Here at the d'Alzon Library, we try to keep up with the latest news related to student learning, information or digital literacy, and resource evaluation.

Each month, we'd like to share with you some of our favorite recent reads. Enjoy!



Should College Professors Give 'Tech Breaks' in Class? By Barbara J. King. New England Public Radio: Cosmos & Culture. October 19, 2017.

This somewhat provocative piece from NPR puts forth the idea, "Should professors provide students with a one-minute tech break in the classroom to check and send messages on their phone?"

How People Approach Facts and Information. By John B. Horrigan. Pew Research Center: Internet & Technology. September 11, 2017.

This report is based on a fall 2016 survey involving over 3,000 US adults.  The findings suggest that people deal in varying ways with tensions about what information to trust and how much they want to learn.  Some people are interested and engaged with information; others are wary and stressed.

The Future of Truth and Misinformation Online. By Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie. Pew Research Center: Internet & Technology. October 19, 2017.

In summer 2017, Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center conducted a large survey of technologists, scholars, practitioners, and strategic thinkers, asking them whether the quality and veracity of information online will improve in the next ten years.

ResearchGate: Publishers Take Formal Steps to Force Copyright Compliance. By Robert Harington. The Scholarly Kitchen: What's Hot and Cooking in Scholarly Publishing. October 6, 2017.

A coalition of large publishing companies announced this month that they will begin issuing take-down notices for content shared on the website ResearchGate that violates copyright.  There are currently as many as 7 million copyrighted articles freely and illegally available on ResearchGate, most contributed by authors who did not realize they were violating copyright.

The Enduring Power of Print for Learning in a Digital World. By Patricia A. Alexander and Lauren M. Singer. The Conversation: Academic Rigor, Journalistic Flair. October 3, 2017.

Studies show students prefer reading digital texts; they read faster, and comprehend the main idea just as well as they do for a print text.  However, when asked specific questions about a text, student who read it in print scored significantly better than those who read it online.

Student Writing in the Digital Age. By Anne Trubek. JSTOR Daily: Where News Meets Its Scholarly Match. October 19, 2016.

Here is a blog post about a study done comparing writing mistakes of college students over the last 100 years.  Some of the results are surprising and challenge what we think we know about student writing.  The bibliography has additional interesting articles.