An Introductory Tutorial for Budding Researchers
Give your students the skills and knowledge to succeed in their research assignments by integrating our self-paced Research Fundamentals tutorial in Brightspace. This interactive four-unit tutorial, designed specifically for first-year undergraduate students, imparts vital research and information skills, ensuring your students have the fundamentals of finding and evaluating information resources.
Enrolment
Students can self-enroll in the tutorial on their own time. Each unit concludes with a quiz, rewarding successful completion with a Unit Badge. Earn all four badges, and students will be awarded a printable PDF certificate.
Completion
Incorporating Research Fundamentals in your curriculum is easy. We suggest adding an assignment requiring students to upload their certificate. This assignment could be worth a small percentage (we recommend 2%) or serve as a pass/fail or participation mark. For students who have previously completed the Research Fundamentals tutorial, they can upload their existing certificate, saving the need to retake the tutorial.
Curriculum
The tutorial is divided into four comprehensive units:
Students will be able to:
- Identify stakeholders and processes involved in the production of information resources.
- Differentiate between resource types and their respective applications.
- Find and evaluate news sources.
Why is this important?
Students who can critically assess, evaluate, and identify information they come across in and outside the classroom are building integral skills to incorporate appropriate information sources into their assignments and coursework.
Students will be able to:
- Learn about the process and challenges involved in peer review.
- Discover Indigenous ways of knowing and traditional knowledge methods relating to research practices.
- Learn to discern information from a citation/reference.
- Understand the significance of attribution in academia.
Why is this important?
Students who understand the rigors of scholarly publishing contrasted with alternative ways of knowing are building up the ability to incorporate a wider and more representative interpretation of topics in their field of study.
Students will be able to:
- Identify research questions.
- Translate research topics into key search concepts.
- Learn how to seek guidance from a librarian.
Why is this important?
Students who can recognize themes and concepts within a research topic or question are developing key skills that make searching for information more efficient and successful.
Students will be able to:
- Learn how to log in to Brock resources both on and off-campus.
- Find and navigate program/course guides.
- Use basic search operators (AND/OR) in a Library database.
Why is this important?
Students who understand advanced technical skills when searching for information are developing the ability to persist when confronted with hard-to-find information or hard-to-use platforms.
Join Us
Interested in adopting this approach? Please reach out to Vanja Stojanovic, Teaching and Learning Librarian. We look forward to having you on board!