For Tutors
What is Internet Detective?
Internet Detective is a free online tutorial designed to help students develop their Internet research skills. The tutorial looks at the critical thinking required when using the Internet for research and offers practical advice on evaluating the quality of web sites.
The tutorial is specifically designed to help university and college students to develop skills that will help them use the Internet more effectively to support their research for coursework and assignments.
It takes around an hour to complete the tutorial, though the advantage of an online tutorial is that students can go over the material as often as they wish, practice their skills and test their understanding. It can easily be embedded into taught courses, Web pages and VLEs and is freely available in two formats; a Web version and a downloadable version for use in Virtual learning Environments (VLEs).
Learning objectives
By the end of the tutorial students will:
- understand that indiscriminate Internet research is not appropriate for university and college work.
- know why information quality is an issue on the Web, especially for academic research.
- have developed pratical skills to help critically evaluate information found on the Internet.
- be aware of the issues of plagiarism, copyright and citation of Internet resources.
Target audience
Our target audiences are any students preparing for, starting or resuming their studies at university level. In the UK, this might range from students in Sixth Form and Further Education colleges who are preparing for study at University, students undertaking Foundation degrees or the first part of their degree in a FE college but with access to resources available in a university, first year undergraduate students of all ages, international postgraduates unfamiliar with the expectations of UK universities and mature postgraduates returning to study several years after completing their first degrees after time spent in the work place or caring for children.
Using the tutorial in teaching and course materials
Internet Detective teaches generic Internet research skills that are relevant to a wide range of university and college courses.
You may wish to use the tutorial in different ways according to your role, the needs of your students and the time available for you to teach or support them in developing their skills. The tutorial is a flexible resource that can be used in a variety of ways:
- For self-directed learning - point students to it via reading lists, course Web pages or VLEs
- For distance learning - as it's on the Web, the tutorial is ideal for integration with a distance learning course and as part of a virtual learning environment
- For training workshops - project the tutorial onto a screen and use selected screens as a presentation (offering hands-on sessions if possible). Promote group discussion
- For class-room teaching - give students protected time to complete the tutorial. Supplement it with class discussions. Set assignments to support learning
- Integrating it into your course curriculum - relate it to other Internet and information skills modules - set assignments to support the learning process
Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) downloads
In order to help you to integrate the tutorial into your teaching using a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), we have made the tutorial available to download for Moodle, Blackboard and Web CT. There are also some additional quiz questions which are downloadable for use in Respondus, and WebCT.
A Welsh translation is also available as a VLE download.
Promotional Materials
Free posters to download
A free poster is available to download and print - ideal for inclusion in course packs or for student notice-boards.
Images for promotional use
Download a 'zip' file containing logos and poster images to use in your course and promotional materials.
Related publications
We have compiled a list of related Internet Detective publications which are made freely available for use in course and publicity materials about Internet Detective.
Further resources
We included a list of references to sources we used in creating the tutorial for further reading. These may be helpful to you in designing further exercises or summative assessments for your students according to their level of study.
We hope you and your students enjoy using the tutorial and that it helps the development of your students' research and information literacy skills. As a next stage, you may wish to encourage your students to focus on resources relevant to their particular subjects of study by using the Intute: Virtual Training Suite tutorials.