Research 101

Research 101 is an interactive online tutorial for students wanting an introduction to research skills. The tutorial covers the basics, including how to select a topic and develop research questions, as well as how to select, search for, find, and evaluate information sources.

Here's the review of this tutorial from CHOICE:

Research 101 is an interactive tutorial about conducting research, developing research questions, and understanding how information is produced and distributed. Its organizing principle is the concept of information cycles. The site is a nondisciplinary perspective on information cycles, presented in a publicly accessible framework that can be licensed free by other academic libraries. Other customizable, discipline-specific treatments are restricted to University of Washington (UW) students and tied to a student's major, created by UW librarians in conjunction with teaching faculty. Content and design contributors are acknowledged, and contact information is provided to UW's sponsoring uWill Web site for information literacy learning. A site map serves as an index to tutorial content, and a link is provided to free plug-ins required for downloading. The tutorial is organized in six units that lead logically from one to the next; users select tabs labeled "The Basics," "Information Cycles," "Topics," "Searching," "Finding," "Evaluating." Each unit contains five to ten components. Most segments conclude with a review quiz, whose questions, exercises, and examples are thought-provoking and appealingly out of the ordinary. A time line illustrating the information cycle begins with invisible colleges and ends with reference works, providing examples and links to some resources. Search strategies and criteria for evaluating results are presented in depth. The site mixes visual interest with intellectual challenge, and its intuitive navigation scheme functions reliably. This standout learning tool will appeal to undergraduates and others who are motivated to improve their information literacy mastery. Summing Up: Highly recommended. College and university libraries. -- P. E. Sandstrom, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne