Biology and nursing students' perceptions of a web-based information literacy tutorial

Abstract

This study examined the perceptions of two groups of students to obtain different perspectives on the online information literacy tutorial, CORE (Comprehensive Online Research Education, to plan for its update. The CORE tutorial includes seven modules: "Planning Your Project," "Topic Exploration," "Types of Information," "Search Tools," "Search Strategies," "Evaluating Sources," and "Copyright, Plagiarism, and Citing Sources." First-year students in biology and nursing courses responded to a survey after completing the CORE modules. Students indicated that they liked learning through an online tutorial. However, they thought that the tutorial could be improved with shorter modules and the addition of video and audio content. Few students reported learning important information from the "Copyright, Plagiarism, and Citing Sources," "Evaluating Resources," and "Types of Information" modules. They suggested topics for additional tutorials: how to use library databases and Microsoft Excel; how to evaluate the quality of information, how to cite references, and how to find statistics.