explain that Tim Berners-Lee's blog, for instance, would be an acceptable source if their topic was the world wide web. I also show them Google Scholar and the library databases, though I know they've seen the databases before. Many of my colleagues object to spending even that much class time on locating good sources, believing the students should already know that or should be taught it outside of a class that concentrates on other subject matter (their comp classes, I suppose). Still, come the end of the semester, their final projects are full of web pages that were convenient (ie. on the first page of search results, or, at most, the second), or worse -- that agreed with their initial take on the subject without getting them to really think about it. They can tell me what makes an acceptable web source, but when it comes to actually getting the work done, too many use whatever they can find. Tery On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Todd Harper <laevantine@gmail.com> wrote:
While I understand where you're coming from in not wanting freshmen to simply rattle off the top 5 google hits for their topic, I'm not sure that banning internet sources is going to accomplish the goal you're setting out to do. As you say, the more recent your topic, the more publication delay and other factors bite into your available sources on it.
My suggestion (and one that has worked reasonably well for me) is to spend some time with them identifying what the difference between a credible/acceptable source and a non-credible source is, at least in terms of what you consider those things to be. The usual offender here for me is Wikipedia; while there is a time and a place for citing a Wikipedia article, for example, I've had students use it as the end-all-be-all of knowledge on any given subject. This usually leads to me walking them through a recently-vandalized Wikipedia page's history (my favorite was a page for the *Transformers* animated shows that replaced all the image captions with rap lyrics) and explaining the ups and downs of wikis as information sources.
I think if you make it clear that "JOE BOB'S SUPER AWESOME GLEE BLOG!" is not a credible source, but the actual show website from Fox is, they'll get the drift. I just feel like, in banning Google as a research tool, you are inadvertently keeping good, useful sources out of the hands of your students in an attempt to get them not to use it poorly. If you spend the time to walk them through how to determine is information is reliable, credible, and substantiated instead, I think you will reap greater rewards in the long run.
On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Tery G <teryg93@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated.
Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and the *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals.
TIA, Tery Griffin
Associate Professor of Media Arts Wesley College Dover DE 19901 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Todd Harper Postdoctoral Researcher, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab -- http://gambit.mit.edu laevantine@gmail.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Tery, I like the fact that the research aspect of your final project itself becomes an exercise in digital media literacy! Do you approach it that way in terms of grading criteria? On similar projects, I sometimes pre-approve (or disapprove) topics based in part on my estimation of what lit they might find. Also, I have allowed students to use, in more or less ranked order: Journal articles; conference papers, which are at least minimally refereed, but with less delay than for journal articles (a lot of International Communication Association conference papers, e.g., are on a data base our library subscribes to--EBSCO, I think); works by journalists generally--not just NYT, but also L.A. Times, Washington Post, Wall St. Journal, Chronicle of Higher Ed., even Wired Magazine; finally, blogs and other web sources that may/may not be as reliable, but that I ask students to consider critically, and in the context of the other, potentially more balanced sources they (I hope) have found. This approach isn't 100% effective--but I am convinced that often the students with weak sources weren't as persistent or careful as others, and I grade them accordingly. Christopher J. Richter Associate Professor, Communication Studies Hollins University 8015 Quadrangle Lane PO Box 9652 Roanoke, VA 24020-1652 Tel: 5403626358 Fax: 5403626286 crichter@hollins.edu www.hollins.edu -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Tery G Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 10:57 AM To: Air-L@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] acceptable sources for undergraduate research in new media fields Hi all, I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated. Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and the *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals. TIA, Tery Griffin Associate Professor of Media Arts Wesley College Dover DE 19901 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (5)
-
Christopher Richter -
Deen Freelon -
Gilbert B. Rodman -
Tery G -
Todd Harper