Assignment Essay

Real or fake? Resources for teaching college students how to identify fake news

Ann T. Musgrovea, Jillian R. Powersa, Lauri C. Rebarb and Glenn J. Musgrovec

aDepartment of Teaching and Learning, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA; bInformation and Engagement Services, University Libraries, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA; cSocial and Behavioral Sciences Department, Broward College, Davie, Florida, USA

ABSTRACT Fake news has captured the world’s attention. Educational survey research has highlighted the difficulties students and adults have in determining how to identify valid sources. Psychology can help us to understand why it is difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. The authors describe how to identify fake news from digital sources and ways faculty and librarians can teach informa- tion literacy skills using the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework, websites, LibGuides, worksheets, and other resources shared in the extensive appendix.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 26 March 2018 Accepted 21 May 2018

KEYWORDS Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) framework; Fake news; information literacy; psychology; social media

Introduction

The validity of news and its associated sources has always been of the utmost importance. The discovery of the truth has become more challenging as more sources, often digital, have become available. Even adults with experience with the interpretation of the facts can easily be led into the trap of fake news. College students may be particularly vulnerable to fake news as they are frequently getting information online via social media. University librar- ians and faculty can help them to build solid information literacy skills to last a lifetime. Solutions to help build critical thinking skills to combat fake news take a multifaceted approach. This article offers tools to help teach critical thinking skills needed to discover the real story. Some tools for these skills include exploring the psychological heuristics behind the easy acceptance of fake news, and the use of strong information literacy skills created by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and a list of websites that were created to check the facts that includes lessons and worksheets.

Background

The term “Fake News” has become a mainstream, commonly used term by individuals on all sides of the political spectrum, including the current

CONTACT Ann T. Musgrove [email protected] Department of Teaching and Learning, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431-0992, USA. Published with license by Taylor & Francis � 2018 Ann T. Musgrove, Jillian R. Powers, Lauri C. Rebar, and Glenn J. Musgrove.

COLLEGE & UNDERGRADUATE LIBRARIES 2018, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 243–260 https://doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2018.1480444

President of the USA, Donald Trump. A quick search for the term “Fake News” on Twitter will yield a high number of results from many global sources, highlighting the universal use of this term. Social media has changed the information landscape from one of newspapers and magazines to tweets and posts of happenings with no documentation or clue as to the trustworthiness of the source. Psychological studies demonstrate how indi- viduals can easily think that fake news is the truth. Just as it has been used in the past, critical thinking is at the core of discerning fact from fiction. The combination of understanding the psychological background in believ- ing misinformation, teaching critical thinking skills, and instructing univer- sity students in information literacy skills provides a way to combat the phenomenon of fake news.

College students and web literacy

Most college students have never known life without the World Wide Web, and information and communication has always been instantly available to them. These students, called “digital natives” (Prensky 2001), and millenni- als have been flooded with news from Internet sources all their lives. The familiarity with digital environments has not helped them to become more experienced in the identification of valid news sources. Research suggests that college students are having difficulty in evaluating information deliv- ered via social media, and that the line between truth and fiction has been blurred. The Stanford History Education Group (Wineburg et al. 2016) designed, field tested, and validated 15 assessments of online reasoning, five each for the middle school, high school, and college levels. The assess- ments were designed to measure each group of students’ abilities to judge the credibility of information found online. The college level assessments focused on open web searches and were administered online to students at six universities. The universities in this study included Stanford University, which admits only 4% of its applicants, as well as large state universities that admit the majority of those who apply. A summary of the college level exercises is listed in Table 1. In the pilot study of the “Claims on Social Media” exercise as noted in

Table 1, 44 undergraduate students from three universities were presented with a tweet from the liberal advocacy organization MoveOn.org (Wineburg et al. 2016). Each student was asked to explain why it may or may not be a useful source of information. The tweet read, “New polling shows the @NRA is out of touch with gun owners and their own members” (23). The tweet also included a graphic that stated, “Two out of three gun owners say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported background checks” and a link to a press release from the

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Center for American Progress (23). The results of the study indicated that students struggled in evaluating the tweet. Only a few students recognized that it was based on a poll by a professional polling firm. Fewer than a third of the students surveyed were able to explain how the political agenda of the organizations commissioning the survey or posting the tweet might influence its content. Further, more than half of students did not click on the link provided within the tweet. The researchers concluded that “students need further instruction in how best to navigate social media content, particularly when that content comes from a source with a clear political agenda” (24).

News use across social media platforms

It is not just college students who use social media for gathering informa- tion. Americans are getting more and more information from social media. This is markedly different from the last generation who primarily used newspapers and broadcast news as their information source. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 62% of American adults get their news from social networking sites (Gottfried and Shearer 2016). Other survey data research from Gottfried and Shearer (2016) included:

� 70% of Reddit users, 66% of Facebook users, and 59% of Twitter users get news from these platforms.

� Facebook had the greatest reach of the social networking platforms examined in the study, as 67% of American adults are users of the platform.

� This suggests that the two-thirds of adult Facebook users who get news there amounts to 44% of the general population.

Social media can be the source of fake news but can also provide the solution. Just as quickly as false information is spread, users often correct

Table 1. Summary of The Stanford History Education Group’s college level online reasoning exercises. Exercise Description

Article evaluation In an open web search, students decide if a website can be trusted

Research a claim Students search online to verify a claim about a controversial topic

Website reliability Students determine whether a partisan site is trustworthy

Social media video Students watch an online video and identify its strengths and weaknesses

Claims on social media Students read a tweet and explain why it might or might not be a useful source of information

Based on information found at Wineburg et al. (2016).

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that false information. It is important to carefully consider the source and if there is an agenda behind the source of information. An advantage of social media is that during emergencies, news organizations that might otherwise compete can work together and help spread good information, banding together to call out hoaxes and fakes. This kind of coordination can amplify the good information and help it rise above the fake and unre- liable content that’s frankly more appealing from a sharing standpoint (Silverman 2013).

Recent perceptions about fake news

Research suggests that American adults believe fake news is spreading con- fusion. A recent Pew Research Center survey of 1,002 American adults reported that 64% of participants indicated completely made up news sto- ries cause “A great deal of confusion,” 24% “Some confusion,” and 11% “Not much/no confusion at all,” about the basic facts of current issues and events (Barthel, Mitchell, and Holcomb 2016, 3). Despite a strong consensus that confusion is being spread by fake news,

the survey participants reported a fair amount of confidence in their ability to detect it (Barthel, Mitchell, and Holcomb 2016). Barthel, Mitchell, and Holcomb noted that 39% of the survey participants felt very confident and 45% felt somewhat confident that they could recognize news that was fabri- cated. Furthermore, some of the survey participants (23%) reported having shared a made-up news story themselves, with 14% of those sharing such a story saying that they did so knowing it was fake at the time.

Psychology and fake news

Discriminating real from fake news is not easy. It takes thinking, and any- time you ask people to think, cognitive biases come to the top. Classic psychology tries to teach thinking, sometimes even critical thinking, and warning people about the cognitive biases that can often affect individuals when they try to think. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the social media was flooded

with internet robots called “bots.” A bot is a piece of computer software designed to automate a task; they are not new and are used for variety of tasks. Search engines use bots to scan internet content and categorize it by keywords and phrases. Social media bots are strategically placed and cre- ated to amplify the volume of information, with high volume equaling more believability. Sometimes this is done by simply retweeting informa- tion. Other times fake personas are created that have characteristics of the group they are trying to influence, and they create the message (Ashbrook 2017).

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Individuals tend to judge the believability of information based on famil- iarity. That is, the more familiar it is, the more believable it is based on the notion “I’ve heard about that,” without necessarily remembering whether the source was legitimate or not. Jacoby et al. (1989) found that non- famous names were mistaken as famous 24 hours later, as subjects uncon- sciously used the “I’ve heard it before” heuristic to determine fame. When bots flood the Twitter-verse with a story, it is easy to see how similar unconscious processes might raise the level of credibility of fake news. Another key heuristic involved in believability is the availability heuristic.

Things that are easily brought to the forefront of memory are given special status (Tversky and Kahneman 1974). For example, many people believe that air travel is especially dangerous, when in fact it is not (US Department of Transportation 2017). Individuals can easily recall airplane disasters from 9/11 compared to the more recent engine failure on Southwest Airlines. The reality is that since 9/11 there have been only a few US carriers involved in crashes that have included fatalities. Train acci- dents in the USA are more common. More people have died or had inju- ries in train accidents than air accidents (US Department of Transportation 2017), but people usually do not see trains as significantly more dangerous than planes because of the availability heuristic. Confirmation bias is another important issue to consider when question-

ing the validity of news. If one were to attempt to identify a single prob- lematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirmation bias would have to be among the candidates for consider- ation (Nickerson 1998). Confirmation bias is the interpretation of informa- tion in a way that it fits with an individual’s existing beliefs and expectations. It is often easy to believe facts that reinforce your beliefs. Confirmation bias is certainly involved in identifying real and fake news. This simple heuristic suggests that if the news article agrees with what you think, then it is good, and if it disagrees with what you think then, it is fake. The Trump White House seems to rely on this regularly, framing any news “leak” that they do not like as fake news along with the suggestion that people just ignore it (Savransky 2017). One must be cautious, though, when using the content of the news story

to evaluate the veracity of that story. Many news stories, both real and fake, involve some degree of ridiculousness. Some people are biased to say “That’s crazy. It must be true, because nobody could make that up.” Others are biased in the other way, saying that anything high on the ridiculousness scale must be fiction, as something that crazy could never occur in real life (Evans 1990). But, also remember, as we all “know,” sometimes truth IS stranger than fiction (e.g. Florida Man Meme or the Darwin Awards), and other times fiction looks surprisingly true.

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Why would anyone be interested in propagating fake news, anyway? One reason would be to use fake news to gain attention for advertising pur- poses. This phenomenon is called “click bait,” such as the ubiquitous “Seventeen celebrities that have had botched plastic surgery… You won’t believe number 11.” This is advertising plain and simple. A second reason would be that the fake news was originally put on a recognized parody or satire site, like The Onion, and then through one or two people who did not get it, retweeted the story as real news with staggering indignation, and the second life begins of a fake story began as real news. Once the story has made a lap around the Internet, people will begin to recognize it, in a “I heard about that,” but are experiencing source blindness. Source blind- ness occurs when you remember the information but not where it came from. Research has shown that individuals are much more likely to remem- ber the story than remember where the story came from (Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay 1993). Lastly, and this is the worst-case scenario, fake news could be intentionally created to confuse fact and fiction. Knowledge of these psychological processes helps us understand that

fake news is easily believable because it is either so prevalent, or seems to fit with our beliefs, or just feels right.

Best practices for teaching students how to identify fake news

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

The ACRL presented its Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in 2015, with formal adoption by the ACRL Board in January 2016. The Framework document has its foundation in the work of Wiggins and McTighe (2005), using threshold concepts instead of standards and learning outcomes to guide and support librarians in instructing students in information literacy (IL). The ACRL Framework builds on the substance of metaliteracy, asserting that it is “renewed vision of information as an overarching set of abilities in which students are consumers and creators of information who can participate successfully in collaborative spaces. Metaliteracy demands behavioral, affective, cognitive, and metacognitive engagement with the information ecosystem” (ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education 2016, 3). Information literacy itself is then characterized as “the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how informa- tion is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning” (ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education 2016, 3). The resulting six concepts that comprise the Framework each contain a central IL concept, as well as a set of knowledge practices and dispositions which

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encourages their use as guiding principles that can be adapted to multiple learning situations. These frames, listed alphabetically, are:

� Authority Is Constructed and Contextual, � Information Creation as a Process, � Information Has Value, � Research as Inquiry, � Scholarship as Conversation, � Searching as Strategic Exploration.

According to the ACRL Framework (2016), learners developing informa- tion literacy skills “use research tools and indicators of authority to deter- mine the credibility of sources, understanding the elements that might temper this credibility” (4). This knowledge practice can be used by students to identify fake news and supports the ACRL’s Authority Is Constructed and Contextual frame, which is summarized as follows:

Information resources reflect their creators’ expertise and credibility and are evaluated based on the information need and the context in which the information will be used. Authority is constructed in that various communities may recognize different types of authority. It is contextual in that the information need may help to determine the level of authority required. (ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education 2016, 4)

The ACRL is proactive in encouraging that lesson plans designed around the Framework and its concepts be shared with others. To this end, they created the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox (2017) as a “platform and repository for sharing Framework materials.” These resour- ces can be searched using a variety of filters, including discipline, type of institution, scope, resource type, IL frame(s) addressed, and various types of licenses attached to the resources (ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox 2017). Each resource in the Sandbox is formatted as follows: brief title, short

abstract, posted date, contributor, resource types, information literacy frame(s) addressed, and tags. Clicking on “Read More” for a specific resource gives additional information, including access to many hyperlinks, attachments, licensure, and information regarding if the resource was pre- sented at a conference or other meeting, etc. (ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox 2017). Some resources simply provide a rubric, chart, infographic, slides, or online resource such as a LibGuide, while others outline a lesson plan, a short activity, or some other assign- ment to be used with students in either a general or subject specific con- text. A companion resource to the Sandbox is the WordPress site for the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which

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gives up-to-date news on the Framework, tweets, videos, and links to the Framework listserv and RSS feed to the WordPress site (2017). Within the ACRL Sandbox (2017) and WordPress sites (2017), contribu-

tors share assignments and activities that they have created and used suc- cessfully with students, with handouts, rubrics, and other essential materials available for others to recreate these experiences in their own classrooms. The malleable concepts contained in the frames allow for their presentation with a wide range of approaches. They can be used to build upon one another, leading students in a natural progression of personal and academic growth in information evaluation and giving them tools and strategies to become engaged participants in critical thinking and scholar- ship. Other materials within these sites have been created especially for use with faculty, so they too can be knowledgeable about the concepts and be partners with librarians in the pursuit of student information literacy (ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox 2017). Another valuable resource for academic librarians is the Community of

Online Research Assignments, or CORA (Loyola Marymount University Library 2017), hosted by Loyola Marymount University Library. This open access site includes searchable assignments, using filters for information lit- eracy concepts, discipline, ability level, keyword search, and whether the assignment is applicable for a group or individuals. In addition to searching for the ACRL Framework concepts that have been associated with each assignment, CORA includes searchable IL concepts from The Society of College, National and University Libraries (Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) Working Group on Information Literacy 2011) and The Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy (ANZIIL) (Bundy 2004). A blog and Teaching Toolkit are add- itional components of the CORA website, showcasing rubrics, databases, projects, presentations, and websites of interest to faculty and librarians.

LibGuides and information literacy

LibGuides are a web-based application and content management system used to create and organize electronic guides. The tool is easily embedded in course and library Web sites and accessible to students online. An example of a LibGuide that can help students to develop their abilities in this frame is the “Fake” News guide created by librarian Eric Novotny (2017) at The Pennsylvania State University. The guide describes different types of fake news, including satire, bias, junk science, rumor mills, and clickbait (Novotny 2017). It also challenges students to consider why they should care about the issue of fake news while presenting statistics, figures, and a video clip about how false information is spread through different

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media. A number of fact checking sites are provided to help students to verify the credibility of news stories and their claims. The Online Satirical News LibGuide by Ed Koltonski (2017) from Kent

State University is a tool that teaches students to identify fake news presented as satire. The guide provides students with information about satire, electronic resources, a list of satirical news Web sites, and a skill check where students can test their ability to identify satirical news. A list of additional LibGuides that can be used to help students to

develop the informational literacy skills needed to identify fake news is presented in Appendix A. Powers, Musgrove, and Rebar (2017) previously identified LibGuides that aligned with each of the six ACRL frames.

Worksheets for information literacy

One of the basic components of evaluating information is the use of critical thinking skills. There are several sets of guidelines or worksheets available to help students to assess the information in front of them. One of these, developed by California State University, Chico in 2010, is well known, and is recognized by the acronym CRAAP, standing for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. In contrast, the evaluative process promoted by the The Global Digital Citizen Foundation (2015) takes a “Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How” approach to critical thinking. Their Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Critical Thinking (Global Digital Citizen Foundation 2015) worksheet can be used to help engage students by using its prompts and questions to generate group discussions or individual consideration of information.

Websites for evaluating sources of information

With the development of critical thinking skills and information literacy proficiency, students will wish to consult reliable resources to help validate or refute news claims. They may choose from among several excellent web- sites for checking truth, including FactCheck.org (https://www.factcheck. org/), Hoax-Slayer (https://www.hoax-slayer.net/), Snopes (https://www. snopes.com/), and Politifact (http://www.politifact.com/). These and other sites are detailed in Appendix A, each with a brief description of their con- tent. While all these sites may be used for fact checking, each one may excel in assessing statements from a specific viewpoint (political), specialize in evaluating certain formats or sources of information (Snopes and Hoax- Slayer), or attempt to be otherwise unbiased in their review of facts (FactCheck.org). The result for fact checkers is a matrix of authoritative information sources that can be used confidently.

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Recognizing good journalism

Another aspect of recognizing fake news is understanding that those involved in publishing real news abide by the Society of Professional Journalists’s (SPJ) Code of Ethics (2014). The SPJ includes many elements relevant to Fake News including:

� Take responsibility for the accuracy of work. � Verify information before releasing information and use original sources

whenever possible. � Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information

as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources.

If the Washington Post breaks a big story on some political scandal, they not only need it to be true, lest they lose credibility, but they will have their byline on the story, so you know the Washington Post was the source that broke the story. When students have identified how to determine which news sources are reliable and other credible sources of information, they can develop sustainable methods of doing their own fact-checking.

Recommendations

Librarians and college faculty members are in a unique situation by the val- idation of their position in the education environment to help students of all ages to develop information literacy and critical thinking skills. A good starting point is to teach students to verify the facts by questioning the source and potential motives. Students should be skeptical of information and be familiar with the common psychological strategies used to propa- gate fake news. It is also suggested that college librarians and faculty teach students to

check questionable material with online fact checkers such as Snopes, FactCheck, Hoax-Slayer, or some other reputable fact-checking site (see Appendix A). In doing so, students should be taught to consider the source of the information. College librarians and faculty also need to teach their students to be cog-

nizant of the source of information. If the story has no source, that should cast immediate suspicion. For example, if the story is from the “San Antonio Ledger,” the student can quickly search and determine that the SA Ledger DID once exist as a newspaper but has not been published since 1859 (Federal Writers’ Project, Texas. 1938). If the source of the news story is The New York Times, the student should recognize that it is a much stronger authority because it is a newspaper that is currently published.

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Finally, librarians and faculty can teach college students to use the resources available from the ACRL including the Framework, the Sandbox, along with other similar sites like CORA, ANZIIL, or SCONUL to facilitate gathering materials and strategies that have been tried and then shared with the library community. With the wealth of news reported on social media, there is an ample supply of rumors to check using the CRAAP test or other worksheets or rubrics. The bottom line regarding the evaluation of the truth of a news story is not in the story itself, but rather in the verisim- ilitude of the given source.

Conclusion

The incidence of fake news has become a major problem in the current landscape of online news sources. Research indicates that students’ abilities to discern between real and fake news is frequently not very good. As more people get their news from social media websites, it is important that those social media websites also be part of the solution to the fake news problem by illuminating unsubstantiated content. Psychological variables can help students to understand why fake news is so easy to believe. The ACRL Framework is proposed as a way of teaching information literacy as well as the Information Literacy Sandbox and many LibGuides on this topic. Other techniques for teaching information literacy include the CRAAP worksheet as well as many reliable, fact checking websites. The source of the informa- tion is always a good starting place to evaluate the validity of the story. An extensive appendix is included to provide tools to teach students the skills of information literacy.

References

Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. 2017. “FactCheck.org.” Accessed March 4, 2017. http://www.factcheck.org

Ashbrook, Tom. 2017. “Fake News Bots are Here.” Accessed August 9, 2017. http://www. wbur.org/onpoint/2017/08/09/fake-news-bots-are-here

Association of College and Research Libraries. 2016. “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” Accessed January 11, 2016. http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org. acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf

Association of College and Research Libraries. 2017. “ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox.” Accessed March 4, 2017. http://sandbox.acrl.org/resources

Association of College and Research Libraries. 2017. “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” Accessed March 4, 2017. http://acrl.ala.org/framework/

Barthel, Michael, Amy Mitchell, and Jesse Holcomb. 2016. “Many Americans believe Fake News is Sowing Confusion.” Pew Research Center. Accessed December 15, 2016. http:// assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/12/14154753/PJ_2016.12.15_fake- news_FINAL.pdf

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Bundy, Alan. ed. 2004. Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy (ANZIIL) Framework: Principles, Standards and Practice. 2nd ed. Adelaide: Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy. http://www.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/ 0003/79068/anz-info-lit-policy.pdf

Evans, Jonathan St. B. T. ed. 1990. Bias in Human Reasoning: Causes and Consequences. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Federal Writers’ Project, Texas. “San Antonio”. 1938. “HathiTrust, EBSCOhost.” Accessed April 22, 2018.

Global Digital Citizen Foundation. 2015. “The Ultimate Cheatsheet for Critical Thinking.” Accessed December 12, 2016. https://i1.wp.com/globaldigitalcitizen.org/wp-content/ uploads/2016/12/ultimate-critical-thinking-worksheet.jpg?ssl ¼1

Gottfried, Jeffrey, and Elisa Shearer. 2016. “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016.” Pew Research Center. Accessed May 26, 2016. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/ uploads/sites/13/2016/05/PJ_2016.05.26_social-media-and-news_FINAL-1.pdf

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). 2017. “How to Spot Fake News.” Infographic. Accessed March 4, 2018. https://www.ifla.org/publications/ node/11174

Jacoby, Larry L., Colleen Kelley, Judith Brown, and Jennifer Jasechko. 1989. “Becoming Famous Overnight: Limits on the Ability to Avoid Unconscious Influences of the Past.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 56 (3):326–328.

Johnson, Marcia K., Shahin Hashtroudi, and D. Stephen Lindsay. 1993. “Source Monitoring.” Psychological Bulletin 114 (1):3–28.

Know Your Meme. 2017. “Florida Man.” Accessed March 4, 2017. http://knowyourmeme. com/memes/florida-man

Koltonski, Ed. 2017. “Online Satirical News.” LibGuide. Accessed June 26, 2018. https:// libguides.library.kent.edu/satiricalnews

Loyola Marymount University Library. 2017. “Community of Online Research Assignments (CORA).” Accessed March 4, 2017. https://www.projectcora.org/

Meriam Library. 2010. “Evaluating Information – Applying the CRAAP Test.” Chico, CA: California State University. Accessed September 17, 2010. https://www.csuchico.edu/lins/ handouts/eval_websites.pdf

Nickerson, Raymond S. 1998. “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises.” Review of General Psychology, 2 (2):175.

Northcutt, Wendy “Darwin”. 2017. “Darwin Awards.” Accessed March 4, 2017. http://www. darwinawards.com

Novotny, Eric. 2017. “’FakeNews.” LibGuide. Accessed March 4, 2017. http://guides. libraries.psu.edu/fakenews

Powers, Jillian, Ann Musgrove, and Lauri Rebar. 2017. “Creative Applications of LibGuides to Teach Undergraduate Students Information Literacy Skills.” Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference, March 2017, 2017, 1407–1413. Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). http://www.learntechlib.org/p/177424/

Poynter Institute. 2017. “International Fact-Checking Network Fact-Checkers’ Code of Principles.” http://www.poynter.org/fact-checkers-code-of-principles/

Prensky, Marc. 2001. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1.” On the Horizon 9 (5):1–6.

Savransky, Rebecca. 2017. “Trump: Many Leaks are ’Fabricated Lies’ Made up by ’Fake News’ Media.” The Hill. Accessed May 28, 2017. http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis- tration/335453-trump-many-leaks-are-fabricated-lies-made-up-by-fake-news-media

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Schulten, Katherine. 2015. “Skills and Strategies j Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources.” New York Times. Accessed October 2, 2015. https://learning. blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/skills-and-strategies-fake-news-vs-real-news-determining-the- reliability-of-sources/

Silverman, Craig. 2013. “Since Twitter hasn’t Built a Correction Feature, Here are 3 Things Journalists can do Instead.” Poynter, May 29, 2013. http://www.poynter.org/2013/ since-twitter-hasnt-built-a-correction-feature-here-are-3-things-journalists-can-do-instead/ 214484/

Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) Working Group on Information Literacy. 2011. “The SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy: Core model- for Higher Education.” Accessed April 2011. https://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/ default/files/documents/coremodel.pdf

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Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. 1974. “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” Science 185 (4157):1124–1131.

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Wiggins, Grant P. and Jay McTighe. 2005. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Wineburg, Sam, Sarah McGrew, Joel Breakstone, and Teresa Ortega. 2016. “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning.” Stanford Digital Repository. http://purl.stanford.edu/fv751yt5934

Appendix A: A sampling of resources

Fake news or information literacy LibGuides

Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). 2017. “ACRL Framework for Information Literacy toolkit.” LibGuide. http://acrl.libguides.com/frame- work/toolkit

Cornell University Library. 2017. “Evaluating News Sources” LibGuide. http://guides.library. cornell.edu/evaluate_news

Harvard Library. 2017. “Fake News, Misinformation, and Propaganda.” LibGuide. http:// guides.library.harvard.edu/fake

Indiana University East Campus Library. 2017. “Fake News.” LibGuide. http://iue.libguides. com/fakenews

Koltonski, Ed. 2017. “Online Satirical News.” LibGuide. https://libguides.library.kent.edu/ satiricalnews

Loyola Marymount University William H. Hannon Library. 2017. “Keepin’ it Real: Tips & Strategies for Evaluating Fake News. LibGuide.” http://libguides.lmu.edu/fakenews

Novotny, Eric. 2017. “‘Fake’ News.” LibGuide. http://guides.libraries.psu.edu/fakenews University of Central Florida. 2017. “Fake News & Fact Checking.” LibGuide. https://

guides.ucf.edu/fakenews

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Fact checking websites (a sampling)

FactCheck. http://www.factcheck.org/ In addition to current commentary, specialized sections appear on the right side of the screen to guide the user to topic areas including science, politics, and Internet rumors.

Full Fact. https://fullfact.org/about/ A registered charity and independent non-profit company in the UK, this site strives to be impartial in its reporting. In addition to fact-checking, they also “push for corrections where necessary,” and offer The Full Fact Toolkit as a training tool to assist individuals and schools with fact checking. Especially good for European and UK information.

Hoax-Slayer. http://hoax-slayer.net/ Combines educational guides and information about scams, phishing, malware, and hoaxes, a search feature, and browsable categories in a newly launched and easy-to- use website.

Kessler, Glenn. (2017). Fact Checker: The Truth Behind the Rhetoric. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/?utm_term¼.a243fd45d352 A fact-checking column for “statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance.” See their “About” section for more information on their standards and policies.

Politifact. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ A project of the Tampa Bay Times and Poynter Institute, Politifact (and Punditfact) offer scorecards for their fact-checking of claims made by members of the media, including pundits, columnists, and political analysts. Perhaps best known for their Truth-o-Meter and Trump-o-Meter, the site offers searching and browsing by articles, people, promises, TV, radio, bloggers, newspapers, and more.

Snopes. http://www.snopes.com/ Founded by David Mikkelson in 1994, this is one of the longest-running fact-checking sites. The site has earned two Webby awards, and permits searching by keyword or URL, filters to scan by media types, and even includes a “random” section that displays arbitrary posts on rumors.

Additional resources

Infographics International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). 2017. “How to

spot fake news.” Last updated August 13. https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11174 Based on FactCheck.org’s article How to Spot Fake News from 2016, this infographic con-

tains eight simple steps. Downloadable in multiple formats and available in translations. Global Digital Citizen Foundation. 2015. “The ultimate cheatsheet for critical thinking.”

https://i1.wp.com/globaldigitalcitizen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ultimate-critical-think- ing-worksheet.jpg?ssl¼1 An easy-to-use infographic combining the typical “Who, What, Where, When, Why, How” questions to ask upon discovery of new information or to use in discussion with others.

Mitchell, Amy, Jeffrey Gottfried, Jocelyn Kiley, and Katerina Eva Matsa. 2014. “Political Polarization & Media Habits: From Fox News to Facebook, how liberals and conserva- tives keep up with politics. Trust levels of news sources by ideological group.” Table. Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media, October 21. http://www.journalism.org/2014/ 10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/pj_14-10-21_mediapolarization-01/

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This is just one table from another Pew Research Center report. You might compare this with the News Quality Bias Chart by Otero, listed below.

Otero, Vanessa. 2016. “News Quality.” Blog. http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/12/News-Quality.V4.jpg The chart from this blog post went viral shortly after it was posted. The author wrote another blog post with an updated chart, “The Chart, Second Edition: what makes a news source “good?”” at http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-second-edi- tion/#comment-8048

Journalism and news media sites Google News Lab. https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com

Google News Lab is working collaboratively with journalists and entrepreneurs, includ- ing First Draft News, Pew Research Center, and Poynter Institute, on combatting misin- formation and data journalism. Explore their training site of courses and downloadable information at https://newslab.withgoogle.com/training, or look at their programs, resources and articles on a wide variety of news topics.

News Literacy Project. http://www.thenewsliteracyproject.org/ This site includes digital resources for students, teachers, and journalists, including their Checkology Virtual Classroom. Although this is a “for fee” product, it is worth knowing about this source of training for news literacy. Their free “Teachable Moments” section combines personal views and background about news stories and news liter- acy strategies.

Nieman Reports (Nieman Foundation at Harvard). http://niemanreports.org An excellent resource for reports, lab, storyboard articles, and general articles about the world of journalism, its participants, and the world around us. Subscribe for free to get update emails or check their archives. A very timely resource.

Pew Research Center: Journalism and Media. http://www.journalism.org Pew Research’s publications are well known, and this site includes publications, “State of the Media” reports, and their “Fact Tank” which is full of statistics, links, and resources. They feature interactives, including infographics, slideshows, and data visualization. Their “Daily Briefing of Media News” is a substantive journalistic asset. Ongoing research is one of its trademarks, making this a site to return to regularly.

Poynter Institute. http://poynter.org Located in St. Petersburg, Florida, Poynter excels in training in journalism. Their website also features ethics, fact-checking, innovation, leadership, and digital tool categories, with lots to learn from them. Sign up for their free digital tools newsletter, view their tool tutorials and attend free webinars. For digital tool tutorials, visit https://newsu.org/ resources/digital-tools.

Support Real News (News Media Alliance). http://newsmediaalliance.org/supportrealnews/ Some of the best parts of this site are their infographics, information, and links to programs that evaluate news credibility, and their resources (editorial and other), and other initiatives. Find links to Associated Press’ Not Real News, The Wall Street Journal’s “The Face of Real News” short videos, and a list of Fake News news- paper articles.

Witness Media Lab. https://lab.witness.org/ Specializing in “citizen video verification and curation resources,” Witness provides free online library resources on using eyewitness videos and videos as evidence, plus guides, and a downloadable curriculum entitled “Video for Change.”

COLLEGE & UNDERGRADUATE LIBRARIES 257

Professional code of ethics Poynter Institute. 2017. “International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers’ code of

principles.” http://www.poynter.org/fact-checkers-code-of-principles/ A code of principles for fact-checkers around the world who commit to be non-partisan and fair in their reporting. See the lists of and links to verified signatories who have committed to these principles in their reporting of information from social networks.

New York Times. 2017. “The Times issues social media guidelines for the newsroom. October 13. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/reader-center/social-media-guidelines.html This article provides snippets and summaries of the new social media guidelines from The New York Times. The documents from their Standards and Ethics page (https:// www.nytco.com/who-we-are/culture/standards-and-ethics/) and Journalism that Stands Apart: The Report of the 2020 Group (January 2017) (https://www.nytimes.com/ projects/2020-report/) contribute insights and guidelines in journalism.

Thomson Reuters. 2008. “Reuters Handbook of Journalism.” April 2008. http://handbook. reuters.com/index.php?title¼Main_Page

Handbook for Reuters journalists including standards and values, guide to operations, gen- eral style guide, sports style guide, specialized guidance, and links. The specialized guid- ance section deals extensively with fact checking.

Society of Professional Journalists. 2014. “SPJ Code of Ethics.” https://www.spj.org/ethics- code.asp The code of ethics contains hyperlinks to supporting position papers and explanations of its various statements. Available in English and other translations. The website also links to the SPJ Ethics Committee Blog and other accompanying resources and applications.

Skills and strategies Association of College and Research Libraries. 2016. “Framework for information literacy

for higher education.” http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/infolit/ Framework_ILHE.pdf The ACRL Framework document, with hyperlinks throughout its contents, is available from this site.

Association of College and Research Libraries. 2017. “ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox.” http://sandbox.acrl.org/resources This repository for sharing ACRL Framework materials and resources. For each resource, the type of resource is noted, its materials are linked to the corresponding frames, and it is tagged for ease in locating resources. Use the Browse Resources to locate items by type, frame, discipline, type of institution, scope, and license assigned to each resource.

Association of College and Research Libraries. 2017. “Framework for information literacy for higher education.” WordPress site. http://acrl.ala.org/framework/ This WordPress site for the Framework is a combination of news, features, professional development, discussion board, and Twitter feed. Check back regularly to see what’s going on or subscribe via RSS feed and email.

Association of College and Research Libraries. 2017. “ACRL Framework for Information Literacy toolkit.” LibGuide. http://acrl.libguides.com/framework/toolkit Formatted as a LibGuide, this Toolkit comes with instructions, components, and strat- egies for using the Framework to teach information literacy. A bibliography of resour- ces, including webinars and slidecasts, and “essential links” is included.

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Center for Media Literacy. 2009. “CML’s five key questions and core concepts (Q/Tips) for con- sumers and producers.” http://www.medialit.org/questionstips-qtips The main Chart from the CML website is a Media Deconstruction/Construction Framework (free download), available in several languages.

Center for News Literacy. 2017. “Digital Resource Center.” http://drc.centerfornewsliteracy.org/ Created by Stony Brook University, this resource includes lessons, a course pack, exam- ples, training suggestions and more, including reference to other free courses and TED talks on the topic.

Loyola Marymount University Library. 2017. “Community of Online Research Assignments (CORA).” https://www.projectcora.org/ This open access site features assignments, teaching toolkit resources, blogs and a host of resources for librarians and faculty.

Higgins, Eliot. 2015. “Searching the Earth: Essential geolocation tools for verification.” First Draft, July 24, 2015. https://medium.com/1st-draft/searching-the-earth-essential-geoloca- tion-tools-for-verification-89d960bb8fba Basic information on tools and methods available to verify locations (geolocation), including Google Earth, Yandex Maps, Yomapic, and EchoSec.

Kirschenbaum, Michele. 2017a. “10 ways to spot a fake news article.” Easy Bib Blog Posts, January 4, 2017. http://www.easybib.com/guides/10-ways-to-spot-a-fake-news-article/ Similar to the CRAAP test, this short blog post briefly lists and discusses what to look for to help determine if information you are reading is accurate and reliable.

Kirschenbaum, Michele. 2017b. “How savvy are your students? 7 fake websites to really test their evaluation skills.” Easy Bib Blog Posts, January 10, 2017. http://www.easybib.com/ guides/7-fake-websites-to-test-students/ Need a list of some fake websites to use with your students? This blog post lists seven fake websites and discusses both the lures and giveaways of these sites.

LeBlanc, Robert E., and Barabara Quintiliano. 2015. “Recycling C.R.A.P.: Reframing A Popular Research Mnemonic for Library Instruction.” Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice 3 (2):115–121. http://palrap.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/palrap/article/view/105 As an alternative to using C.R.A.P. or C.R.A.A.P. to teach website evaluation or library instruction, consider using C.R.A.V.E. for info lit. Details are in this article.

Meriam Library, California State University, Chico. 2010. “Evaluating Information – Applying the CRAAP test.” Chico, CA: California State University, September 17, 2010. https://www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf CRAAP, prepared by Cal State, Chico, has been used by many and has been changed by many. Use this original handout from 2010 or try new charts, tables, and adaptations.

NewseumED. n.d. Accessed November 8, 2017. https://newseumed.org/ Educational programs and lesson plans, primary sources, case studies, and other tools focusing on media literacy and first amendment rights.

Powers, Jillian, Ann Musgrove, and Lauri Rebar. 2017. “Creative Applications of LibGuides to Teach Undergraduate Students Information Literacy Skills.” In Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference, 2017, 1407–1413. March 2017. Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). http://www.learntechlib.org/p/177424/ Written by two academic education professors and a librarian, this article explores the use of LibGuides to teach information literacy skills to undergraduate college students. This article was also the basis of a presentation at the 2017 SITE Conference and a pos- ter session presentation at the Florida Library Association Conference 2017.

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Schulten, Katherine. 2015. “Skills and strategies j Fake news vs. real news: Determining the reliability of sources.” New York Times, October 2, 2015. https://learning.blogs.nytimes. com/2015/10/02/skills-and-strategies-fake-news-vs-real-news-determining-the-reliability- of-sources/ Essentially an assignment in itself, the article combines a video and lesson plan from TEDEd, resources from Edutopia, the Center for News Literacy and NewseumEd and an excellent explanation of how to use this News Engagement Day (2015) resource. Also see their 2017 lesson, Evaluating sources in a “post-truth” world: Ideas for teaching and learning about fake news located at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/learning/lesson-plans/evaluating- sources-in-a-post-truth-world-ideas-for-teaching-and-learning-about-fake-news.html.

Silverman, Craig. ed. n.d.-a “Verification Handbook: An Ultimate Guideline on Digital Age Sourcing for Emergency Coverage.” http://verificationhandbook.com/downloads/ verification.handbook.pdf A resource for journalists and aid responders, giving guidelines and best practices on how to assess and verify social media reports.

Silverman, Craig. n.d.-b “Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting: A Guide to Online Search and Research Techniques for Using UGC and Open Source Information in Investigations.” http://verificationhandbook.com/book2/ In addition to step-by-step how-to information, this site contains several case studies that can be used to show the results and relevance of investigating information.

Silverman, Craig. n.d.-c “Verification Handbook: Additional Materials: Additional Materials to Verifying Digital Content for Emergency Coverage.” http://verificationhandbook.com/ additionalmaterial/ Focusing on verification and fact checking, this online book gives definitions, method- ology, and examples to types of online fake media.

The University of Hong Kong, & The State University of New York (SUNY). 2017. “Making Sense of the News: News Literacy Lessons for Digital Citizens.” Massive open online course (MOOC). Accessed from Coursera site https://www.coursera.org/learn/news-literacy A massive open online course, or MOOC, this 6-week for-free or free auditable class is built to teach “how to evaluate the quality of news and journalism in order to judge the reliability of information and make informed judgment.”

Whois Lookup. n.d. Accessed November 8, 2017. http://whois.domaintools.com/ This tool allows you to investigate the domain behind a website.

Resources with links for more information

Schulten, Katherine, and Amanda Christy Brown. 2017. “Evaluating Sources in a ‘Post- Truth’ World: Ideas for Teaching and Learning about Fake News.” New York Times, January 19, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/learning/lesson-plans/evaluating- sources-in-a-post-truth-world-ideas-for-teaching-and-learning-about-fake-news.html

Valenza, Joyce. 2016. “Truth, Truthiness, Triangulation: A News Literacy Toolkit for a “Post- Truth” World.” Blog. School Library Journal, November 26, 2016. http://blogs.slj.com/never- endingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy -toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/

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