Information Literacy: Knowing What To Do With All That Data

4 min read

If there’s one thing modern society seems to be good at, it’s creating content and making it available.   According to VCloud News, 2.5 billion gigabytes of content are created each day1.  To quantify that a bit more, that means the amount of data created each day is equal to streaming 1 billion hours of high definition TV.

So, is it any wonder that undergraduates are often overwhelmed at the outset of a research project?  Where should they begin?  How can they evaluate the quality of content sources and ensure that they’re using relevant, expert information?

Gale Researcher supports information literacy

In addition to completing the core curriculum requirements, it’s essential for today’s students to learn information literacy – being able to locate and identify information and applying it to meaningful work.

Gale Researcher provides the scholarly content and tools students need to improve their ability to find, evaluate, and apply a range of sources in their research and coursework. By aligning scholarly materials to the scope and sequence of introductory college courses, Gale Researcher creates a simple but sophisticated research path for students looking to foster a deeper understanding of the most-studied topics.

Click to Enlarge.
A series page allows students to focus on a discipline and provides an overview for the topic page written by series editors and subject matter experts.

Editor-in-Chief Dr. George Esenwein, Associate Professor of History, University of Florida, says, “Gale Researcher gives students a reliable starting point that allows them to get going on their project. With its focus, it helps them more efficiently do their research while speeding up the process so they don’t have to spend countless hours searching on the Internet or aimlessly browsing through library resources. Instead, they can get started somewhere and get going very quickly, allowing them to get deeper into the topic faster.”

Customize topic pages for a course by adding links to articles, videos, instructional materials, and other resources. Then use the bookmark tool to share your collection.
Customize topic pages for a course by adding links to articles, videos, instructional materials, and other resources. Then use the bookmark tool to share your collection.

Gale Researcher provides solid learner support for studies in American Literature, British Literature, Criminal Justice, Economics, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, U.S. History, Western Civilization, and World History – the subjects nearly every undergraduate undertakes in their academic career.

Within each area of study, students gain:

  • An authoritative foundation as articles are written and editorially curated by faculty who are experts in their fields and in instruction of a specific area of study
  • Improved research skills by having a guide that leads students to easily explore resources and topics fully
  • Customize topic pages by adding links to articles, videos, instructional materials, and other resources
  • Videos, essays and articles that help students understand subject matter using a variety of media
  • The value of the library’s recommendations made possible by links which the library creates that lead to resources the library deems useful
  • The ability to highlight, annotate, download, share.
  • Google and Microsoft integration, making writing and sharing information in commonly used classroom tools easy.
  • Easy bookmarking and creation of links for use in learning management systems and course tools.

This intuitive platform gives college students on-the-go access to scholarly research materials, journals, video and credible articles.

The article summary page provides a journal-like abstract overview where students can highlight, annotate, cite, download, and share content easily right within Gale Researcher.
The article summary page provides a journal-like abstract overview where students can highlight, annotate, cite, download, and share content easily right within Gale Researcher.

Set them up for success

Students who establish information literacy competency early in their undergraduate years are more likely to succeed academically and professionally.

Help your undergrads take a giant step toward success.  To learn more visit: gale.com/researcher.

 

1 http://www.vcloudnews.com/every-day-big-data-statistics-2-5-quintillion-bytes-of-data-created-daily/Nike

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