Research Project
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Overview
This course has one major assignment: a research project. This
assignment requires you to:
1. Explore the field of Information & Library Science; and
2. Develop strategies to retrieve information, evaluate the information
retrieved, and use that information to respond to a question.
This assignment is broken up into several components, which are
the smaller steps that you must go through to conduct a research
project and write a research paper (this or any other research project).
You will select a topic to research within the scope of Information
Science. You will explore (i.e., examine, evaluate, and use) various
sources to retrieve information relevant to your question. Finally,
you will critique your information sources in portfolio entries,
list your sources in a bibliography, and assemble the information
into a brief report responding to the question.
Deliverables
1. Research question
-- First Draft of Research Question. Due date: September 4. Points: 5
-- Second Draft of Research Question. Due date: September 16 Points:
5
-- Recording any subsequent changes and rationale for changes (Due
Dec. 4th)
2. Group Topic presentation
-- Form groups and present your topics and information search plans.
Due date: October 7 & 9. Points: 5
3. Source evaluation
-- Website Evaluation Due date: September 30. Points: 10
-- Book Evaluation Due date: October 21. Points: 10
-- Journal Article Evaluation. Due date: November 4. Points: 10
4. Final report
-- Written Report. Due date: December 4. Points: 15
-- Annotated bibliography December 4. Points: 15
-- Journal of the development of your research question December
4. Points: 5
5. Project Presentation
-- Project presentation Due date: Last 4 classes. Points: 10
More detailed description for each assignment and
their corresponding evaluation criteria are provided in the section
below.
Requirements for each assignment and evaluation criteria
1. Research questions (first and second draft)
Deliverables
There are two deliverables for this assignment:
1. Two drafts of your research question will be due during the first
third of the semester. See the Course Schedule for the due dates.
2. A journal of the development of your research question over the
course of the semester will be due with your complete project documentation
at the end of the semester.
Your question drafts should be one-paragraph descriptions of the
question you wish to investigate. A good research question must
be large enough to be interesting, but small enough to be do-able
in the time you have available, which in this case is a semester.
Your research question should therefore be focused, but not too
narrow. It should be reasonable to expect that your research question
is answerable (for example, "what is the meaning of life" is not
answerable), but reasonably complex and challenging to answer (for
example, "why is the sky blue" is trivial to answer).
We will discuss the research questions in class. I will give you
feedback on the suitability of your question for the purposes of
this assignment. Your second question description should include
both your revised question and your original question (and please
label the two so I know which is which), and a brief write-up of
how and your reasons why the question has changed. I expect that
your question will evolve during the course of your working on this
assignment. For example, sub-questions may develop as you learn
more about your topic, or the question itself may change as your
interests change during the process of information retrieval. As
you continue to turn in portions of this assignment, you should
also be creating a journal of the development of your question:
you will submit this journal as a part of your final project. Every
change to your question should be documented, with a brief description
of the reason(s) for the revision. You may ask the professor to
review revisions at any time. The final version of the question
will be the basis for the final report of the assignment.
To facilitate the identification of appropriate sources, you must
participate in the discussion on information sources on Blackboard.
You are required to post your three source evaluation assignments
to the Research Question forum. In addition, you are required to
comment on at least one posting from a classmate per source evaluation
assignment (that means three in all). If there are other students
who are researching questions that are related to yours and you
think they might find some sources that could be useful to you (or
even if the topic isn't related to yours, even just if you think
the topic is interesting), I encourage you to start a discussion
with that student on Blackboard or offline.
Areas in Information Science
The following list includes many, but certainly not
all, of the areas within the field of Information & Library
Science. For your research question, you should select a topic within
one of the areas below, or you may choose a topic that is not on
this list but that particularly interests you, as long as it falls
within the field of Information & Library Science. (I should
add that ILS is a very broad field, and also crosses over with many
other fields, so you have a lot of latitude here.)
- Classification
- Community Networks
- Computer-Mediated Communication
- Copyright & Intellectual Property
- The Digital Divide
- Digital Libraries
- Digital Government
- Electronic Publishing
- Hacking
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Information Architecture
- Information Retrieval
- Information Seeking
- Information Use
- Information Warfare
- Intellectual Freedom & Censorship
- Knowledge Management
- Metadata
- Networking
- Open Access Publishing
- Open Source Software
- Publishing (professional, such as journalism or books, or personal,
such as blogs)
- Reference & Digital or Virtual Reference
- Social Informatics
- User Modeling
- Virtual Communities
- Web 2.0
- ... or other topic of your choice
These topics are very broad; you could not do a research project
for this course on any of these topics as stated. You could not,
for example, do a research project on the topic of Digital Government
in a semester. You will need to identify a narrower sub-topic within
one of these broad areas for your research question. For example,
within Digital Government, some good topics might be: How is YouTube
influencing the 2008 Presidential election? What are the pros and
cons of different voting technologies?
For very complete coverage & discussion of topics in the field
of Information & Library Science, see the Encyclopedia of Library
and Information Science.
INLS 200 is a prerequisite to enrollment in both the SILS major
and minor, so of course for most of you it will be your first exposure
to the field of Information & Library Science. I will discuss
the "geography" of the field in class, but I do not expect
you to understand what all of these topics involve right away. Please
ask if there is a topic that you think might be of interest to you,
but on which you want some clarification.
Criteria Used to Evaluate this Assignment
It's difficult to come up with a good research question. A good question must be large enough to be interesting, but small enough to be do-able in the time you have available. For this assignment, you have only the duration of one semester, which isn't a long time. So your question must be fairly narrowly focused. What I am looking for in your research question is something that is answerable in the span of one semester, and which will enable you to use a variety of types of information sources.
Points: 5 per question draft (Total =10 points)
Your research question will be evaluated according to the following rubric:
5 points: Question is stated clearly
and succinctly. Scope of the question is appropriate. The question
will require you to search a range of information sources and types
of sources. For the 2nd draft: you have clearly done some research
and used your findings to refine your question.
1-4 points: Points
will be deducted for the following: Question is not stated clearly.
Scope of the question is too broad or too narrow, or there is more
than one research topic packed into your question. The question
will require you to search in only one type of source.
2. Topic and Search plan Presentation
When students have chosen their topics, after the
second question draft has been submitted and graded, the instructor
will assign students to small groups (2 to 3 members), based on
the topics of students’ research questions. For example, students
interested in online education, the use of groupware in the workplace,
and political blogging might be grouped together and work on resources
relevant to the topic of virtual communities.
As quickly as possible, group members should:
- Get in contact and become acquainted with each others’ research
questions,
- Formulate a plan to identify information sources relevant to your
common interests,
- Discuss about your plan for searching for information on your
shared topic,
- And prepare for the presentation
These presentations should address the following:
- Your group’s broad topic
- Your more specific research questions within that topic
- The scope of the topic (as best as you understand it, given that
you will have just started working on it)
- Why you chose that topic and why your individual research questions
within that topic are interesting to you
- What is your plan for looking for relevant information
- What sources your group will use to address your questions? Elaborate
on two sources, specifically on the coverage and special features
of each source.
- For the two sources, what are your search strategies?
Each group presentation will last about 10 minutes
(6-7 minutes for presentation; and 3-4 minutes for discussion and
question & answer).
3. Source evaluation (website, book, and journal article)
Overview
Much of this course will be spent exploring a variety of types of information sources, print, electronic, and human. These sources will form the basis of a portfolio to be assembled.
You are required to write three evaluations of information sources (website, book, and journal articles) that you consult during your research. These sources may or may not ultimately yield information that is useful to you in your research, and you may or may not ultimately decide to cite these sources in your final report. The details of the deliverables are:
-- You are required to post your three source evaluations to the Information Source discussion board on Blackboard as postings.
-- You are required to comment on at least one posting from a classmate per source evaluation assignment (that means three in all).
-- You are encouraged to post additional comments about sources or methods for searching them, and to respond to as many postings as you wish.
-- Evaluation I: Website evaluation
The website evaluation is the first of the three
source evaluations will be due during the semester. Note that:
--This must be an evaluation of an entire website, not just one or a set of pages on a site. This must be a site on the free web - that is, not something that requires a paid login (Sites that require registration are ok if it is a free registration).
I encourage you to discuss search strategies in class and on the information source forum on Blackboard as you explore various sources.
-- Evaluation II: Book evaluation
The book evaluation is the second of the three source
evaluations will be due during the semester.
-- This must be an evaluation of an entire book, not just one chapter
or section. This book can be imprint or online. But if it is online,
it must be: (1) The online version of a print book, and available
in full online.
For example, the books available from NetLibrary; or (2) an entire
book put online available by its author, such as Information Retrieval
by C.J.van Rijsbergen. This book can be a reference source (e.g.,
from the Davis Reference section) or an ordinary book on a particular
topic (e.g., Digital Libraries by William Y. Arms).
I encourage you to discuss search strategies in class and on the
information source forum on Blackboard as you explore various sources.
-- Evaluation III: Journal article evaluation
The journal article evaluation is the third of the three source evaluations
will be due during the semester.
-- This must be an evaluation of an article from a scholarly journal.
This journal must be peer reviewed. Magazines are edited, but not
peer reviewed, so you should not use a magazine article for this article
(e.g., not Wired, National Geographic, Newsweek, etc.).
I encourage you to discuss search strategies in class and on the
information source forum on Blackboard as you explore various sources.
Organization of the source evaluation
Each source evaluation should be 1-3 pages (double-spaced) and include the following 7 parts:
1. A complete citation for the source in American Psychological Association (APA) format. APA is the citation format most commonly used in the social sciences. If you are not familiar with this format, you should look at the APA Publication Manual, 5th edition, which is in nearly every library on campus. This page contains a good overview of APA citation style for print sources. The APA maintains a website about how to cite electronic sources.
2. Strategy for finding the source: How did you find the source? What database, book, bibliography, etc. did you find this source in? What was your rationale for selecting that source? In other words, why did you think that database, book, bibliography, etc. would be useful for your research?
3. Rationale for selection of the source: Why did you think that the source would be useful for your research, before you reviewed it? (Whether or not the source in fact turned out to be useful; you'll discuss that later.)
4. General evaluation of the source: The authority, scope, intended audience, and currency or timeliness of the source. Select the evaluation criteria that are most appropriate for evaluating this particular source. List each and write a short explanation of how well the source fulfills the criteria.
5. Example strategies used to search within the source. Keep in mind that many searches are conducted in multiple sessions, so your search strategy should evolve as you work with a source over time. For each source, your evaluation must include what you consider to be an exemplary search strategy for that source and a brief discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy. This discussion will conclude with a brief summary of your evaluation of the information actually yielded by the source. This section should answer the following questions: How did you find information within the source? What terms did you use to search the source? How did you combine these terms? What other strategies did you use to find information within the source? What were the results of your searches within the source?
6. A brief summary of the information yielded by the source: This follows up your rationale for selecting the source: your rationale for selection is why you thought that the source would be useful before you reviewed it; this section should explain how your opinion of the source changed once you actually reviewed it. This section should answer the following questions: What information does the source as a whole contain? What information does the source contain that is relevant to your research question? How does the source help you (or not) to answer your research question?
7. A revised draft of your research question: After reviewing each
source, your research question may change radically or slightly.
Include your revised research question and a brief description of
the reason(s) for the revision. As the semester progresses your
question will come to be better formed, so it is likely that it
will change less as you review more sources. If your research question
does not change after reviewing a source, write that up as well
and give an explanation of why the source did not cause you to revise
your question.
Criteria Used to Evaluate this Assignment
Points: 10 per source evaluation (Total = 30)
These 10 points break down as follows:
-- You evaluated an appropriate source (e.g., an entire website or book rather than a single webpage or chapter, an article from a peer-reviewed journal): 2 points;
-- You discuss your strategy for finding the source: 2 points;
-- You discuss your rationale for selecting the source: 1 point;
-- You provide example strategies that you used to search within the source: 1 point;
-- You provide a brief summary of the information yielded by the source: 1 point;
-- You provide an evaluation of the source according to the evaluation criteria discussed in class, and any other criteria that are appropriate: 2 points;
-- Spelling, grammar, & writing style: 1 point.
4. Final Report
Part I: Written report
The response to your research question should be written up as a brief formal report. The report should integrate the knowledge acquired from the sources consulted, citing each source as appropriate.
The report should be approximately a 4-5 page paper (double-spaced). The report should explore (and answer, if there is an answer) your research question.
All sources that you use in answering your research question should be clearly cited in the report. This page contains a good overview of how to create citations in text. You must cite a source if you quote directly from it, but also if you simply use an idea from it.
There are many ways of making use of a source in a paper, but they all boil down to two basic ideas: direct quotes and summarizing. A quote is an actual passage from another person's writing, that you include in your own writing. When you quote a source, you must put the quotation inside "quotation marks," and cite the source by indicating the author, date, and page number (if applicable) that the quotation comes from.
On the other hand, a summary of someone else's writing is just that, a summary. It's not a direct quote, but you're using an idea from the other person's writing. When you summarize someone else's writing, you still need to provide a citation to the work that the idea came from. For example, I believe that in order to be a well-informed person in the information age, you must possess information literacy skills, and so I have designed this course as Shapiro and Hughes (1996) suggest, as the foundation of an entire educational curriculum based on information.
Of course, once you cite a source, you must include that source in your bibliography, where more detailed information of the source (e.g., journal, publishing year, and page number) is given. The general idea is that by looking at the entry in bibliography, readers would be able to locate a copy of the source.
The report should be submitted via Blackboard.
Part II: Annotated bibliography
An annotated bibliography must be included with the report, which must include all of the sources that you use in writing your report. These sources may be books, journal or magazine or newspaper articles, webpages, videotapes, whatever... in other words, the sources from which you are getting the content that you are using to answer your research question. These sources should not be databases, websites, etc... in other words, not the places where you found these sources.
The bibliography must be annotated: in other words, for each item in the bibliography, you must write a corresponding description of the item. These descriptions should be a paragraph or so in length, and must include the same type of information that you include in your source evaluations, only shorter: how you found the source, how you searched within the source, what information you gleaned from the source that was useful to you, the criteria by which you evaluated the source. If you use any of the sources that you evaluated for your 3 source evaluations in your final report, you must write a new, brief annotation for those.
While the number of items included in the bibliography will vary from topic to topic, each bibliography must contain at least 6 high-quality resources. At least 2 sources should be print and at least 2 should be electronic. Each information resource should be cited in American Psychological Association (APA) format. The bibliography should be organized alphabetically, by author's last name.
APA is the citation format most commonly used in the social sciences. If you are not familiar with this format, you should look at the APA Publication Manual, 5th edition, which is in nearly every library on campus. The following links may be helpful with this format:
-- This
page contains a good overview of APA citation style for print
sources. (This is also a good resource)
-- The APA maintains a website about how
to cite electronic sources.
-- NC
State has a tool that helps you create a proper APA citation
-- UNC
library also offers a tool that helps you to create a proper
APA citation.
Many sources have both print and electronic versions, for example, many dictionaries, encyclopedias, magazines, and journals. These dual-media sources can count as either a print or an electronic source in your bibliography, but not both. Make note in your source evaluation of the media in which you are using the source, and the unique features of that source in that media, which set it apart from that source in the other media.
Part III: Journal of the development of your research question
You only need to submit two drafts of your research question. But as stated in Research Questions section, I expect that your question will evolve during the course of your working on this assignment. For example, sub-questions may develop as you learn more about your topic, or the question itself may change as your interests change during the process of information retrieval. As you continue to turn in portions of this assignment, you should also be creating a journal of the development of your question: you will submit this journal as a part of your final project. Every change to your question should be documented, with a brief description of the reason(s) for the revision. You may ask the professor to review revisions at any time.
The journal of your research question's development will be evaluated based on evidence of critical thinking about the information you find in your sources, and evidence that that information had an impact on the evolution of your question. The journal will be due with your complete project documentation at the end of the semester.
The final report should be clear, focused, well-integrated discussion
responding to the research question in its final form. Appropriate
sources, including a mix of electronic and print sources, should
be clearly cited in the final report.
5. Project Presentation
Each of you will make a presentation at the end of the semester. The presentation may include the following information:
-- Introduce your research questions to the class
-- Describe your information search process, include your information search strategies, how you evaluate the information, and specific problems that you encounter in the information search process.
-- Select and present the two best sources, one print and one electronic. In the presentation, you should describe these two sources to the class, highlight the coverage and special feature of each, and describe why they are good sources for your research.
-- Describe your research results on your topic
-- You can also describe what you will do in terms searching for information if you were given more time, if you want to.
You are encouraged to use Powerpoint or some other presentation program (such as Open Office or Lotus Symphony) for your presentation. But this is not required. This presentation should be about 10 minutes long: estimate 5-7 minutes for the presentation itself and 3-5 minutes for discussion.
Criteria Used to Evaluate this Assignment
Points: 10
This presentation should provide evidence that you have closely
examined and evaluated the sources, and that you understand the
strengths and weaknesses of each. It should be clear and well organized.
(Note: This following rubric
was developed by Information
Technology Evaluation Services, NC Department of Public Instruction.
However, it was slightly modified for our purposes.)
* Organization
o Unacceptable: Audience cannot understand presentation
because there is no sequence of information
o Acceptable: Audience has difficulty following
presentation because presenter jumps around
o Good: Presenter presents information in logical
sequence which audience can follow
o Excellent: Presenter presents information in
logical, interesting sequence which audience can follow
* Subject Knowledge
o Unacceptable: Presenter does not
have grasp of information; presenter cannot answer questions about
subject
o Acceptable: Presenter is uncomfortable with information
and is able to answer only rudimentary questions
o Good: Presenter is at ease with expected answers
to all questions, but fails to elaborate
o Excellent: Presenter demonstrates full knowledge
(more than required) by answering all class questions with explanations
and elaboration
* Graphics
o Unacceptable: Presenter uses superfluous graphics
or no graphics
o Acceptable: Presenter occasionally uses graphics
that rarely support text and presentation
o Good: Presenter's graphics relate to text and
presentation
o Excellent: Presenter's graphics explain and reinforce
screen text and presentation
* Spelling & Grammar
o Unacceptable: Presenter's presentation has more
than one misspelling and more than one grammatical error
o Acceptable: Presentation has exactly one misspelling
and/or exactly one grammatical error, which a spell- or grammar
checker would catch
o Good: Presentation has exactly one misspelling
and exactly one grammatical error, which a spell- or grammar checker
would not catch
o Excellent: Presentation has no misspellings or
grammatical errors
* Eye Contact
o Unacceptable: Presenter reads all of report with
no eye contact
o Acceptable: Presenter occasionally makes eye
contact, but still reads most of report
o Good: Presenter maintains eye contact most of
the time but frequently returns to notes
o Excellent: Presenter maintains eye contact with
audience, seldom returning to notes
* Elocution
o Unacceptable: Presenter mumbles, incorrectly
pronounces terms, and speaks too quietly for audience in the back
of room to hear
o Acceptable: Presenter's voice is low. Presenter
incorrectly pronounces terms. Audience members have difficulty hearing
presentation.
o Good: Presenter's voice is clear. Presenter pronounces
most words correctly. Most audience members can hear presentation.
o Excellent: Presenter uses a clear voice and correct,
precise pronunciation of terms so that all audience members can
hear presentation.
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Last updated: 9/7/2008