Information Literacy Resources

ProQuest Research Companion includes over 80 videos that can be embedded or linked within your LMS course. These can be used to supplement your course materials, providing your students with the basics of information literacy and the research process, and allowing you additional time to focus on more advanced material. Each video is equipped with closed captions, and a full transcript is available on the ProQuest platform.

What is "information literacy"?

"Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning."  (ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education 2015)

The Research Companion incorporates theories from the Association of Research and College Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. 

12 Reasons your students should use the Research Companion

• It easily guides students through the research process and helps them develop their critical thinking and information literacy skills. 
• Pre- and post-assessment questions make the viewing experience interactive.
• It was built to help students do more effective scholarly research and to support educators as they teach the core information literacy principles of finding, evaluating, and using information.
• Developed by writing instructors and librarians, Research Companion combines multimedia-based learning modules and powerful quick-start evaluator tools into one resource.
• They are delivered as a series of visually compelling and inventive videos, or in a full-text, readable format and are written in a conversational style that improves learning outcomes and maximizes retention.
• The Source Evaluation Aid makes evaluating research resources easy—a simple search box allows the user to type in the title of a periodical or book, or copy and paste a URL, and data results about that source are displayed.
• The Search Aid helps students develop more effective search queries, and is customized to include RPI Libraries resources.
• The Topic Aid connects students to topic overviews and helps them choose a topic they're really interested in.
• The Revision Aid helps researchers write more clearly and persuasively.
• All videos are fully embeddable, individually or as part of custom playlists
• Full functionality and optimized display on tablets and phones
• Aligned to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, Research Companion provides a framework and foundation for information literacy instruction.

Instructions for embedding a video or playlist of curated videos into your LMS course

• All videos in ProQuest Research Companion can be embedded on your own site. Each video has an "Embed this Video" link to the lower left of the video interface. Simply click on the link and copy the code.

Linking to library content requires the added step of ensuring that our proxy is included for authentication. In some instances, the URL includes the proxy. When the proxy is not present, it must be added manually. 

• In this example, the proxy is already present: https://pqrc-proquest-com.libproxy.rpi.edu/learning_module/evaluate_information/objective-1/learning_objectives
• In this example, the proxy needs to be added manually: https://pqrc.proquest.com

To share a link to ProQuest Research Companion content with your students:

1. Go to ProQuest Research Companion and determine the section you want to include in your LMS
2. Copy the URL from the address field and check if libproxy.rpi.edu is present in the URL
3. If not, add the following prefix before the URL: https://libproxy.rpi.edu/login?url=
4. Copy the entire URL to your email, syllabi or LMS
5. Test the URL to ensure that you are directed to the RPI authentication page

Example: https://libproxy.rpi.edu/login?url=https://pqrc.proquest.com