2. Aims and Learning Outcomes
Aim: help you to find and evaluate information
for the European Law module
By the end of the session you will be able to:
• Define information literacy skills
• Research for the European Law assessment
• Evaluate the quality of information
3. Information Literacy
‘Information literacy is knowing when and why you
need information, where to find it and how to evaluate,
use and communicate it in an ethical manner.’ (CILIP)
Understanding of the following skills:
• A need for information
• The resources available
• How to find information
• The need to evaluate results
bLaugh.com
4. Pick out the keywords to research
Critically evaluate whether the differences
between the Treaty establishing a Constitution
for Europe and the Treaty of Lisbon are
procedural or substantive
7. Wide range of information available
Google, Scholar, Advanced Search
EUROPA (Treaties)
Parliamentary papers (parliament.uk)
Subject guide – lawlinks, lawbore
Westlaw & Lexis
Journals and books
8. Journals
Common Market Law Review (p)
European Law Review
European Law Journal
International and Comparative Law Quarterly
Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative
Law (p)
And other learned/scholarly journals
9. Contact details
Sue House
schouse@glam.ac.uk
Phillip Jones
LexisLibrary
phillip.jones4@
lexisnexis.co.uk
Jemma Russant
Lawtel & Westlaw
glamorgan.westlaw@
gmail.com
10. CC photo credits
European Union flag
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24842486@N07/3432117217/
Supermarket http://www.news-record.com/
Peanuts cartoon Charles M Schulz via www.tumblr.com
Assist! http://www.ballarat.edu.au/aasp/is/library/blog
Question everything
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/202872717/
Hinweis der Redaktion
The aim of today’s session is to help you findand evaluate information for the European Law module and to highlight some of the library resources available to you, hopefully it will refresh you about some search techniques and also remind you that I am still here to help you find information, as you progress through your course.By the end of the session you will be able to:Define information literacy skills(Carry out) research for the European Law assessmentEvaluate the quality of informationNot going to do all the research for you! Just illustrate some examples. There is no right or wrong about search techniques, try a search, see what brief results you get, reconsider keyword terms and retry using different words in different combinations.
What is Information Literacy?‘Information literacy is knowing when and why you need information, where to find it and how to evaluate,use and communicate it in an ethical manner.’ (CILIP)Understanding of the following skills:A need for informationThe resources availableHow to find informationThe need to evaluate resultsUltimately information literate people are those who have learned how to learn.
Idea behind this is that it will give you the opportunity to develop some information literacy skills and get you to think about and evaluate the quality of the information you rely upon. Remember these skills can be applied in all your other modules – transferable, key employability skill too. Most people tend to receive information ‘uncritically’ they just accept it at face value, they don’t question it, your job as students is to question everything! Especially as you move up from Level 4, you will also be developing your critical analysis skills.In terms of finding and evaluating information to answer the assessment:Part A: Whilst you are doing your research – when you are reading and making notes for the essay – begin to draft your bibliography – start a list of the resources you are scanning, reading etc.Choose 3 items from this draft bibliography to write a brief evaluative paragraph about – 150 words – using the questions in the yellow guide to help you think about the information and whether or not it has been useful to you as you in preparing to answer the essay questionNB: The Part A bibliography is a first draft – choose just 3 items to annotate – hand that in and receive feedback from Richard on the sources > reflect & if necessary you may need to do some rethinking and find other items or you may not need to do much further research and you can be confident that when you are writing your essay you are relying on authoritative, good quality information.Part B: Write your essay and finalise your bibliography – so if you choose to reject an item or not to refer to it or quote from it in your essay then you would simply just delete that item from you final bibliography.
Evaluating information involves asking lots of questions, for each item you want to cite or refer to, you should ask yourself if it is from a trustworthy and reliable source?The guide contains the sort of questions you should be asking yourself:Authority – is the author an expert? What gives them the authority to write on a topic? In print this check has already been carried out by the publishers, online it’s much more difficult to establish a person’s expertise.Currency – is the information from an up to date source? Just because something is on the open web, doesn’t necessarily mean it is more up to date, there are many websites that are not maintained.Bias – is the information skewed to in a particular way? Can you cross-check the point being made with another source to see if it is generally accepted? Have you presented a balanced view from a wide range of sources?Accuracy – is there a bibliography or list of sources, are you able to check on them? Published works tend to be more accurate, but again you can cross-check to be sure.Audience – who has it been written for? At this level begin with the introductory guides challenge yourself to moveto something more heavyweight. Jurisdiction – if you search on the open web be careful that the law you come across is the law of England and Wales! Unless of course you are comparing the law of other jurisdictions.Primary and secondary sources – remember primary sources are the case law and legislation – try to cite from these wherever possible, they are after all the object of much of your study. So for example, if you are looking at the Treaty of Lisbon, find, read and refer to the Treaty of Lisbon! (Same can be applied to Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe)You make these types of decisions every time you go shopping – you make a selection from a range of products, you evaluate what is on offer, if it’s an expensive purchase like a laptop, you might read and compare different product specifications written by a range of authors from various sources, e.g. a review on a personal blog, or Which? consumer reports. Would you trust at face value, what is written as advertising and marketing from the product producer themselves or would you want an independent review?
Demo searches. Google/Scholar/Google Advanced Search – search engines – no quality assurance, you have to decide!EUROPA –Treaties – primary sources of law – most authoritativeParliamentarypapers – very authoritativeSubject guide – law information gateways – lawlinks and lawbore- quality assurance from subject expertsWestlaw – EU section – paid for subscription – high quality – same goes for LexisLexis – in cases and legislation has a link to International materials and News – UK broadsheets
Online or in print. You can add these to My Space in the new FINDit/Metalib now.Next slide - key journal titles:Common Market Law Review (p)European Law ReviewEuropean Law Journal International and Comparative Law Quarterly Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law (p)Other learned journals
