Criteria for Developing Library Assignments
The following criteria will provide you with some guidance when developing or re-evaluating library assignments.
- Relevance
- Relate your assignment to the topics, subjects, and/or the texts being discussed in class.
- Purpose
- Provide clear objectives and directions for completing your assignment.
- Flexibility
- Provide a variety of topics from which your students can choose.
- Provide a list of various resources your students can consult.
- Date ranges, when included, should be flexible enough to accomodate all of the topics chosen by your students.
- Accuracy
- Provide correct titles, locations, and call numbers when suggesting materials to consult.
- Doable
- Make sure the assignment is appropriate to the knowledge/skill level(s) of your students.
- Make sure that there is sufficient information available at the Libraries for the topics chosen by your students.
- Make the due date/time frame realistic based on the availability of materials.
- Free of Library Jargon
- Define terms such as "abstract" vs. "annotation," "citation," "index," "scholarly journal" vs. "popular magazines" if you include them in your verbal or written directions.
- Fosters Critical Thinking
- An intregal part of doing research is evaluating the information found.
- This could translate into requiring annotations (critical interpretations) to bibliographies, comparing different accounts of the same event, judging criticism or opinions against one's own views, etc.
Adapted with permission from http://www.lib.vt.edu/research/libinst/criteria.html on 11 Jul 02.
Last update: 11 Jul 02
