Helping Students Develop their Toolkits
From Duke University's Library 101 Toolkit
Keep in mind that although most students are not publishing academic works, they are learning how to navigate the ever-changing world of information. Even for 'digital natives', learning new tools and strategies often require direction, practice, and understanding.
It is part of our shared responsibility to try to support them in understanding how to access information and in considering critical, ethical, and social issues of information access. These are among the skills that they can build upon as information creators, community members, and advocates in their lives after college.
This can be a challenging endeavor, especially as we are also considering foundational and disciplinary skills and content knowledge, but we encourage you to consider how you might help students understand concepts like information privilege and open access in the context of your discipline and/or their interests.
Ways to support students
Ways you can support student access include:
Consider adopting open textbooks or other open educational resources (OERs) in your classes. For more insight, check out the guide "Finding and Using Alternate Open Course Materials"
Introduce students to the Unpaywall plugin or other resources you're using in your access toolkit.
Work with a librarian to develop an assignment or in-class session that encourages the use of open access resources and/or introduces students to concepts of critical information literacy and social issues related to information access.
Encourage students to consider licensing their work with a creative commons license or uploading their original scholarship to the digital commons, as appropriate. More information is available on our guide, "Applying Creative Commons Licenses to your Work"